Slashdot Mirror
Face Recognition On Mobile Phones
gpvillamil writes: "This article describes a collaboration between Motorola, Visionics and Wirehound to build in an automatic mug shot recognition capability into mobile phones. Particularly interesting is how the phones will scan all faces in the field of view, and indicate matches by an instant short message."
I can see how this would be useful in limiting the access to your phone in case it gets lost or stolen, but I wonder who will have access to the faces it scans. With them being able to track the location of the phone, and then accessing the faces within its range that have been scanned, this looks like it has the POTENTIAL to be used to keep track of us. I don't know if the protection from having unauthorized use of my phone is worth that to me.... especially since I don't leave my phone where it could be easily stolen.
It's easy to stand out when the general level of competence is so low.
Posted by timothy on Wednesday March 27, @08:56AM
:-P
from the no-more-anonymity dept.
Giving someone your cellphone number and then wanting to remain "anonymous" when they call you strikes me as particularly odd, if not maniacal
got mono?
Cool thing if you think the police would really use something like this...
Makes me frown to think how many so called "security" guards/companies would jump the bandwagon; not to mention all the outlaws.
Anyone thinking (for the 4th time today) "enemy of the state"?
Someone in the database walks down a crowded street, and the police are bombarded with text messages...
That's good - that means I can wear a hat or sunglasses and the police won't be able to catch me. The current state of biometrics is nowhere near good enough for this anywhere, let alone in cell phones.
Does anyone think if this is really *nessecary* or *a good use of our resources* ? how about using those chips and engineers to hmm... I don't know improve public transit in the US ... or perhaps build better robotic arms for amputees.... the list goes on and on
What the heck? This is an insane idea, its just giving away everybody's right to privacy, if you're in a cafe reading a book and there's a cellphone with this technology.. you just lost your right to privacy when the info is transmitted..
Remember what happened to that guy who they tested the superbowl mug shot system on? remember the hell he went through? what the hell do you think would happen to YOU if somebody got into the mugshot system and started fuddling with it?!
I think I'm going ot have to start wearing one of those cell disabling systems on my person to disable any cellphones in a radius that can take my mugshot or whatever other stupid things they put in cellphones!
Can you say big brother?
..can't wait to get their hands on this one!
Calling a restaurant:
- Would you have a table at 19:00 ?
- Yes, but you'd better change into something with a tie, mister!
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
I can just see it. Walking down the street and some cops cell phone mistakes me for a murderer and then next thing I know I'm in jail. The odds are that the software is going to make a mistake, and how do you convince the police that it's not you.
MG
Randomly distributing Karma whenever possible.
It willcome to choice. you may or may not want to buy such a phone. Police may buy it if it looks like an ordinary mobile. Then they can scan faces without being obvious. It is same as the police guy carrying a security camera which is not very obvious. Other than that i may or may not want to buy this phone. As for the tracking, face recognition or no face recognition, you can be tracked to your location if you use a cell phone. A cell phone will emit radiowaves and trignometry can easily be used, thats how radio beocons work, so in that respect it wont make much of a difference. The only difference it may make is that it will be harder to steal mobile phones if you prefer to buy it with face recognition, and it also means that your wife may not be anle to borrow your phone!
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
Facial recognition doesn't even work with human computers, much less what will fit inside a commodity cell phone. I hope Motorola's stockholders are aware of this & make sure they don't throw more good money after bad.
Maybe for now, but how many things that we currently use started out for government use? CD-Rom's for example?
It's easy to stand out when the general level of competence is so low.
There is allready a company working with this kind of cameras. Here.
I'm just waiting for the ads showing the PCS guy with one of these phones.
PCSG:John, tell me what happened.
John:Well, me and some buddies were out having a guys' night out. We had some drinks. Everything was going pretty good. Then this girl came up to us. She was really HOT!
PCSG:John, did you go home with her?
John:(Sheepishly) Yeah.
