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> Who doesn't go to Blockbuster?

Anyone who likes porn doesn't go to Blockbuster. Get your friends a good porn web site subscription instead.

Don't sweat it. That link goes to a news article.

Now, that's not strictly true.

Travolta's New House.

Small businesses can neither afford to claim patents nor defend them.

Personally I believe the guy who posted that this is BS and that the devices are probably crap. But if they did work, how would they be any different from the proposed airport security fast-lane cards?

Yes, that is why I said small buisnesses. As an example I recall something about Winnie the Pooh and Epcot Center. Both from the same company who applied extreme pressure to have the government to pass this law. My suggestion is to allow small businesses who would otherwise not have to pay royalties to these companies to produce Mickey Mouse T-Shirts, Donald Duck T-Shirts, cups, mugs, hats, pants, and the like sit and create the laws. Because then they would not only be considering their own needs but the needs of those who can not pay the hundreds of thousands of dollars just to make something to sell.

You see, the copyrights are monopolies and monopolies are an aberration to how the U.S. is set up to run. That is why they were severely limited in the first place. So succeeding generations would not owe, in coin, their predecessors. But they would have to acknowledge them. Now, we are slaves. Shackled by invisible bonds which make us all criminals if we even sing the "Happy Birthday" song. We are sinking into the haves and have-nots with the haves gaining more power faster than the have-nots can ever hope to overcome. That is wrong. We do our best when everyone can build upon what went before without fear of reprisal.

As for the "living longer" - just type in '+copyright +"people living longer"' and you will be amazed at the results.

Gotta run!

One way to encourage reindustrialization adequate to the task of lowered population and higher resource efficiency might be to allow people threatened by imported disease to sue the globalist companies importing the cheap labor.

My GI generation father lives with some life-threatening conditions, and does he have some stories to tell since he moved from Iowa to the border with Mexico!

I rarely see the man anymore, however, so the change is hardly gradual and is quite palpable.

Sitting in a waiting line with illegals ahead of him for medical service is finally getting to him. Never a racist act nor word from him during his entire life, and now at the end of his life, he's having to think about what he was fighting for when he, before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, left the Quakers, where he could have easily evaded the draft, and volunteered to go fight the Germans. He is probably going to die quite a few years earlier for the want of a small amount of service from Medicare to which he is entitled. He will likely lose these years of life due to the degradation of Medicare by immigration promoted by globalist companies forcing wages for American workers down. He could actually get better care if he were an illegal rather than a WW II vet.

As Paul Craig Roberts reports - Friday, Oct. 3, 2003:

So you think your government looks out for you? Not nearly as much as it does for aliens.

On Sept. 24 Robert Pear reported in the New York Times that the Bush administration has quietly decided to stiff 6 million poor elderly and disabled Americans by denying them Medicare drug benefits. According to the Bush administration, these Americans are already covered under state Medicaid programs.

President Bush should read the newspapers. On Sept. 23 Robert Pear reported in the New York Times that "rising costs prompt states to reduce Medicaid further." It seems that the job loss recovery has forced virtually every state to take action to cut back on Medicaid.

Not to worry. All the 6 million poor and disabled Americans need to do is to acquire Mexican citizenship and recross the border as illegal aliens. Once Americans acquire the status of illegal aliens, their medical care is provided free without even a co-pay.

Can you imagine what things will happen when the boomers, whose economic and therefore reproductive viablity has already been decimated by government policy which is now compounded by immigration-induced age, if not race, discrimination, hit retirement and all that imported labor that was supposed to keep Social Security solvent is voting?

I'll admit I'm angry about this; however, the public health menace facing those on Medicare is a drop in the bucket compared to what is starting to become obvious to even the most dogmatic proponent of globalism:

Globalist companies are using immigration to drive down labor costs at the expense of profound risks to the public health from epidemics.

