Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Privacy Government United States Technology

Judge Says Public Has a Right To Know About FBI's Facial Recognition Database 79

schwit1 writes U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan said the bureau's Next Generation Identification program represents a "significant public interest" due to concerns regarding its potential impact on privacy rights and should be subject to rigorous transparency oversight. "There can be little dispute that the general public has a genuine, tangible interest in a system designed to store and manipulate significant quantities of its own biometric data, particularly given the great numbers of people from whom such data will be gathered," Chutkan wrote in an opinion.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Judge Says Public Has a Right To Know About FBI's Facial Recognition Database

Comments Filter:
  • ...the NSA made a memo to show Judge Tanya Chutkan some of what it knows about her.

  • by artlu ( 265391 ) <artlu@art[ ]net ['lu.' in gap]> on Sunday November 09, 2014 @10:10AM (#48345081) Homepage Journal

    It is amazing to witness how various forms of recognition is attained from an inmate. Everything from phone privileges requiring voice recognition mapping to recurrent DNA swabs become part of the norm. Otherwise, the penalty for disobeying these "rules" is a multi-week stay in the "hole."

    It's unfortunate that someone with my education and my level of life experience had to experience federal incarceration, but the rebuilding of one's life also requires a public spread of what is and what is not the reality of the system. See my story: http://tminr.com/bio [tminr.com]

    • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 09, 2014 @10:21AM (#48345117)

      > It's unfortunate that someone with my education and my level of life experience had to experience federal incarceration...

      Because prison is something for the poor and uneducated?

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        > It's unfortunate that someone with my education and my level of life experience had to experience federal incarceration...

        Because prison is something for the poor and uneducated?

        Generally speaking, yes. That is the demographic that makes up the majority of the prison population.

        Richer & well-educated people are less likely to commit crime, more likely to get away with it, and more likely to have good lawyers.

        • richer and well educated people are less likely to get caught, and less likely to get prosecuted, more able to afford better lawyers and get lesser sentances for the same crimes.

          They are not less likely to actually comit crimes, just get away with it. What you have is a perception bias. the poor are percieved as more likely to be criminal, so they are investigated more, with less means of resistance, and more likely to get longer sentances. When in jail, they are less likely to have anyone give a fuck about
      • Shh. It's not polite to say that so bluntly. Please try to use a more acceptable phrase like 'law and order', 'broken windows/quality of life issues' or, if you must, 'need to keep those animals off the streets'...
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You are an admitted liar and thief. You are the reason prisons were built. It is not unfortunate that you went to prison, it is unfortunate it was only 5 years for 4 felonies.

      • Yes, let's be Tough On Crime, rather than focus on rehabilitation. I'm sure that's why our prison system is so great at the moment.

    • while i dont disagree with your points, its not really unfortunate. what is unfortunate is poeple being locked up for smoking a joint, if you committed the crimes you admitted to (and i assume more based on my experience with plea deals) 5 years is nothing for ripping off people. Sorry if i dont pity you
    • by Anonymous Coward

      Hey shitbag.... If you plead guilty and accepted responsibility for your actions, why do you consider your victims "alleged?"

    • It's unfortunate that someone with my education and my level of life experience had to experience federal incarceration

      Unfortunate?! You committed crimes worthy of a prison sentence, did you not? The only thing unfortunate here is that you decided to commit those crimes in the first place. I'm seeing nothing to indicate this was anything other than your mistake, and your fault.

      Your claim that your imprisonment was 'unfortunate' sounds like you're trying to shift the blame to society.

      From the page you link to:

      Despite Mr. Klatch’s success, his young age led to some reckless decisions. Mr. Klatch was indicted in 2011 by the federal government, and he subsequently accepted a guilty plea to four felony counts: Conspiracy to Defraud the United States, Securities Fraud, Wire Fraud, and Money Laundering. Mr. Klatch acknowledges that he engaged in deceptive marketing tactics, which led to some investor losses during the 2008-2010 financial crisis. However, he accepted responsibility for his actions, and successfully served a five-year federal prison sentence. Today, he is actively pursuing various avenues in order to make full restitution to his alleged victims.

      'Alleged' victims? So much for accepting responsibility.

    • by artlu ( 265391 )

      Unfortunately, the comments posted about me are what I have come to expect from people who are not completely familiar with my case or with the system. I have taken responsibility for my crimes, and I have done everything possible to try and fix my wrongs. This has included the publication of books - http://tminr.com/the-book/ [tminr.com] - whereby the proceeds go directly to victims. It has included seminars to high schools, churches, and local YM/YWCAs.

