ID Tech May Mean an End to Anonymous Drinking 514
Anonymous Howard writes "If you visit a lot of bars and restaurants, you've likely crossed paths with driver's license scanners — machines that supposedly verify that your license is valid. In actuality, many of these scanners are designed to record your license information in addition to verifying them, and those that authenticate against a remote database are creating a record of when and where you buy alcohol. Not only that, but they're not even particularly effective — the bar code on your license uses an open, documented standard and can be rewritten to change your age or picture. Collecting our driver's license information is one thing, but collecting data about our personal drinking habits is not only a violation of, according to the ACLU representative quoted in the article, privacy and civil liberties, but this 'drinking record' could also create problems for people in civil and criminal lawsuits as proof of alcohol purchases in DUI cases or evidence of alcoholism in divorce lawsuits."
Frosty Piss, now checking for ID (Score:4, Funny)
t has to be said up front (Score:5, Funny)
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Amusingly the next bar we came acros
And impact employment and insurance? (Score:4, Insightful)
Additionally, insurance companies could drop you if they found out, for exaple, you were out drinking 3 nights a week.
If this info gets out it could have a huge impact on people.
Re:And impact employment and insurance? (Score:5, Funny)
Which is silly, considering alcoholic drinks were first conceived by holy men...
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I'm sure that humans would have discovered accidentally that sweet liquids contaminated with yeast produced alcoholic liquids far sooner than we had an understanding of what "alcohol" actually was. Well before we had language, much less than organized religion.
However I'm willing to admit that I'm speculating, as my post has a little in terms of references as yours...
Re:And impact employment and insurance? (Score:4, Informative)
From Wikipedia:
Main Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_alcohol#Ancient_period [wikipedia.org]
And yes, the article cites its sources.
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Well, that's legal (Score:2)
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As far as I know drunks and underage drinkers are not a protected class. Several companies will not hire you if you are a smoker, and it's legal for them to do so.
It's legal, yes, but it shouldn't be. I completely support a company's right to ban smoking on their premises, but it's unacceptable for them to dictate what you do in your own time when not at work.
Just read this article [orlandosentinel.com] from the paper a few weeks ago:
Maltby's bigger concern is the total smoking ban, which he views as a fundamental civil-rights issue, since it extends beyond the workplace into an individual's home. He notes that 29 states and the District of Columbia have so-called lifestyle-rights laws that protect employees' rights to smoke when they're not at work.
But not Florida. "When I found out it was legal to discriminate against smokers [in 2002], those were my marching orders," said Westgate's chief executive, David Siegel, who gave his tobacco-using employees a year's notice before the total ban went into effect.
[...]
Siegel, who says his brief flirtation with cigarettes ended in 1959, is so strongly opposed to the habit that he would like to see smoking banned completely. Short of that, he hopes his company's smoking ban -- effective in Florida and every other Westgate location where it's allowed by state law -- becomes a model for other employers.
Re:Not dictate your actions, just not associate wi (Score:5, Insightful)
If someone doesn't smoke at work, doesn't preach at people, does their job, shows up on time, acts professional, etc, it should be none of the employer's business.
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You couldn't even tell if you cross-referenced with credit card information. One mixed drink might cost
Even then... (Score:2)
So, my regular $192 Tuesday night tab has five cokes, thirty-seven beers, four martinis, a dozen shots of tequila and a small pizza...just so happens the networking meeting falls on that night and I happen to like coke with my pizza.
Re:And impact employment and insurance? (Score:4, Interesting)
They wouldn't know if they cross-referenced it with the information in the credit card company's database. But there's the information at the other end -- at the bar -- that they could easily get, if they have access to the information in the card scanner already.
Most upscale bars use electronic register systems for tracking tabs and ringing up bills; these show all the items that you've ordered, and then if you pay by credit card they have that as well. So it would just be a matter of going into the bar's computer and finding the bill associated with a certain credit card number (here's hoping they're only storing the last four digits...) and you've got that person's order for the evening.
Also, I'm not sure it's a safe assumption that the credit card company only gets the bottom-line data. On my American Express statements, there's sometimes fairly granular data available. In some cases food, drinks/bar, and tips are broken out separately. So obviously the restaurant's system is passing that data up to Amex when it runs the transaction. I haven't seen this on anything except Amex, but it proves the capability exists and is being utilized. (They also print the ticket or confirmation number of rail and plane tickets that you buy with your card, right on your statement, and sometimes the order number of some online stores as well.)