When SARS turned out not to be the threat so many feared, some thought this might have been due to quick rea

HGH test to be tried at Pan Am Games and World Track and Field Champs summer 2003

Story on How the Budget Crunch is Affecting Florida Admissions and Forced Expulsions

About a year ago, I moved to Florida to help my parents out with a business they purchased. After they were set up, I went to finish my CS degree. I attempted to transfer in with a 3.6 GPA coming from Purdue University in Fort Wayne.

I tried one Florida college, drove over, spoke with a Computer Science advisor. One of the first things he told me was that he knew many graduates that had to work as McDonalds. He was very heavy in his implied assertion that I should not come to this school. After attempting to transfer in my transcript, my GPA was dropped from a 3.6 down to less than a 3.1 - and I was denied admission to the school. I was shocked and disgusted.

So, I tried another Florida college in a nearby city. I was able to transfer my credits and gain acceptance into the college... but then I learned what I'd have to do to graduate. I was expecting perhaps an extra semester... but instead I learned that I'd have to take several classes over again. Ones I'd already taken for a larger number of credits. But in order to even take those classes, I'd have to re-take many pre-requisites. But in order to take those, I'd have to be allowed into the CS program. In order to get into the CS program, I'd have to take gateway courses (which I'd already taken effectively), in order to take the gateway courses, I'd have to take pre-requisites which I'd already taken. Their program would not allow me to take any of these programs at the same time. So, instead of one extra semester, I would have to take 3 extra years of classes. This was told to me directly by the head of their department.

At this point, I knew I just had to leave Florida. I love helping the folks out, but it's just impossible to transfer classes. And it's not like I haven't had experience with this - I've transferred to two other colleges without incident, without any major loss in credits either. It's just that Florida seems to have gone insane.

Ryan Fenton

And I suspect few of them are paying anywhere near 33.7%. For example, one family with an incentive to take only 100% legit deductions: Combined, the Bushes' last three years generated adjusted gross income of just over $2.56-million and federal taxes paid of $759,263. That's a tax rate of 29.7 percent. . I'm guessing people who don't have to file the most scrutinized tax return in the US take a few more liberties.

You didn't count the employer contribution to FICA. When you do (which most economists do), you find the Soc Sec rises to 15% up to $87k. This makes the total fed tax bill 34.4% for the $1M earner and 26.5% for the $10k earner. That's only 3.2% less than the president's! It also doesn't count regressive state taxes and fees.

This also doesn't take into account the fact that much(most?) of a $1M earner's income won't come from salary. Capital gains and dividends are of course capped at 15%. Yes, I still think the rich aren't overtaxed.

Both scanned and HTMLed versions of the document are available on my web site at Carnegie Mellon.

For News picked up the story, as did the New York Post. But the local papers in Tampa and Clearwater, Florida (where a major Scientology bas is located) have not covered the story. I think they're afraid to touch it, even though their own readers' lives are at risk. Maybe someone should ask the Tampa Tribune and the St. Petersburg Times why they've lost their nerve.

That one's to fuzzy. Here's a clearer image of Halle's Comment...

It's easy to find cases where people get light sentences for crimes that, at least to me, seem much more damaging to society than a few swapped files. How do you justify asking for billions of dollars of so-called damages or years of jail time when people who shoplift some CDs receive little if any punishment?

How is this any different than a company touting it's weight loss solution? A company says their product will do one thing but doesn't or does something else (harmful or detrimental). When it's a health-related matter attorney's and governments are quick to jump on board for the easy win.

I'm a software developer so I feel qualified to say this. One thing that makes me uneasy and very disappointed is when the marketing folks put their spin on my software. Suddenly, I'm trying to explain how my software won't convert used motor oil into root beer.

Software continues to get treated differently than ANY other product. There are no security regulations; no quality regulations; no performance regulations; hardly any regulations at all on software save the import/export regulations. There are a couple of exceptions -you can't reverse engineer it or the DMCA police will throw you in the klink foreverandeverandever AND any limitation that the RIAA and MPAA deem relevant. Am I a fan of regulation? In most cases, no. However, when people or companies are unwilling to self-regulate then there comes a point when it becomes necessary to a healthy society. Case in point - the aforementioned diet pills. There's the "deceptive business practices" line that these companies cross. For that, there needs to be some mediation.