PCSG:What happened next?
John:I woke up in a bathtub full of ice, with a note that said I should call 911, and found out I was missing a kidney!
PCSG:John, what you really need is this new PCS phone with face recognition technology. You could have identified her and let one of your buddies "jump on the grenade"
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
Here's the link to the slashdot story linking to the article about the Tampa superbowl face recognization system victim: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/08/08/202624 7&mode=thread" ... Now can you imagine what could happen if the cellphone recognization system became widespread? I wonder what the failure rate would be.. probably enough to claim a few victims
At first, I reacted to this with an "ewww, creepy! here comes Big Brother again!" but then I wondered what exactly they're planning to use it for. Are they comparing specific mug shots when looking for on-the-run criminals? Or trying to scan areas for potential troublemakers? The one's pretty useful, the other's kinda sketchy, ethically. Either way, they should probably make it clear to buyers that their phones will be used in their capacity, hopefully even be required to get their permission. *snicker* End result, of course, is that we've got one more thing to be paranoid of: "Quick, duck behind that potted palm, here comes somebody with a cell phone!" Instead of merely wanting to strangle the loud cell phone users, we'll be uneasy around them, 'cause they might be spying on us.
if i want to grow a moustache, then shave it off, grow a beard a month later, then shave it off, then grow a goatee, and shave it off -- i guess the point im trying to make is, what happens when i want to change my apperance (ever so slight or major) from anything like facial hair, hair colour, pearcings, or anything else that can be done to your face... will it send an alert to athorities each time?
I don't think the real concern is about police using these devices, it's that *everyone* will be, without ever explicitly choosing it. Think about it, how many features now come standard on mobile phones that were once extras? We getting the first wave of phones with embedded digital cameras; that will likely soon be ubiquitous and non-optional on mobiles.
Once phones all have digital cameras, it's not a terrible leap to think that a law would be passed (perhaps in London to start with where video surveillance in public spaces is routine) that phones with cameras need to have this auto-facial recognition software built-in. That and some sort of positioning technology (GPS or otherwise) is all that's required. You go to a bar, put your phone on the table and it's checking out the riff-raff around for possible matches. find one, silently dial in to some sort of central DB that records the match/location, and voila. The phone's owner is none the wiser. It doesn't even have to be terribly reliable; with this sort of brute force method even a very low successful match percentage would be a win for law enforcement.
I'm not generally a privacy alarmist, but this is a little scary.
:wq
Carousel is a lie!
We've had a huge surge in mobile phone crime recently in the UK, so this system could be quite useful.
It's be somewhat ironic if a criminal led the police to themselves by their own act of theft.
at least ppl cant use your phone if they steal it.
...find Bin Laden. Twice, every hour. I mean, face recognition based on the power of a mobile phone, how accurate can that be?
I wonder, if this system is ever going to be used, how long it will take before the cops get sick of all the false alarms and drop it again.
Surely this is going to have some major implications in terms of bandwidth? How much data would have to be transmitted in order to make a positive identification?
This article discusses a new 3-D computer vision system that uses infrared light to perform depth perception.
Seems like a pretty cool set up, right? Not quite.. start flipping through the timeline archives this guy has saved up (the "flo watch" button). As you click through, note how many times it seems like the cat would be permitted to enter, yet it comes up not letting him through the door. this day was a particularily bad day for the system. We, as humans, would have positively identified the cat properly. Computers, obviously, can't do that yet with any high accuracy.
Now granted "law enforcement" versions are going to be a wee bit more sophisticated, but if the cell phone version has even half the errors this cat detector does, are we ever gonna be able to put any faith into this technology?
Having convinced all but the government itself that he is an agent of the government, "Big Brother" is an expert fraudster and con merchant of Ponzi magnitude.