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So? What's wrong with that? Why shouldn't a company be able to decide such a thing? Should "Bob's Morman Supply" not be able to say something like that? Would about "Bob's Office Supply"?
It may be illegal now (the ACLU would certainly argue for that), but I don't see why a company shouldn't be able to do that.
This is all fine with me. I can understand why many people wouldn't want this, and I wouldn't push it. But if we keep records to make it easier to convict drunk drivers or people who aren't supposed
Re:And impact employment and insurance? (Score:5, Insightful)
Law enforcement is not supposed to be easy. One description I have heard of fascism is when the desire for efficiency of law enforcement outweighs any concern about civil rights. Judges (or whomever) may set a nearly-unenforcable condition for a probation if they choose to do so -- that is not my problem. It certainly does not give them or anyone else the right to invade my privacy for the sake of making their job easier.
Also, this will do nothing or next to nothing to stop drunk drivers. So this database can confirm that someone was at a bar and had an alcoholic beverage. It will not confirm whether they drove to the bar, walked to the bar, took a cab, or had a designated driver. So if a crime is committed, this will tell you even less than what could be learned by old-fashioned policework, i.e. interviewing witnesses.
I wish there were just one politician with the balls to be honest and say "yeah, I could say that this is for your safety or to help make the world a better place, but really we just want to invade your privacy so that we can have a society increasingly under central control." They are too cowardly to be so honest and it's fitting that they are elected by people too cowardly to value freedom more than security.
Re:And impact employment and insurance? (Score:4, Insightful)
2) What the fuck are you talking about? If I'm an alcoholic, my company doesn't have any responsibility to pay for my treatment, except as it regards medical costs (see point one).
As for the final toss of line, "Those of us who have nothing to hide, have nothing to worry about", fuck you.
I've also got nothing to hide, and I still don't want my boss poking around in my private life. If you're ok with it, fine; don't foist your willingness to drop your pants for your boss on the rest of us. It's assholes like you that enable totalitarian governments.
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Additionally, insurance companies could drop you if they found out, for exaple, you were out drinking 3 nights a week.
If this info gets out it could have a huge impact on people."
I've been worried for years that they can do the same...even MORE damage with the grocery store courtesy cards.
Re:And impact employment and insurance? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, man, I hate when they accurately judge my risk of an accident and prevent me from leeching off of safe drivers.[1]
[1] Assuming frequent drinkers really are more dangerous as per actuarial tables, which may or may not be true.
Re:And impact employment and insurance? (Score:4, Insightful)
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So what? It will force people to drink less, or to stop drinking at all, which can only be a good thing.
Less drunks around, less accidents, less deaths. Yes, banning alcohol is an idea whose time has finally come.
Yeah, it sure worked great last time [wikipedia.org]. Just like since marijuana was made illegal it's usage has dropped completely [ocnorml.org].
Re:And impact employment and insurance? (Score:5, Interesting)
Really, if you look at the effects that it has on people, combined with the uses of each product (other than drinking, alcoholic beverages don't really have much of any other use...whereas marijuana/hemp has THOUSANDS of uses) it would have made more sense to keep marijuana legal than to keep alcohol legal...
http://norml.org/ [norml.org]
Do your part in helping to end the prohibition of Marijuana and industrial hemp.
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Target for Some Civil Disobedience (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm of legal drinking age already and I haven't yet seen one of these machines in my area. But if I ever do, I'd like to have a false bar graph taped on the back of my license. Who will be the first to make a web site to generate these at will? And how long until that web site is labeled a terrorist act?
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We get graphs here in Wisconsin (used to be magnetic strips). Incedently, an official change-of-address sticker covers the entire back of my license, so you couldn't read the graph, anyway.
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What happens if it gets demagnetized?
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Re:Target for Some Civil Disobedience (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't follow your logic: not only do you not get your Manhattan, you get your ass tossed in jail for as long as it takes them to figure out that you really do have a valid ID. And they're liable to charge you for tampering anyway.
Yeah, that's really sticking it to Dick Cheney! Fight The Power!
Re:Target for Some Civil Disobedience (Score:5, Insightful)
Lakeville Liquors just built a new facility less than a half mile from my house. I walk by it daily and am proud that it joins the ranks of Starbucks as an establishment that I will never step foot in.