That being said... How the heck do you regulate Vaporware? If we start regulating vaporware as empty promises then I want my local weatherman regulated too. Whetherman - whether it'll rain or whether it won't. Companies should never be allowed to make false claims about their product. "It'll do X" or "It has Y" when it won't or doesn't is just plain fraud. But when a company says "We're working on Z and it should be available soon." there's not much to do except sit and wait.

This sort of system could benefit people like "Salam Pax", the Iraqi blogger who disappeared from the 'net a few weeks before the US invasion of Iraq. It's nice to have a public forum for which to voice your views -- but if the ruling government is known for killing those who speak out against it, you need some sort of assurance that you will not be killed for your speech. Note that this system still needs work. It should be combined with something like JAP to protect against identification of bloggers based on who views what blogs.

Actually, the army *wanted* him gone with the coup attempt in 2002 after Chavez's supporters opened fire on anti-Chavez protestors. He was removed from power, which the US governement applauded because he is a right bastard. However, after a day or two, elements in the army restored him to power. At which point, he spent the next year purging the military of those he felt were disloyal to him. He's disarming opposition police forces. Now he's rounding up and murdering political enemies, truck bombing countries who criticize him, and cozying up to other dictators.

Plenty of damning evidence against Chavez, these links are just the first I found while searching.

I don't know what state you live in, but here in Florida a man recently got six years in prison for four bank robberies, which is the total amount of time Mitnick was locked up if you include his jail time.

Kevin Mitnick's crimes don't even come close to the level of bank robbery!

If you're looking for years' worth of bump-and-grind coming out of printer, look no further than the HP Photosmart 1115. Imagine if you will a ink cartrige/stylus assembly weighing in at over two pounds. When it hits a spreadsheet, my desk feels as though there are copulating armadillos underneath it (or maybe these things).

Here is a link to another article on the same story. From that article:

Reilly maintained Friday that his state, which also is entitled to reimbursement of some attorneys' fees, can afford to continue the court fight alone because the most expensive parts of the case have already been paid.

His decision won plaudits in Washington from Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who said Reilly "now becomes the de facto antitrust division chief of the United States and a high-tech hero to consumers and entrepreneurs." Markey is the top Democrat on the House Commerce Committee panel on telecommunications and the Internet.

In this story we hear about a surgury that went tragically wrong. A patient died when his aorta and another blood vessel supplying the kidney were accidentally cut. No one noticed for about 90 minutes.

Fortunately, if anything goes wrong with the robot, the human surgeons can jump right in and pick up where the robot has stopped.

Yeah... assuming the doctors notice that anything is wrong. As pointed out in the Risks Digest recently, a surgeon-controlled robotic surgery in Tampa went terribly wrong in October; while attempting to remove a patient's cancerous kidney, the surgeon (or robot - the root cause hasn't been identified) cut the patient's aorta, an accident which went unnoticed until an hour and a half later! The man died two days later from complications related to the surgery; no mention of whether the complications are a result of the accident. But if they were, would the hospital or doctor admit it?

--Jim

Here is a story about a man that this surgery recently killed.

I'm glad I don't need this type of surgery.

Isn't this the same robot that was just involved in a patient death?

I mention it because I caught the news about a robot being involved in a surgery accident on the newswire a couple days ago, and then yesterday I caught a puff piece on the DaVinci system on the TV news (ABC, I think?) - no mention of that recent fatality.

No mention of the fatality in the CNN article, either. And for that matter, no mention of it here. I find this very strange. Slashdot editors missing it, I can understand. But wouldn't even the most brain-dead journalist make this connection? Let alone the big-leaguers?

St. Petersburg Times" has more info on the incident, if you must.

Since when can a corporation be put in jail for anything?