Police today revealed that Big Brother is none other than Jon Katz, frequent insurrectionist and unstable administrator of Slash Dot. From his cell, Katz explains: "Himmler himself said it -- you have to put the populace in a constant state of fear to keep them crying for blood. Or, in this case, to keep them reading and responding to my articles, in a constant state of angry adolescent testosterone-filled repression."
Further questioning revealed Katz' motives. "We needed to convince people to buy from Think Geek. However, there was little market for cliche posters and overpriced gadgets, so we had to convince the readership that such purchases would Protect Their Freedom And Rights. Only under these insane pretences was I able to put forth my suggestion for 'voluntary subscription' for this glorified low SnR newsgroup."
But where did it all go wrong? Apparently, Mr Katz was the prime mover in his own demise. He developed a "Big Brother"-sourced mobile identification system so reliable, so cunning, that it was even able to identify him. "I have to create this technology to keep people believing the government is really out to get them. I thought the police were donut-scoffing retards," regrets Katz, "So I didn't expect suspicion to be aroused when, disguised with moustache and false beard, my demonstration in an attempt to sell the technology to the local police chief identified me as 'Lord and Saviour Of All Mankind."
"In this post-9/11 world," continued Katz, "There is only room for one Larry Ellison." Upon uttering this name, the presiding officer told me that Mr Katz had meeting with his lawyer, and I had to leave the cell.
Slashdot's market value has plummeted since the news was leaked to high flying investors Tom A and Jerry B. Tom A explained, "I thought I was saving the planet by supporting Slashdot, so I used my pocket money to buy 100 subscriptions. Now I no longer see a threat to the American Way of Eating by corrupt government officials, I have lost interest entirely." Jerry B concurred, and promptly departed to activate his new copy of Windows XP.
And what happens when you or someone near you needs urgent medical assistance and there's no landline near by?
imho phone blockers are antisocial, and a bad, bad idea for lots of reasons
And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour Isaiah 3:5
I wish I could say something insightful and profound about this... all I can do is sigh as one more piece of news forces me to face the innevitable future completely lacking in privacy and anonimity. The ONLY way out of it is legislation against it. And post Sept 11, I just don't see that happening. I think it is going to take bold and equally in your face protesting to turn the trend around. Perhaps a lot of people wearing masks on a daily basis when in public.
[news for me, stuff that doesn't matter]
Ill never be able to even get on the road again!
All we needed were swerving SUV's playing pinball on the interstate with the other cars trying to call mom.
------------- I didn't know she was your sister I swear!
I'm not sure what use this would have in cell phone's kinda silly and pointless... But I do see how this would be great for cars, plains, and other vehicles..
"Hello Charlie, you are not authorized to drive this vehicle at these hours, please contact Bob or Samantha for assistance" Bob and Sam being Mom and Dad... perhaps even automatic radio transmition on detected entry of foreign (No not foreigners...) entry into a plains cock pit. Pilot has 5 minutes to contact ground control to cancel the jets from being scrambled....
I don't need my cell phone telling me hello every time it recognizes me, it's a tool. Let me use it like one.
Computational Madness in a round package.
this seems like a little bit of an overkill if it's primarily for security purposes...to me, a better (in terms of accurarcy) security implementation would be thumbprint identification...instead of having a mini camera scanning your mug (and those around you apparently), you should just be able to touch your thumb to the display screen to unlock the phone and use it...that seems a little more realistic (and less big brother-ish)...
of course then, we'll have a rash of people having their phones stolen and their thumbs cut off...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
The cell phones with cameras will only be used by law enforcement, not everyone.
Is a BS artist company. The products do not work as advertised. The problem isnt in the products tho, it is in the advertising.
Facial recognition works fine for security checks, where your face gets compared against a small database and the recognition software can be trimmed to rejecting people. The physical settings like lighting can provide the best possible conditions for the software to provide an accurate match, and people can try again if they get rejected.
It also works fine in finding possible matches for a photo in a database. Now you can trim the software to a high acceptance rate, and get a bunch of likely matches which you can sort manually.