In addition, I have used a high powered earth magnet on my ID's magnetic stripe rendering it useless in any scanner including the cops (who asked me to get a new ID because it was "worn out"), the smoke shop (for cigars), or anywhere else that feels the need to scan ID.
If enough people realized what those machines did (I make sure to tell everyone around me when I see one being used before walking out) then businesses would stop using them because less people would enter the store. Sadly I'm dreaming about that because no one cares.
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I have some tea to sell you. It's at the bottom of Boston Harbor.
Re:Target for Some Civil Disobedience (Score:5, Insightful)
Civil disobedience is nonviolent refusal to comply with a law or command of government, either because the law or command itself is perceived as unjust or because or because the government issuing the law or command is viewed as illegitimate independent of the merit of the particular law or command.
So "That is not civil disobedience; its's breaking the law" reveals a deep misunderstanding of the entire concept of civil disobedience. That's not saying one could not argue that the form of disobedience suggested is a poorly chosen and/or ineffective method of civil disobedience.
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Re:Target for Some Civil Disobedience (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Target for Some Civil Disobedience (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry, but, no, I'm not.
You are welcome to your opinion of what justifies breaking a law; that's completely irrelevant to the point on which you claimed I was mistaken.
Civil disobedience is refusing to comply with a command of government (including, but not limited to, a law) as a way of protesting the injustice of either the command/law, or the claim to authority of the government issuing the command/law. Whether civil disobedience is justified, either in general or in any specific case, is a matter of opinion, and irrelevant to the discussion of what civil disobedience is.
No, its not. Neither Gandhi nor the Civil Rights Movement took the stance that the injustice of law cannot justify breaking them; both, to the contrary, to the position that the illegitimacy of law (either because of the illegitimacy of the authority issuing it, in the case of Gandhi's anti-colonial movement, or because of the injustice of its content, in the case of Civil Rights Movement) could justify breaking it in certain, non-violent ways.
Unlikely. At least, none of the ones I interacted in the course of getting a Bachelor's degree in the field ever had your rather unique views on those movements. Perhaps you should consider, though, some more direct source material, like Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail":
The act proposed upthread may fail to be proper "civil disobedience" because it isn't open defiance of the law with acceptance of the consequences, but it certainly doesn't fail because it is breaking the law. If it wasn't breaking the law, civil disobedience would instead be called "civil obedience".
Re:Target for Some Civil Disobedience (Score:4, Insightful)
Just what do you think civil disobedience is, then? Writing a strongly worded letter to your senator?
The most effective way of avoiding a "tyranny of the majority" situation is to make it clear that enforcing an unjust law will be more trouble than not having it in the first place.
That's why (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:That's why (Score:4, Funny)
Easy workaround (Score:4, Informative)
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They should make the database public (Score:5, Funny)
Marketing (Score:2)
DUI? (Score:4, Insightful)
The evidence of an alcohol purchase isn't going to be remotely sufficient to convict without a BAC test, and the presence of a BAC test alone should be more than sufficient to produce a conviction. I honestly don't see where the purhcahse record could hypothetically fit into the equation.
If there's an argument for or against ID scanning, this isn't it. Even from the cops' perspective, this isn't even going to help them 'nab the bad guys' any more than they're already equipped to do.
Papers, please?
Re:DUI? (Score:5, Interesting)
I must say, I always get screwed when I come back to America to visit and try to go to a bar or buy beer, because I have completely gotten used to not having to bring an ID with me, even though I am clearly over 18/21. The annoyance of this, and the fact that the establishments are only enforcing the rules out of fear that I'm an undercover cop, add to the ridiculousness of the rules.
In Germany, you only have to be 16 to buy alcohol. There is talk of raising this (and the cigarette age) up to 18, but frankly, it won't make much of a difference given the easy access to either substance. The really [i]nice[/i] thing about this is that you are therefore of drinking age before you are able to drive. Thus, by the time that kids learn how to drive, they've already learned how to hold their liquor, and are less likely to make a stupid mistake like getting behind the wheel.