I don't even remember anyone going to jail for killing several people due to some bad tires, and that's far more serious.

A quick Google search produced these links:

http://www.iacenter.org/maj_1201balt.htm
http://www.sptimes.com/News/061501/Hillsborough/2_ GOP_workers_trigger.shtml
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/GOPCV_ protests000804.html
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/ news/special_packages/school_of_the_americas/21663 30.htm
http://www.appalachianfocus.org/global/600_world_b ank_protesters_arrest.htm

Many of those links refer to something recent when the IMF/WorldBank conviened in Washington, D.C.
Just because it's legal to do it doesn't mean someone's not going to illegally detain you all the same. Happens all the time.

The Wayback Machine thing sucks, as do so many other Scientology actions against the net, but frankly I'm a little more concerned about how Scientology's actions affect people's rights out in the non-virtual world.

This is an organization that has framed critics, including journalist Paulette Cooper, who was indicted for sending bomb threats which, in reality, Scientology had sent to themselves. Scientology also attempted to frame Clearwater mayor Gabriel Cazares (for hit-and-run), U.S. District Judge Ben Krentzman (for solicitation and drug use), attorney Michael Flynn (for cashing a forged check), BBS operator Tom Klemesrud (for battery), attorney Graham Berry (for child molestation and battery), author Russell Miller (for murder), and former Scientologists Martin Hunt (for Internet posts; his report of the police officer's visit didn't mention what was being alleged about the posts) and Gene Allard (for grand theft - Allard won a 1974 malicious prosecution suit against Scientology).
Numerous instances of making false reports to police have been reported.

This is an organization that has seen 11 top-ranking executives go to jail in the U.S. for infiltrating government offices to steal and plant documents. In the similar Canadian trial, three Scientology executives and the Toronto church organization itself were found guilty of similar crimes.

The FBI raids in the late 70s turned up evidence of the frame-ups of Cooper and Cazares, along with evidence that Scientology had infiltrated numerous other government offices, such as the California Attorney General's office, as well as newspapers like the Clearwater Sun, law offices like Sidley & Austin, and other organizations, such as the Clark County Mental Health Agency. A Scientologist on the San Diego police force was fired for passing police information to Scientology.

A typical response from Scientology spokepeople is "that was years ago." (We never did that, and besides, we don't do it anymore.)

Well, there were five frame-up attempts that I can count in the past 3-4 years (Keith Henson, successfully framed and now a fugitive in Canada; Mark Bunker, acquitted; Bob Minton, acquitted twice but now apparently extorted into testifying for Scientology; Jesse Prince, hung jury).

There are also disturbing signs that Scientology is continuing to infiltrate government offices and businesses. A motion was filed just a couple of weeks ago alleging religious discrimination in the case of a woman who was fired from the Greenwich Housing Authority after Scientology management systems were introduced and employees were required to attend Scientology courses, paid for with thousands of dollars in public money, and the EEOC recently took action in a Texas case in which employees at a dental office were fired after refusing to attend Scientology classes. The Sacramento News & Review did a story not long ago about a publishing house that uses Scientology management techniques, run by Scientologists Dennis McKenna (who, as a Scientology spokesman, defended what Scientology did to Paulette Cooper) and Don Pearson (who gave extensive Scientology training to Allstate employees until management finally stopped it); the company, eRepublic, publishes a magazine on the use of technology in government (and another on the use of technology in education) and consults to governments on technology issues. The magazine includes ads for business training - never mentioning that it teaches Scientology principles - offered by people like Arte Maren - long-time Scientologist, co-conspirator in the 70s government infiltration case, and trainer in the Greenwich Housing Authority case.

I'm concerned that people confronted by Scientology training in the workplace don't know their rights. I hope the EEOC will vigorously defend people who are being illegally subjected to Scientology training at work - and I hope journalists will keep a closer eye on Scientology's continuing infiltration in government and business.

