Ever see the excellent 60’s TV show, The Prisoner (the crapfest of a pseudo remake on AMC a few years ago doesn’t count)? “I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.” Guess we are well past that declaration.
The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system.
Buried in the more than 800 pages of the bipartisan legislation (.pdf) is language mandating the creation of the innocuously-named “photo tool,” a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID.
Employers would be obliged to look up every new hire in the database to verify that they match their photo.
[…]
Think of it as a government version of Foursquare, with Big Brother cataloging every check-in.
And then once they have this, they add in info from other databases, buy info from Amazon on purchases, purchase your searches from Google, your Facebook posts, and so on to get a well rounded picture of you. How comforting!
Last week, flying into LAX, I watched US agents electronically finger printing children from Australia. It was revolting.
I agree. Australians are revolting. So are most children.
Electronically finger printing is preferable to the old fashioned way. Have you ever had to try to remove that ink ?
Are you proposing that we let people into the country with no proper way to identify them later?
Australians are revolting. So are most children.
If you feel that way, can a get a video camera and lie down at a Weed Whacker exhibit.
Get over it C.O.
Everybody from outside the border get their biometrics registered in one honking huge database. (What do you think that the NSA needs the Utah facility for? So that they can play tiddlywinks?)
Everybody from inside the border who has applied for a passport, or for a Green Card, or every person who has been arrested for any reason since the introduction of AFIS has their biometrics registered in at least but probably more than one honking huge database. (FBI, CIA, any agency with three letter acronym, Military, State, Regional, Civic, Mall cops, doesn’t matter. Getting away with anything is going to be a thing of the rapidly receding past. [That’s not a bad thing.])
Soon, everybody will need* their biometric ID registration when applying for any kind of local, municipal, state, federal benefit. (That will eliminate most fraud.)
*) Notice that I only wrote need, not need to show. Your finger prints always travel with you, or the hospital where they were left/altered will have registered the new configuration of your digits, that is if they want to get paid.
I thought foreign nationals were to be fingerprinted before they flew into the United States. Children may be eligible for somewhat of a waiver now.
I don’t think this type of fingerprinting data accompanies a passport. It’s a database maintained by the DHS. It’s been required for at least five years now.
If I heard this story about the children being fingerprinted in the United States or any other country, I would have cried back in the 1990s.
….. so, whats the issue?
Yes, yes==I “know” you don’t want anyone to know anything about you so you can get all righteous when a theif steals your identity.
Pros and Cons to all we do. Embrace the challenge to compare and contrast and make the decisions that are right for you today–not 300 years ago before technology was born and crowds were possible. –not 3MM years ago when the framework for your emotional reactions was set in jello.
You won’t.
….. and thats why others will do it for you. Blame the other side.
Silly Hoomans….dragged into the Future>>>….aaaaannnddd BEYOND!!
First, it is not “blame the other side” as , see in the article – bill and idea is bipartisan. Problem is fundamental, on the level of US-creating revolution: who and on what account is important? Individual or collective?
Right now we have Left/Right coalition of “collective is more important” ruling the roost and despite fundamental legal documents explicitly forbidding it – making laws like this.
Technology existed at the time of US founding to pick the locks and by force take private papers (no matter how primitive, paper is technology), have Government officials follow you around … British had PatriotAct equivalent! – one of the reasons fr revolution (Patriot Act was first time since British rule that law enforcement could issue themselves a warrant, outside of court system). This is not about technology but about readiness to abuse it.
Yes, Google, Apple,… ISP, … have legal right and ability to track you “database” you,… You enter into contracts with them willingly and make decisions.
Government, at least one defined by US Constitution DOES NOT HAVE RIGHT to even have ability to get any of this data from corporate world, never mind collect it by itself. And it must not be allowed to get them or we are sliding into tyranny. That is the difference. All technology, existing and future one can’t be used by Government for this purpose. Or, Government can try to pass Constitutional amendments to get such right. That is the part you do not see.
Individual rights must always be greater than any “common good” or collective or we are not anymore free people but cattle. Now, whoever enjoys regular Government feeding, healthcare and massage – move to a slaveowner country where you’ll eventually be a slab of Kobe beef. Don’t try to force free people into your stupid pen.
As best as I can follow your reasoning… I agree the gubment does not have a right to pick your lock or to break into your system to take your papers/info without due process.
None of that prevents the gubment from picking up paper/information you throw out your window onto the street.
See the difference? “No (reasonable) expectation of privacy.”
Pro or Con–deal with reality. The gubment is going to do this. Thankfully, only criminals and marginally paranoid and over need worry about it.