I used to live in Indiana for five years, where the drinking age is of course 21. The number of drunk driving accidents I witnessed or heard about via people that caused them was substantially higher than in a place where alcohol is proudly sold every day and hour of the week (if you know where to get it), at gas stations (heh), movie theaters (which really rocks btw), and supermarkets (and none of that 3.2% crap, either). There is an obvious conclusion to all of this -- people like to drink, and they're going to do it anyways, includng kids. It's better to create an atmosphere where people learn how to handle this responsibility, and are encouraged to enjoy it without risking the lives of others.
That's why I only drink at seedy bars (Score:5, Interesting)
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only capturing data on young'uns (Score:2)
So apparently these machines aren't being effectively used yet for any kind of tracking purpose, as they'd only be capturing data for people under the "apparent age" of about 25.
become a regular (Score:2)
Alternatively, you could powder your hair, but that makes it harder to pick up chicks.
Isn't this somewhat overblown? (Score:2, Insightful)
2) I find it really dubious that employers would ever get access to this sort of information and I think that it is unlikely that they would be allowed to use it without being sued.
While the potential exists for all sorts of "big brother" type applications, I find most of these scenarios to be somewhat far-fetched.
Should've raise a few eyebrows (Score:2)
When they started scanning your drivers licence when you drank. A little bit of vigilance could've seen this coming a mile away. Any time an institution has a new way to access personal data they will abuse it.
This is probably going to be coming over to the UK soon as well. They have become more tight on ID for clubs and bars to the point where only a specifically manufactured ID card, a drivers licence or a passport will do. Standardising ID is a precursor to this step.
May as well not go out (Score:3, Insightful)
That's all well and good... (Score:4, Funny)
God bless their little, slightly drunk, souls.
No need for police to ask if you drank tonight. (Score:5, Funny)
BEEP
"I see you had three martinis, two shots and bought a bloody mary for the dishwater blonde who dumped you to go to the park with the accountant."
You: "It tells you all that on my license?"
Officer: "No, I gave them a ticket for having sex in public while being ugly a few minutes ago. Now, step out of the car and put your hands behind your back."
Likely? (Score:2)
End of anonymous anything (Score:2)
Even if what you are doing today is legal, it may not be tomorrow, and they will want records of it to hold against you. At the very least it shows prior intent.
In Soviet Russia (Score:5, Funny)
They usually give up after about 15 swipes.
I remember hearing in 2002 about this (Score:5, Interesting)
(Me here forward:)
The thing was, they were promptly selling this information to other parties who reprocessed it as thank you offers, happy birthday offers, coupons, ads etc with extreme precision because these companies had ALL the necessary information to reduce the cost of marketing these people. It also gave these marketers a way of upping the price/cost of information these marketers wanted.
Later, when I moved to Oregon for a year, I saw the cashier at a convenience store actually SWIPING the card of someone buying alcohol and I think cigarettes (it's been a while, so it could be the reverse or the checking of purchase of both...).
That turned me off. I don't recall buying alcohol myself at that mart. What I think is stupid is swiping the ID of someone who obviously is well above 25 or 30, and doesn't appear to be wearing spy or makeup-artist appliances.
I guess then that people with passports (I don't know if stores will try to scan these and if they can't then decline/refuse the sale) can present them instead of their driver's license.
Somebody needs to come up with a two-or-three-part license/age-verification/right-to-vote device/card so that for clubbing and purchases not involving checks or credit, only NAME AND AGE/DOB appear.
Then, for big-ticket items, the second part (matching) has to be presented to provide ADDRESS (Current and maybe 5 previous or 5-10 years of previous addresses based on reconciled IRS & quarterly payroll records for working/retired adults).
The THIRD part would be for retirement/pre-retirement benefits/public assistance receipt and cash-out of stocks/purchase of property and so on, that don't need to be passed on to anyone except government/law enforcement.
Maybe I've blurred some areas, but I'm ALL FOR saying "SCREW YOU" to clubs, bars, and any place scraping information they have NO business obtaining, possessing or reselling. If they want to ban patrons, then use imagery/facial recognition equipment at the point of ejection or to replay tapes of a confused situation/melee.
Anyone reading headlines about bar bouncers participating in assaulting or stalking of patrons can easily see how this 2-3-part identification deprives nosy bar or shop employees from gleaning residency information on cash-only patrons. It could possibly even work for police identification situations when the police stop is a graduated information determination: First: verify the detainee is NOT who your on the lookout for. If name is STILL too close a match, ask the detainee to produce part two.