Kristi
Scientology Lies

INVERNESS -- Earlier this year, 16-year-old Adam Bollenback swiped a six-pack of beer from a refrigerator in a woman's garage and got caught by Citrus County sheriff's deputies.

The situation went from bad to worse when Bollenback slithered out of a patrol car while the deputy wasn't watching, leaving behind only his shoes.

He was caught and accused of burglary, petty theft and escape. Prosecutors charged him in the adult system, a move that was within their discretion.

After Bollenback was tried and convicted of the crimes, the state Department of Corrections recommended the boy, now 17, wear an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet for two years. The Department of Juvenile Justice thought a stay in a high-level youth facility would be more appropriate.

On Tuesday, Circuit Judge Ric A. Howard discarded those suggestions and sentenced Bollenback to a 10-year prison term.

"You're well on your way to a lifetime of prison and I don't want to see that happen," Howard said before handing down the punishment. "This sentence is going to break your spirit right now."

Bollenback's mother, Cheryl, was stunned by the judge's decision.

"What? What did he say?" she asked, glancing around the courtroom in confusion. "Ten years? Is that right?"

Bollenback's lawyer, Jim Cummins, immediately asked the judge for permission to keep the youth at the Citrus County jail for 10 days so he could file motions protesting the sentence. Howard denied the request.

Then Cummins asked that his client, still technically a juvenile, be segregated from the adult inmate population. The motion also was rejected.

"He's an adult and he's going to be treated as an adult," Howard said.

Read More...

Yes, actually. Although like many news stories, what was initially reported (and what I read) was not what actually happened:

Here.

It's clear now (it wasn't at all when the media I read was blitzing the news) that EQ had little role in the killing. Whether it had a role in the general neglect of the infant (malnourishment) isn't addressed in any article I can find, but that seems to be the implication, and the prosecuter makes a statement to that effect in the above link.

Actual St. Petersburg article here.

--Ryv

Okay, I'll scare the hell out of you.

St. Petersburg Times

ZDNet

So...

Yeah. I think that bad fathers will be bad fathers. If it wasn't EQ, it probably would have been *actual* heroin.

The kid who committed suicide is true too, according to Wired.

There is exactly one example of a lobbying group that is extremely powerful that takes in ZERO contributions from industry (and is entirely dependant upon small contributions from millions of everyday joes), and is wildly successfull to the point of having directly changed the results of hundreds if not thousands of elections, including the presidency. Granted, that power is so awsome because the members of the organization care passionaly so about their issue -- but also because that passion is backed up by $$$ contributions, not to mention folks that try to convince their neighbors, co-workers, and friends on how to vote in every election from the local level on up. Are open source advocates as passionate? The mere mention of "NRA" causes politicions to quake in their boots. How to politicions feel when someone mentions "open source?" Confused?

According to the article, the company that manufactures the machines is Sequoia Voting Systems Inc., who have been in the Florida papers for having a VP who has been indicted in an elections kickback scandal in Louisiana. You must read this URLon the subject!

Further research on the web suggests that an unwholesome number of people involved in selling election services and products have, not backgrounds in (say) accounting, but instead, backgrounds in (you guessed it) politics.

According to a St. Petersburg Times article:

"New York safemaker Jacob H. Myers invented a mechanical voting machine in 1892 and his company later became Automatic Voting Machines, which Sequoia acquired in 1984.

"[Sequoia is the] only company whose touch screen product has been successfully tested in an actual election in a large county -- the 2000 general election in Riverside County, Calif.

"[Sequoia] has installed other older systems in three Florida counties. Sales are down 90 percent after the 2000 election as local officials await federal funding before buying new equipment.

Sequoia is a subsidiary of Jefferson Smurfit Group, a leading manufacturer of paper products."

Jefferson Smurfit, who in reality only owns 15% of Sequoia, is primarily a manufacturer of paper and packing products, based in Ireland.

The remaining 85% of the company is owned by De La Rue of Hampshire, England, an enormous company of 7000+ employees with a background in secure printing (providing paper for over 150 national currencies, including of course the UK) and a strong interest (20%) in Camelot, the operator of the British lottery.