But it does not work if you need to compare a large database like wanted libraries against a massive number of people because you cannot have it both be certain to trigger on the people it's interested in but not the people it doesnt want. You get a minimum of false positives and negatives which will become most of the triggers when you have a large dataset. A device which will be wrong almost all the time isnt useful.
Of course, the actual article is rather fuzzy about the use. If it's used for scanning suspects at the site to speed up police work, it will actually be useful. If it's used for scanning everyone the police passes it wont be. And with Visionics being involved in various of the spectacular post 9/11 'facial recognition' projects, I wouldnt be surprised if they attempt to pull another bullshit job.
Check out the Salon article about this. This is also a good writeup.
why not? This is nothing to do with using face recognition for access to the phone, though I imagine that would be a feature. This story is about using a phone as a portable surveilance camera with automatic recognition of "suspects"
-
And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour Isaiah 3:5
The Reg has a good article on the uses (part of an authentication scheme) and abuses (crowd scans) of face recognition.
Basically says that the software will deliver way too many false positives in an uncontrolled situation.
Anything you can do, I can do meta.
But knowing what I know about them (I was there 5 years) they most likely didn't have anything to do with creating this software. They are sooooo behind the times there, a technological iceberg. Lots of potential, no action. I am sure they could afford to buy a stake in these small companies with the money they saved from laying off the massive amounts of dead wood they allowed to hang on the corporate teat for years.
no sour grapes, just REAL glad I left.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
The MIPS don't need to fit inside of a cellphone. the cellphone needs to be able to communicate with another computer that has the desired capability, and that computer can be anywhere, anysize. The limiting issue is bandwidth & connectivity.
"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." --Napoleon Bonaparte
Is the false positives such a system would give. A false identification would put you in the position of being guilty until proven innocent. But worst of all, such a false positive could give law inforcement the right to search your house... computer... etc. What then if they find a copy of DeCSS, or coppies of copyrighted works for which you don't seem to have the originals or receipts?
"No he wasn't the guy the system said he was, but as luck would have it he's a cyberterrorist! Lucky we caught him!"
A system like this is begging to be used as a way of getting around probable cause and illegal search and seizure.
What if I forget to turn off my phone before I put it in my pants pocket, will it send out messages telling the police Yul Brynner has come back from the dead?
to make phones? Why have they suddenly decided to "fight crime" as well?
Regardless, it is a really good reason to have one of those cell phone microwave-signal blockers(NOT FCC approved, for obvious reasons)!
Since phones are primarily an audio device, wouldn't voice recignition be more feasible? I haven't heard much about voice metrics being used to verify identity, though sound interfaces are easier to install than video.
There has been a massive increase in violent cellphone thefts in the UK recently (predominantly in London). These have been escalating to the point where a woman was shot (in the head I believe) for her mobile. The major cotributing factor was the carriers dropping the price of SIM cards to £10 - allowing you to steal a phone, throw out the old SIM and pop in a new one very cheaply. Add to that the increasing marketing of latest and greatest phones as "must have" fashion items.
The government and police applied a little pressure on the carriers and manufacturer's to improve security, this is one such suggestion. Thumb and voiceprints are others - it depends on what the individual manufacturers will introduce.
As for scanning people in the street - get a grip! The technology for doing this is more hype than fact, as incidents (such as Tampa) have shown. Besides, scanning every person hanging around will use far too much energy for power-concious cellphone designers.
As for privacy - bollocks! There's no real difference between a cop on the street recognising your mug as opposed to a cop in a control room recognising your mug on a VDU.
Big Brother has always existed, these days he's just more efficient.
Hit the cell owner over the head, grab phone, hold phone away from you, apply duct tape, use phone? Am I missing something here?
Today's top requirement for mobile phones is still not featurism, it's BATTERY LIFE. Well, after basic telephony, anyway. You need minimum one full day of battery life or you're toast in the market. Usually you need more, at least upwards of a week.