Same could work for other scenarios. Use your imagination.
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You wouldn't think it was stupid if you were the owner of the convenience store....
That store now has a nice record saying they carefully verified the age of ever customer purchasing alcohol or tobacco. So when some 13 year old gets caught smoking and some "I'm a perfect parent" moth
How long will it take? (Score:2)
It's a shame that most people are so docile and sheeplike that they will shrug their shoulders and say "well I got nothing to hide." Of course, that's not a complete thought. The complete thought is "well I got nothing to hide, so something as prone to abuse as unnecessary surveillance of a legal activity is OK by me!"
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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I really wish we could find a way to disband them or at least minimize their pull with State and Federal governments. They makeup stats by including calling it a drunk driving accident if a designated sober driver is driving his/her drunk friends home. Same goes for if you hit a drunk pedestrian. And if you look at the real stats they state t
Legality of obscuring the barcode? (Score:3, Interesting)
The info is still there on the front of the license so a human can still read it (I swear I wasn't speeding, officer!). But you wouldn't end up as easily in the junk-mail databases.
Chip H.
Re:Legality of obscuring the barcode? (Score:4, Informative)
If you want to see what's on your barcode, check this site out:
http://www.turbulence.org/Works/swipe/barcode.html [turbulence.org]
Keep in mind that the 2D barcodes have a fair bit of redundancy. You can check the results of your handywork using a scanner and the aforementioned website.
I rewrote the magstripe on my license (Score:5, Funny)
Civil Disobedience (Score:2)
And when i say rewrite the date...of course I mean "create another novelty ID to be used for testing purposes only"
I thought they already did. (Score:2)
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Preview, Preview, Preview.
should read:
I live in a certain town in Texas which is in a dry County. Any of the restaurants (Chilli's, Applebees etc... ) want to swipe your license when you order alcohol to ensure you are a 'member' of the private club (the way they get around the dry county bit.). It was made pretty clear to me by the locals when i arrived (in 2004) that if you get DUI the cops will use your purchases logged against your license in the DUI charge.
Do I have a prob
It's private property (Score:2)
The worrisome thing is not so much that this guy's driver license was scanned using a digital scanner, but that the data is shuffled off to a database somewhere to be mined. Imagine your insurance rates going up because the insurance company did not like what you had to dri
Could someone please think of the cyclists? (Score:2)
Ahhh Carmack (Score:3)
Oh, wait you meant identification tech. Stupid title got me confused...
Just claim not to be able to drive? (Score:2)
I'm from the UK and have never had problems getting served with alcohol in the US without any photo ID (assuming I'm not carrying a passport around, which half the time I wouldn't be). I'm very obviously of legal drinking age, which helps. Sometimes you get some comic who asks to see a driving licence, but showing that there's no photograph on it
I think Illinois has a good mix (Score:3, Interesting)
Ergo, if a bar starts sending you crap after you've visited you can assume they decrypted the info. However they could still track you for the "DUI" and "Divorce" with the ID number alone, but I guess more people are worried about the spam aspect.
This is illegal in Washington State (Score:3, Interesting)
So, while some national chains may think this is a great idea, they'd better start getting themselves fitted for orange jumpsuits, IMHO.
Abolish Liquor Laws (Score:3, Interesting)
Could someone please explain why restricting the sale of alcohol to those under 21 is worth all of the costs/consequences that follow.
Why can't we simply allow anyone who wants alcohol to buy it? Vendors can choose not to sell to certain people (ie. young children) and the public can choose whether or not to frequent businesses that sell alcohol. If a store is selling booze to eight year olds, then the public can simply boycott the business.
Sure some people become addicted to alcohol, but why should I be punished for their problems? Sure kids might obtain liquor, but surely parents are capable of addressing such a situation. Sure some people choose to drive drunk and get in a car accident that maybe kills someone, so arrest them for doing so.
By creating a system of laws around the consumption of liquor, we've simply given those in positions of authority new tools to oppress the masses. Liquor stores can be harassed by police sending in underage people. Motorists can be harassed with things like drunk-driving checkpoints. Businesses can be harassed by politicians on liquor control boards who demand bribes, kick-backs or "favors" in exchange for approving an application for a liquor license. Patrons can be harassed by establishments that resell the information on their identity cards.