Other than not seeming to take their security as seriously as they ought to, DLAR seems like a squeaky-clean company, and probably has a bright future. Especially if they can keep U.S. elections secret from the population.

According to the article, the company that manufactures the machines is Sequoia Voting Systems Inc., who have been in the Florida papers for having a VP who has been indicted in an elections kickback scandal in Louisiana. You must read this URLon the subject!

Further research on the web suggests that an unwholesome number of people involved in selling election services and products have, not backgrounds in (say) accounting, but instead, backgrounds in (you guessed it) politics.

According to a St. Petersburg Times article:

"New York safemaker Jacob H. Myers invented a mechanical voting machine in 1892 and his company later became Automatic Voting Machines, which Sequoia acquired in 1984.

"[Sequoia is the] only company whose touch screen product has been successfully tested in an actual election in a large county -- the 2000 general election in Riverside County, Calif.

"[Sequoia] has installed other older systems in three Florida counties. Sales are down 90 percent after the 2000 election as local officials await federal funding before buying new equipment.

Sequoia is a subsidiary of Jefferson Smurfit Group, a leading manufacturer of paper products."

Jefferson Smurfit, who in reality only owns 15% of Sequoia, is primarily a manufacturer of paper and packing products, based in Ireland.

The remaining 85% of the company is owned by De La Rue of Hampshire, England, an enormous company of 7000+ employees with a background in secure printing (providing paper for over 150 national currencies, including of course the UK) and a strong interest (20%) in Camelot, the operator of the British lottery.

Other than not seeming to take their security as seriously as they ought to, DLAR seems like a squeaky-clean company, and probably has a bright future. Especially if they can keep U.S. elections secret from the population.

Also, the South Carolina DMV sold 3.5 million driver photos for $5000 in 1999. There is a lot of info at Charleston.net if you are interested.

They sold the pictures to a company called Image Data for use in fraud prevention. The idea is that a merchant can buy a special terminal from Image Data that scans the bar code on a South Carolina driver licence. The bar code gets sent to Image Data, and they send back the driver's picture for display on the terminal, so the merchant can verify the person's identity.

Other states have also tried to sell their info to Image Data, including Florida and Colorado, among others. The governors of these states stopped the sales, after all the bad press from the South Carolina deal, although some of the Colorado photos were released before the deal was halted. News that the database was funded in part by the Secret Service added to the outcry.

if you read the story about google bombing last week you will realise that your criticism is more effective if you use links rather than plaintext.
Slashdot, Hows about an easier form. There has got to be a easier/better way to do it than typing in raw tags. the form even ignores me if i put in nicely formed line breaks like <br /> or use both opening and closing paragraph tags
any way here are the links

Here is an article about their interference at ground zero.
http://cisar.org/010919a.htm

They also have been posing as mental health professionals:
http://www.sptimes.com/2002/02/08/Worldandnation/S cientology_reaches_o.shtml

or from their OWN MOUTHS here
http://www.scientology.org/message/Scientology-vol unteer-ministers.htm

And a link to the coverage of this on Kuro5hin.org
Sceintology
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/3/21/8503/377 59
Dainetics deliberate typos for google users who cant spell

Remember this watershed event for Slashdot about Scientology Remember these:
Slashdot and Scientology http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/17677.html
http://slashdot.org/yro/01/05/17/0238223.shtml
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,42486,00 .html

Now granted, the olympics have a lot of problems with being over commercialized, but in a situation like this, extraordinary security precautions are warrented.

Why grammar is the first casualty of war

"WHAT really alarms me about President Bush's "war on terrorism" is the grammar. How do you wage war on an abstract noun? It's rather like bombing murder."

"Imagine if Bush had said: "We're going to bomb murder wherever it lurks. We are going to seek out the murderers and the would-be murderers, and bomb any government that harbours murderers.""
...