Now, switch to one of the most processor-intensive task known to man: image recognition for biometrics in a real environment.
Then, switch back to the low-power, low-capacity processors of mobile phones (reference; they're usually loaded to capacity when codecing radio AND infrared at the same time).
Are you trying to tell me that THIS guy (pointing at the mobile phone) will run THIS application (pointing at face recognition software) IN THE BACKGROUND, ALL THE TIME?
I don't know what you're smoking, but you damn well oughta share some.
And who is gonna foot the bill to put all this crap into what I hope by the time this is out a god damn tiny cell phone?
-Adma
You: (glancing at PDA) Um, just sorta heard it.
Miko O'Sullivan
The headline did say Mug shots. So the only faces recognized will be those which are filed in the Post Office and police department.
Hmm.. somehow, I doubt the resolution of cameras in cell phones will be anything near that capability.
Maybe good enough to tell if someone is wearing the smilie face tshirt, but not rapid facial recognition!
What if I were to tape a photo to the "eye" of my phone? It would report that Bill Clinton, Sammy Hagar, or even Ted Bundy was using my phone. (Although not necessarily in that order for my preference.)
This artical should be from the take-the-electrical-tape-off-the-VCR-and-put-it-on -the-cellphone dept.
But seriously, I think that the world has too many dolts with video cameras walking around allready. I have a feeling that a system like this would be abused. I assume that the raw data would be sent back to a few central servers in the bacement of the telcos and processed there. What's to prevent them from keeping a record of the matches alond side a time code and of corse the cell site. I see the posibilities of tracking people who might chose not to cary a cellphone specificly to avoid tracking. And yes I relize that there are cameras all over the place allready, but they are not ALL linked together.
Face recongition is a joke at best it's a very unrelibale tech by it's very nature and if it did work it would be too bigbrother.A voice ID or even thumb scan would be far more reliable and user friendly and cost a whole lot less to implatment I'd use a scrambled data in the data bases and a would scramble the data at the source with something like blowfish or better so there would be no fear of your biometrics being used for anything else.Personaly I think face reconigtion should be trashed for all security appilcations there are better more fool proof /error proof and less invasive ways.
If I was was the motorola CEO I'd kill the project asp and can all the people involed for wasting reasorces on a white elephant.
it's about being lousy with faces.
I'd pay big dollars for a device that would recognize people I'd met in the past and pull up their contact file. If it was standardized I'd happly attach my facal geometery to my vCard to make it easier.
If I want to go rob a bank, I'd be planning to wear a mask anyway.
I remember a Superbowl where Visionics had a lot of real cameras running.
But the system didn't work and had a lot of false negative and false positive recognitions. As the logs later showed the operators in effect cut it off after two days.
So now we want cellphones ringing like bad car alarms. Gees.
You are NOT on the wrong track. These posters are in every likelihood programmed zombie clones who believe that certain trucks are, 'Like a Rock', 'McDonald's Makes You Smile', and who, 'Just Do It'. --Either that, or they are Cointelpro agents assigned to keeping the bias and percieved popular opinion on Slashdot in the far, far right on sensitive issues. (--Naturally I'm just joking about the agents. Programmed zombie people are more than enough to get the job done.)
I don't give a hoot about how such morons interpret privacy law. Having my face scanned, databased and tracked by tax funded agencies while I walk through a public area is creepy and fascist. Period.
It's the "Spirit of the Law", you twits!
-Fantastic Lad
It seems that technology does this a lot these days. You take a perfectly normal, legal activity. Apply technology to enhance it. Suddenly, you get something big and scary, that a lot of people become frightened of. Here are some examples.
1) Copying tapes and sharing them with your friends: More or less legal, under fair use rules. Add technology to the mix, and you have something that could (potentially) ruin an entire industry. (Artists would have to resort to actually performing to earn money! IMHO is a good thing.)