I say eliminate the whole damn system. I find it doubtful that keeping it in place is less costly than doing away with it entirely.
Illegal in New Hampshire (Score:3, Interesting)
Fortunately, they appear to be illegal in my state already: RSA 263:12, X [state.nh.us], 260:14 [state.nh.us].
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
A good majority of websites also do that, and who knows what they are doing with the data?
Really? Web sites track my behavior and correlate it with my name, address, date of birth, and (last I checked in some states) my social security number?
Doesn't sound too kosher to me.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be very easy for the government to subpoena the records of all the major chain stores and very quickly have a list of people who broke this law. They could even write it into the law that it's retroactive to some date. Or how about people who also have netflix accounts and own a DVD writer and have purchased DVD-R media in the last year... Even if it's not a technical "crime" they could probably sue you in civil court with a "Pay us 5k and we'll go away" shake down game.
Re:rights vs records vs privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
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give them an inch they take a mile and then drag you down it by your tounge
Re:rights vs records vs privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Lots of information has the potential to be useful. That's not enough, by itself, to invalidate the very serious privacy concerns.
Anytime you start collecting information in advance, "just in case," you're fundamentally doing something wrong. You're treating innocent, honest people like criminals in order to make life marginally easier for the cops. If that's what people in law enforcement say they need to succeed, then we need to fire them and get some more innovative law enforcement, and give them better resources -- not twist our society around backwards in order to make their jobs easier.
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You mean like a cell phone?
Look this whole thing is sour grapes, just because something could be misused doesn't mean it will. Bruce Schneier isn't even concerned that this is an issue, which I take to be a first.
Credit cards, ez-pass, cell phones, and supermarket club cards all give you greater exposure.
Re:rights vs records vs privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:rights vs records vs privacy (Score:4, Insightful)
Whoawhoawhoa there. Divorce hearings? You think it's a good idea for your entire drinking history to be brought up in a divorce hearing? That sounds to me like the most abusive application possible for this data.
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Should the person hanging out as the DD have their information recorded just because you think it will stop people who drink and then acting responsibly from being anonymous (and probably able to prevent that behavior in the future)?
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I was wondering where they do this...I've never heard of such a thing.
Granted, I'm old enough looking now not to get carded, but, I've ever had my license 'scanned' for anything before. I rarely take it out of the wallet...just show it through the clear plastic holder for the picture.
This is kinda scary....I guess some places have really strict liquor laws eh? I'm used to NOLA....when I travel, I keep forgetting
Re:God dammit (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok...I was guessing this was more of a northeastern type thing. I get the feeling they're really MUCH more hung up on drinking laws up there. You mention having two drinks and driving home up there, and people I talk to get their panties all in a wad. Much more relaxed down here in the SE...hell, we even have drive through daquiri shops here where I live, and until 4-5 years ago I think it was, we didn't even have an open container law here.
Anyway, I've noticed over the years that the NE is much more uptight about liquor laws than in the SE. I'm not sure how bad it is out west, but, I hear it is pretty bad out there too.
Re:God dammit (Score:5, Funny)
"If I drank this much in America I would be an alcoholic, in Australia I'm a fucking legend"
"What do a fisherman in a boat and American beer have in common? They're both close to water"
So I'm almost completely off topic, but just wanting to point that out.
Re:God dammit (Score:5, Funny)
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Mod parent up. I'm an Aussie and I've had some truly outstanding, world-class US beers. The craft-beer industry over there is exploding and, quite frankly, one of the most exciting things to happen to the beer industry world-wide in centuries.
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I guess that's true. I just had some visitors from Finland who got all excited about Sierra Nevada Ale, for example.
I wouldn't know because my taste runs more to jello body shots and speedballs. "Vive le difference", I say.
{Mrs Ratzo: just a joke, if you're reading this.)
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Fosters? No one in Australia drinks Fosters. It's just cat's piss that we export to the rest of the world. I'm not sure if we even bother to make it fizzy first.
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If they scan your ID, they know you were THERE.
If you buy liquor with CASH, the only way they can prove you drank (or bought booze, actually) is to ask eyewitnesses.
If you buy liquor with electronic means, then they can easily say "Hey, you were here, AND you bought booze" by querying databases. You suddenly become the result of a SQL query, effectively. A credit card purchase record would most likely give the SAME information, thoug