---
Bush Family Values Photo Album
---

Book: U.S. Military Drafted Plans to Terrorize U.S. Cities to Provoke War With Cuba

In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba.


Bush and Ashcroft are making laws to keep this kind of revealing information from ever being released. The Freedom of Information Act was created after Nixon's antics, and it is being withdrawn for the wrong reasons. We need to keep gov't checks and balances, as this article clearly proves.
---
An article about Gulf War propaganda, outlining how the 'Babies Torn from Incubators by Iraqi Soldiers' was manufactured and used by Bush to instill war fever. 2 minute read.
---
More gov't lies - Trumped up terrorism numbers
---

I think I figured out the reason the White House covered up Bush's condition!

FACT 1)
REPORT: President Bush Has A Heart Arrhythmia; White House Did Not Disclose After Pretzel Incident That Mr. Bush Has Sinus Bradycardia
---
FACT 2)
Arrhythmias Causes and Risks:
[...]
Arrhythmias are also caused by some drugs. These include antiarrhythmics, Beta blockers, caffeine , COCAINE , psychotropics, and sympathomimetics.
...
---
GRAPH COMPARISON The EKG on the top shows normal sinus rhythm. The EKG at the bottom shows sinus bradycardia

A slowly beating heart means that he's not getting as much oxygen to his brain as healthy people, right? Could this partly be the reason his intelligence suffers?
:)

Ok, let's nip this in the bud: it's a myth that cold/wet weather makes someone more likely to catch a cold.

Now, if this picture (from the article - really, check the link or read the damn article yourself!) had been the one the system had captured, I wouldn't be so surprised :-)

This seems to be more a problem with the newspaper's policies rather than the system itself - I mean they are the ones that printed the damn picture and then sold it to U.S.News!

In this St. Pete Times story, this Bay News 9 story, or even yeterday's slashdot article.

AD ASTRA, EVERYMAN!
The Rocket Guy
When Rocket Guy dreams

I wish this guy would put up a website to record his progress and report on the project... but I couldn't find anything like that.

How about the Oregonian, Oregon's largest paper.
Also, St. Petersburg Times and the guy was supposedly on CBS "The Early Show", too.

St. Petersburg Times - Tampabay: Cameras scanned fans for criminals. Super Bowl fans had their privacy invaded by the technology, critics say. Law officials cite security.

Is the new surveillance system the latest twist on Big Brother? Face-matching surveillance already is well established at more than 70 casinos. But the system's biggest opportunities lie in more benign functions: Identifying customers at ATMs or participants in welfare programs, and screening people who want to enter secure workplace areas.

At Raymond James Stadium, surveillance system cameras were focused only on people entering at turnstiles. No cameras were used inside to pan the fans inside. But cameras did sweep the crowds at the NFL Experience, indicating the growing reach of database systems to try and match faces even in large groups.

At UCLA, professor Borgman questioned the technical ability of a system to identify individual faces so quickly.

"If these surveillance systems spread, there may be a considerable margin of error in determining the identity of people who get snagged," she said. "And that is a big price to pay for your civil rights."

The FaceTrac(TM) core facial recognition technology provides the ability to locate faces, to build 'face print' templates and to recognize matches to images stored in a database. When integrated with G-TEC's law enforcement database, FaceTrac(TM) allows rapid search, comparison and identification of suspect facial photos within the database. FaceTrac(TM) may be used for surveillance with multiple locations networked to a high capacity site, for analysis and system-search results. G-TEC installed FaceTrac(TM) at the Raymond James Stadium as a single site system, integrated with a custom designed database and search result notifications for tracking faces in a crowd and monitoring access to secure areas.

The system used for the Super Bowl project, first reported yesterday by the St. Petersburg Times, was lent by companies seeking to market the technology to law enforcement agencies. Tampa police accepted the free use of the system as an experiment and worked with local and national police agencies to manage it during the week of the game, said Durkin.