      The reality of my case is that, yes, I did wrong, but I never

      • I think you should have gotten 30 years in jail. you've stated that the system shouldn't have jailed you because you're educated. This is the mentality which has people who are truely "innocent" of anti-personal crimes serving long term sentances for hurting nobody, and most people like you still out on the streets destroying out nation.

        you got off easy with 5 years, and honestly, it should have been a lot longer if there was any justice.
        • by artlu ( 265391 )

          Actually, the average american deems that 2.6 years should be the length of any prison sentence regardless of crime if you via statistics from the United States Sentencing Guideline Commission surveys. That being said, I do not feel like voluntarily forfeiting every asset I owned, losing the woman I loved the most, and losing three years of my life is "getting off lightly." I have paid my debt to society, and I have full intention of paying full restitution to my victims as soon as possible.

          Wouldn't it ma

    • It's unfortunate that someone with my education and my level of life experience had to experience federal incarceration

      It's unfortunate that anyone needs to experience incarceration, but we live in a world where people continue to cause criminal harm, and as such, incarceration or some other form of consequence/reform program is necessary. Someone violating the rights of others should expect to have their own rights abridged in order to ensure that they will not continue in their criminal behavior. From your own bio, it sounds as if incarceration was an appropriate response to your criminal activity, and the only thing unfo

    • by DanDD ( 1857066 )

      This wording from his bio makes me think he hasn't quite learned his lesson:

      "Today, he is actively pursuing various avenues in order to make full restitution to his alleged victims."

    • Unfortunate? MORE people like you, who commit actual crimes with actual victims, who get away with it because of power, difficulty to prove, and great lawyers, need to be in prison. Do you have any idea how many people who committed crimes with NO victim are serving sentences vastly longer than 5 years? And people who are factually innocent whose massively overworked public defender talked them into a plea? THAT is unfortunate. And this is coming from a fellow high-IQ privileged white male who has served ti
    • boo fucking hoo.

      I don't get the concept that being "educated" i.e. having class should ever exempt you from prison.

      I think the problem is that we shy away from putting "educated" people in prison far too often.

      This is why the prison system is, the way it is. We see an entire class of "subhumans", and tend not to think twice when they are incarcerated.

      In a real system, prison is for the people who actually did personal crimes. I.E. CEOs might go to jail for fraud. Football players might go to jail for rape.

      P
    • Indited in 2011, served a 5 year sentence, and now rebuilding your life?
  • I presume every time someone goes through the Automated Passport Control system they send the captured image, stamped with a passport ID, off to the FBI.
    • Every time you leave an electronic imprint, such as the image of your face, tagged with your ID, it goes to the DATABASE.

      People live with the understanding of intelligence gathering of the middle of last century. There has to be a building, it has to belong to some agency, the information is accumulated to the the files.

      Everything is now gathered in DATABASES, accessible to all the thousands of agencies and is being analyzed and will be analyzed in the future to figure out relationships between elements of

    • why would they do that? they already have the picture from when you applied for the passport. maybe to double-check that you haven't changed it? but they would use the other information on the passport to tag the matching record instead of using the less-precise facial recognition algorithm.

      • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
        To carry on with ideas like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] Law-enforcer misuse of driver database soars (January 22, 2013) http://articles.orlandosentine... [orlandosentinel.com]
        Thats some history and local news. What the mil and federal districts around the US are seeking is a near instant facial recognition system as a person walks down a street.
        Has police contact been made before? What was the result? A US or international tourist looking at a WW1 memorial in a city moves their camera around?
        A nice approach that can
  • by MildlyTangy ( 3408549 ) on Sunday November 09, 2014 @02:27PM (#48346033)

    Right to privacy?

    Do we really have a right to privacy? I tried to find some privacy in this modern age, but there was none.

    I was not doing anything wrong, so I apparently have nothing to fear, but I still cannot shake that disturbing creepy feeling every time I use a digital device.

    Privacy is dead.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Privacy is only dying because lazy assholes like you throw your hands up in apathy. You are the problem.

    • by Druegan ( 646568 )

      Not explicitly dead.. just seriously endangered.

      However.. I have a room with no windows in my basement.. and a lock upon the door. In that room, there is a comfy chair, and I can sit in that room, in perfect privacy, and read a book. It's quite nice.

      Not exactly modern, perhaps.. but it is just as good a privacy as was available a century ago.

      Privacy is perfectly findable "in this modern age" if one is willing to give up the trappings and BS of participating in our societal systems.

    • We have rights to many things not specifically enumerated by the Constitution. Having a right and having the political and judicial support to protect it, are different things. If we are to save our democracy more of us are going to have to be vocal, actually vote and actually donate money to candidates that support the kinds of change we would like to see. It may also be necessary to force Washington to allow candidates into the presidential primary debates even if the candidate isn't hand picked and rubbe

Genius is ten percent inspiration and fifty percent capital gains.

Working...