The FBI is gearing up to create a massive computer database of people's physical characteristics, all part of an effort the bureau says to better identify criminals and terrorists.
Though it is unnerving to privacy experts and advocates (it should be), the bureau is expected to announce in coming days the awarding of a $1 billion, 10-year contract to help create the database that will compile an array of biometric information -- from palm prints to tattoos to scars to eye scans.
So, your family does not know where you have that "special" tattoo, but the government might.
05 February 2008
Hmmm . . .
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
After the bus bombs in UK, some secretary of something-or-other boldly declared that police would be scouring thousands of hours of video from hundreds of locations as "we're all suspects now".
Why expect better from our homegrown watchers? Ever wonder where those digital d/l photos and fingerprints go? Wouldn't be the various state and fed criminal databases, would it?
In the past ten days I listened to a customs/border enforcement director (on C-Span) extoll the necessity of rfid on passports and other 'secure documents' (d/l under real id) so the agent at the checkpoint will have your profile as you approach.
Ten or more years back the relational databases various agencies bought from commercial aggregators to evade laws proscribing gov't compilation of such provided more about you than you knew existed.
And now the local tatooist will probably have to report your purchases. Have you heard of developments in gait and and cranial/facial structure analysis that may be good enough to see through virtually any disguise?
But who watches the watchers?
Good Luck
A-
Good points all! RFID is already used by big rig drivers, and I have been dreading the inevitable suggestion coming some day that a "reasonable" way to track firearms is to install RFID chips/tags in them. Of course there would be no grandfather clause, for who can argue with ideas that are "for the children?" Further motivation would be financial and prison penalties if your granddad's rifle or shotgun isn't retrofitted by some year in the future. As RFID scanners become more powerful, what first was good for Wal-Mart's warehouse may soon be coming to a gun store near you.
Post a Comment