Dave Watkins, managing director of Graphco Technologies Inc., said the event gave the company a chance to learn how the software would perform, which camera angles were most effective and how the lenses of the 20 video cameras should be focused in a public place.

The American Civil Liberties Union("ACLU") opposes the involuntary capture of biometric details, such as face-recognition data, DNA and retina scans. The organization, in its list of "Privacy Principles," considers the fingerprinting of convicted criminals a worthy exception.

"We are quickly moving to the point where law enforcement and the private sector will be able to identify us no matter where we go, no matter how anonymous we think we are," said Barry Steinhardt, the ACLU's associate director. "Not only is it going to rob us of our anonymity, but it's going to be used as a tool of law enforcement to round up 'the usual suspects' and to hassle people on the streets."

The practice is almost certainly legal, but it is in an emerging area of the law that has not been fully tested in court, said Harvard Law School professor Bill Stuntz.

Super Bowl 2001 fans were secretly treated to a mass, biometric scan in which video cameras tied to a temporary law-enforcement command centre digitised their faces and compared them against photographic lists of known malefactors.

Everyone entering Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida last Sunday was subjected to the surveillance system cameras, set up at the entrance turnstiles. No notice or disclosure was ever given, and no one, therefore, had an opportunity to decline to enter the stadium if they should have objected to this unprecedented treatment.

[ ... ]

"The Company's face-recognition technology is unique because of its capabilities of both rapid and accurate real-time acquisition as well as its scalability to databases containing millions of faces. Therefore, the software can instantly calculate an individual's eigenface from either live video or a still digital image, and then search a database of millions in only a few seconds in order to find similar or matching images."

'Similar or matching.' This clearly acknowledges the possibility that innocent civilians going about their peaceable business may be stopped, hassled, even arrested, merely for resembling someone naughty. This raises sticky issues regarding the presumption of innocence many of us were encouraged to believe in during our grammar-school civics lessons. Is there a violation of this principle when a person is required to produce evidence that they are not, in fact, the evil bastard whom they unfortunately resemble?

Unknown to the 100,000 people who passed through the turnstiles at Sunday's Super Bowl, hidden cameras scanned each of their faces and compared the portraits with photos of terrorists and known criminals of every stripe.

In a command post at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla., the digitized images of fans and workers were cross-checked against files of local police, the "FBI" and state agencies at the rate of a million images a minute.

The cameras identified 19 people with criminal histories, none of them of a "significant" nature, Tampa authorities said. But the undisclosed first test of the technology at a major U.S. sporting event raised arguments about privacy versus security and questions about the future of such spying and its uses.

"Oh my God, it's yet another nail in the coffin of personal liberty," said Bruce Schneier, founder and chief technical officer of "Counterpane" Internet Security Inc., a security monitoring company.

"It's another manifestation of a surveillance society, which says we're going to watch you all the time just in case you might do something wrong," said Schneier, whose book "Secrets & Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World" warned of the increasing encroachment on civil liberties in high-tech society.

[ ... ]

Other applications are expected to include ATM machines and public events such as the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

http://www.yahooka.com/
http://www.hightimes.com/
http://www.lycaeum.org/
http://marijuana.newscientist.com/
http://www.hemp.net/~ramus
http://www.druglibrary.org/ schaffer/History/whiteb1.htm
http://www.s ptimes.com/News/72699/TampaBay/Stakes_high_in_man_ s_.shtml
http://www.dqc.org/~james/
http://www.november.org/
http://www.pdfa.net/
http://mall.turnpike.net/~jnr/think.htm

Too bad, but safety comes before profit...

Then you must not work for Florida Power. I can't believe that the NRC lets them keep their plant. Go to the St. Petersburg Times and search for "florida power crystal river" to see what I'm talking about.

They bringing in record profits while complaining that they can't afford to pay some outstanding fines. They are simultaneously lobbying (constantly) the Public Service Commission to increase the rates for residential customers. And they have the sporadic power flickers on perfectly clear days -- enough to reset the computer, but not enough to turn off the television.

I hate them.

Mike
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