A government for the people by the people, what a joke! It is more like; government for politicians by chicken hawks to oppress common serfs (middle class) and enrich further the sub 1%.
Every American already works more than a third of the year before Tax Freedom Day (Fed, State, Fees…). Then the government wants to monitor our every activity online, on road, what books we read, phone conversations recorded … when does it end?
Recently when I flew back into America and while going through customs, I got briefly detained because I handed the customs agent my passport with the customs form folded inside (so I wouldn’t lose it). The agent wouldn’t touch it then barked out me to take it out and hand him the form unfolded in proper fashion. I was taken aback (I had done nothing improper!) and looked at him quizzically (you got my papers, now do your job, Lord doofus!).
It seems before long, we will have to bow and show divine deference and play along with their psychological ploy of enforced subservience. I thought America threw off this enforced subservience mentality in 1776! Now a bunch of chicken hawks cowards are demanding U.S. citizen adopt this enforced subservience to our government in the name of Kabuki security Theater!
“Chicken Hawks,” indeed!!!
About the only thing “they” are doing is promoting the need (for us) to forge documents so that anyone can assume a different identity in order to piss off the power-elite “chicken hawks” with some degree of anonymity and impunity. I’m already doing it right here on one of the FEW sites that still allows (crazy ass) FREE (anonymous) SPEECH! Or maybe you haven’t noticed that most every other site now requires a person to be signed into one of those Big Brother databases like Facebook or Twitter. (It’s only a matter of time before “they” try and take over those databases which you can be sure will be for our own good too.)
…Not that the Big Brother Chicken Hawks couldn’t find out my real identity if they wanted to. But then that would assume I were stupid enough to give them a reason and motivation to – which I may have already done!
Good grief, just fill out a phony Facebook identity using TOR from a node over seas using free wireless access in a McDonalds (off-camera of course) using a MacBook with the MAC address changed. Then use that bullshit persona.
Its a fascist republican government
• of the 99%ers (aka ~303,000,000 thousandaires,)
• by the 1%ers (aka ~3,000,000 millionaires,)
• for the 12,400 oligarchs (aka billionaires).
The oligarchs have problems of succession, (their heiresy [pardon the pun,]) and they have to worry about people they’ll never even get to meet, their great-great-great-great grand children.
The ones you have to watch out for are:
• the 1%ers (incredibly greedy people who lord it over you, and want you to know they lord it over you,)
• some of the other 99%ers (the 13%ers and want to hurt you just because. [The 1%ers will hurt you, usually slightly less, {unless they have a war on,} on principle.])
Before you ask me to name all 12,400 oligarchs (read the websites you lazy imbecile[s]), look at this and/or this.
Like you would ever want to read a list of 12,400 names on a blog post.
“…containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID.”
An identity thief’s wet dream!
The government already has all this info, so what’s the issue, other than they are beefing up immigration enforcement.
Great new business opportunity for the fast moving: Creating false personas for the database, for hire, of course. The next step up from counterfeit IDs…
Or maybe some knowledgeable soul here will point out where this already exists?
Of course it does; send me $99.99 and I’ll set you right up! I offer a 30 day money back guarantee.
I haven’t had one return yet! 🙂
He gets them deported.
Very good, very good. … No soup for you! Come back, one year!
SciFi? Uh, no. It was on AMC. And yeah, it sucked.
I’ve gotten so used to most things on SyFy (must use correct spelling – ugh) sucking that I assumed it was them. Fixed.
Could you maybe pronounce the word: Nike?
How about a man’s name like, Mike?
Would you care to guess how much of our very language is owned by Corporate America?
Care to guess how many people “don’t give a crap”? (That’s probably because they have no crap between the ears – or a hip pocket – from which to be giving.)
…You can now return to your regularly scheduled television program. I’m sure it’s more entertaining than anything you’ll see here.
The government would find me a very boring person to track.
I will take it as a compliment they would be interested in doing so.
Don’t take it personally, but they want to track everybody all the time.
If you’re a 99%er, and maybe a 1%ers, you will always be insignificant, even if you showed up a some federal building with high explosives strapped to your ass and detonated in a shower of shit.
What can I say? Most so called progressives and liberals are huge fans of police states. Nearly all the elected Republicans are big fans of police states. A few Libertarians try to slow the deluge of unneeded laws and government intrusions.
It might have been Tiberius who was first noted as saying that to many laws is clear evidence of bad government and a police state.
The best governments with the most liberty and most successful economies govern least. Congress should only be allowed to meet in time of war or once every three years for the explicit purpose of passing a (balanced) budget and failing that nothing else is passed and they don’t get paid but the do get 5 years in jail.