2) A few cops around the city, looking out for bad guys: This is good. And legal. Add technology to the mix, suddenly you have cheap videocameras on every street corner and public place, hooked up to a central database server. You can't fart without a computer cataloging it and adding it to your file. This seems legal, but is very frightening.
There are other examples I'm sure, but I'm still too sleepy to think of them.
To understand why privacy is critical to democracy, think of this analogy. The right to the secret ballot. If you had no right to privacy in the voting booth, people in power will know how you vote, and could then use their power to push you around. Now imagine, that instead of knowing how you voted, powerful people just can call up everything about you, your likes and dislikes, where you go, who you talk to, and your deep personal opinions. All at the push of a button.
In my opinion, this is just as harmful to democracy as losing the secret ballot. Imagine how easy it would be for Chinese officials to round up people with opposing political views if they had all this future technology.
With technology in the mix, nobody, nowhere, will have the power to change a bad government system unless we act now to ensure it.
To all of the oh-my-gosh-I-can't-be-secret-anymore posts:
Unless you have committed a crime. Why would the fed/police/gov want to track you? I mean the police are overworked as it is, why would they want to track people that they have no reason to be suspicious of?
I'm refusing to be paranoid until I have a good reason to do so.!
The Anti-Blog
Ubiquitous face recognition in public places is invasive and fascist. The number of nasty people we need to be 'protected' from is insigificant. But I'm sure somebody will blow up another building or two in order to close the sale of this bullshit.
-Fantastic Lad
Why?
Police are bad, but they're necessary in small doses, because criminals are bad too. Much like chemotherapy is bad for you, but so is cancer.
Imagine now, your "walking police databases" on every second street corner, watching everyone. Keeping tabs on everyone. Comparing notes. Making files and dossiers on whomever they chose. It worked for the USSR for 80 years. The old method works great for China. Police state works good for Cuba.
Now imagine if they had this tool. The word Freedom would be a fart in the wind.
So explain to me why this tool would be good to have in a free democratic country? Explain to me how this would *ONLY* be used to catch criminals and terrorists. I want to know.
Verizon Guy: Can you see me now?...Good.
Verizon Guy: Can you see me now?...Gooooood.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
"By extending facial recognition capabilities to a wireless device, Motorola, Visionics and Wirehound have answered the demands of mobile law enforcement officers"
Yes, I have no doubt that law enforcement officers would like to know who I've just loaned my mobile phone to. But I don't really belive this is something I would like them to be able to do with my phone.
I say this even having had a mobile stolen, along with a (new) laptop (sniff!). I am aware that criminals (i.e. biker gangs in Canada) use mobiles extensively to communicate, and that spying in this way would give the "good guys" a lot more power... but I'm quite happy having their power limited.
Honestly.. who would want to pay for such a "feature"?
---Nathaniel
this is like cool.. but when i think about the things it could be .. (me and my overactive imagination) it is kinda scary .. i just think they should test it and make some sort of contract when they release it saying they will not use it for anything you know .. but then why would they really want to . you know .. who knows . hehe i am kinda sleepy so i willl quit rambling
Yours Truly, Wes -- Owner
My complaint about Dick Cheney:
May I be cynical for a bit? I hope you don't mind,
but with Cheney's latest barrage of
malodorous notions, I can't resist the urge to make a
few cynical comments. To get right
down to it, some of the facts I'm about
to present may seem shocking. This
they certainly are. However, it's time that a few
facts had a chance to slip through the fusillade of hype.
What's my problem, then? Allow me to present it
in the form of a question: Where are the people
who are willing to stand up and acknowledge
that Cheney, in his infinite wisdom, has decided
to destroy the natural beauty of our parks and forests?
On the surface, it would seem to have something to do
with the way that his whole approach is repugnant.
But upon further investigation, one will find that
by allowing Cheney to put mephitic thoughts in our
children's minds, we are allowing him to play puppet master.