Your math doesn’t work out.
And I think the word you’re looking for is, apathy. Personally, I blame television.
Congress should only be allowed to meet in time of war or once every three years for the explicit purpose of passing a (balanced) budget and failing that nothing else is passed and they don’t get paid but the do get 5 years in jail.
I Totally agree.
And I’d pick the names of our representatives out of a hat.
Chinese is one of the many “cat walked over the keyboard” languages.
Chinese (and Japanese,) is a logographic language so it requires a lot more than will fit on a keyboard.
Its a miracle they have any newspapers at all.
Luckily the computer gods thought about that long ago and through the use of Unicode the chinese language is a snap to have digital.
The world governments will just resort to chipping everyone within the next 5 years.
Slide your hand or your head through the supermarket scanner to pay for your groceries.
Overhead drones in the sky will scan everyone it flies over looking for non-chippers.
You’ll have to put a wet towel around your head like Arnold in Total Recall so that the ID-Bots can’t find you.
Facebook = self-compiled dossier
My plan is to keep my social network going way past my lifetime, a few hundreds years. That should mess-up the government.
The immigration bill creates what is called a “photo tool” to add another layer of security onto the existing E-Verify program. If you’ve ever applied for a visa, passport, or federal work authorization, the federal government already has your photo.
A surveillance state. See how well that worked out in East Germany?
We’ve been moving in the direction of this proposed legislation slowly.
Around 2006, I thought I read:
that people who enter any federal government building will need to present ID.
– and –
All drivers licenses must comply with a federal standard.
Also c. 2006, software was being developed that can analyze photos in a drivers license database.
This plan will prevent any more of those Richard Kimball “the fugitive” job hires, without SSN or Drive’s Liciense ID. There wouldn’t be anymore of those long running successful Tv series, anymore. Not if everyone has to prove they’re not on the run from the law. Plus the CIA, NSA, and FBI, will have to punch holes in the plan. To allow for undercover agents’ ID, and Federal Witness Relocation IDs. There are reason why the birth and death records have never been successfully matched up before. Got to leave room for the government spy false IDs.
And I wonder how this system is going to be enforced with all the immigrant labor, from Mexico, that does most of the agriculture work in the US? As long as there’s cheap labor, and huge profits, at stake. There will always be loopholes made. And terrorists will always find and exploit them. So why impose all this Nazi like ID system on the 99.999% of law abiding citizens?
BTW, Uncle Dave. While I love the Prisoner (1968) reference finally on DU. And totally agree that the cable Tv remake was crap! The original series wasn’t about IDing everyone. It was about an entity trying to know what was in our heads, in order to control us. Kind of like what Google and Facebook is all about.
And also BTW, the old Prisoner series mentioned the concept of “jamming”, in one episode. Where some of the Villagers, tried confusing their observers with false information. Sounds like something we all ought to try doing to confuse the “marketing strategists” of this era.
They wanted to know what was in his head, but for him and everyone else, the series bigger theme was represented by that big white balloon THAT YOU COULD NOT ESCAPE. control, conformity, fate–what you will, it could not be avoided.
I liked him more as Danger Man…. or whatever it was.
pedro says:
5/13/2013 at 10:46 pm
The only posts of yours that are not wishy washy are those attacking people here. /// Circular reasoning about the point of what an attack is.
The rest are odes to wishy washyness. /// Haikus, but as a metaphor, you are to the human spirit as the gutter is in a killing house.
“pros and cons to everything” /// Not WW at all when the P&C’s are pointed out, weighed and contrasted, and conclusions drawn.
“global warming is flawed/global warming is real” /// I can guess at what you are referring to, and sadly, you warped what was said and clearly meant. I don’t even care if this is one purpose or you’re just not capable of anything more competent.
You are so wishy washy you’re not even sure what you write /// Well said. (sarc off)
Well it’s about time. Not like they don’t already have the info, only now it will be in one place and where they can use it to keep unwanted assholes out.
Well, I don’t know about the rest of the forum but I am very impressed.
Two sales reps somewhere in the distribution chain arguing about who licks Dallas’s ass the most.
Amusing.
Does show the failure of arguing without defining one’s terms though. Percent of products made overseas/percent made in USA/percent made in USA by foreigners. or by dollar value?
With sufficient definition of the terms and subject of engagement, I think noname and pedro would find they all lick Dallas’ ass too much. And Pedro’s Donkey……. weeps.
Extra Fries Please !!
Where am I?
IN THE VILLAGE!
What do you want?
INFORMATION!