As for the lies and exaggerations, Cheney's
epigrams are rife with contradictions
and difficulties; they're entirely maladroit,
meet no objective criteria, and are unsuited
for a supposedly educated population.
And as if that weren't enough, if Cheney is going to
obstruct important things, then he should at least have
the self-respect to remind himself of a few things: First, a
true enemy is better than a false friend. And
second, many people respond to his debauched vituperations
in much the same way that they respond to television
dramas. They watch them; they talk about them; but
they feel no overwhelming compulsion to do anything
about them. That's why I insist we pronounce the truth
and renounce the lies.
Even people who consider themselves scornful
foolhardy-types generally agree that Cheney's slurs
symbolize lawlessness, violence, and misguided rebellion
-- extreme liberty for a few, even if the rest of us
lose more than a little freedom. One might conclude
that Cheney is incapable of writing a letter without using
such phrases as "crapulous pop psychologists", "loquacious
exhibitionists", "oppressive personae non gratae", or
some combination thereof. Alternatively, one might conclude
that Cheney has a different view of reality from the rest of us.
In either case, if you're not part of the solution,
then you're part of the problem. His historical record of
fickle pleas is clearer than the muddled pronouncements
of his apple-polishers for a variety of reasons. For
instance, the worst sorts of inconsiderate Neanderthals there
are must be treated with political justice, not with
civil justice, as they are sincerely not real citizens. Let me
rephrase that: I wonder if he really believes the
things he says. He knows they're not true, doesn't he?
A complete answer to that question would
take more space than I can afford, so I'll have to give
you a simplified answer. For starters, if
we let him cause riots in the streets, then greed,
corruption, and tribalism will characterize the government.
Oppressive measures will be directed against citizens.
And lies and deceit will be the stock and trade of the
media and educational institutions.
Even Cheney's bedfellows couldn't deal with the full impact of
Cheney's refrains. That's why they created "Cheney-ism," which is
just a garrulous excuse to force square
pegs into round holes. He plans to drag everything
that is truly great into the gutter. He has instructed
his votaries not to discuss this or even admit to his
plan's existence. Obviously, Cheney knows he has
something to hide. Most of you reading this letter
have your hearts in the right place. Now
follow your hearts with actions. I have traveled the length and
breadth of this country and talked with the best people. I can
therefore assure you that Cheney's artifices cannot stand on
their own merit. That's why they're dependent on elaborate
artifices and explanatory stories to convince us that Cheney's
warnings can give us deeper insights into the nature of
reality. We can and we must protect ourselves by any means necessary against the unrestrained bestiality of stupid, quasi-macabre paper-pushers. And that's the honest truth.
Do you mean Facist like the German Nationalist SOCIALIST Party?
a ksa/200 2/metaksa03-26-02.htm
Please, feel free to see what true right wingers think of these schemes here:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/columnists/met
There are plenty of others.
We right wingers favor protection of everybody to speak AND have privacy from the government. Unlike the leftists, like yourself, Hitler, Stalin, campus faculty/staff, etc.
So, no thank you, I prefer to have a government police force too small to launch schemes like this and I do prefer to protect myself with my own weapons rather than the big brother scheme that the left both advocates (funds) and chastises (to get personal funding).
Newsflash: Other countries have constitutions too!
What makes you think I was interpreting your constitution in the first place? The internet does extend beyond your borders you know... (At least for now.) I only mentioned the USA in passing as an example... I'm not even in the USA, why should I be an expert on your constitution. My post is applicable to any free and democratic country that has a constitution in any form.
And what it meant, is that privacy is becoming a very important issue, because new technology is becoming capable of erasing privacy in very scary ways, perhaps to the point of threatening freedom and democracy. And I also meant, that people should vote and guarantee privacy in whatever way they can, while they still can. Whether it's enshrining a "right", or adequately restricting their gov't, that doesn't matter. We'll leave constitutional nit-picking to the lawyers.
It's good you understand your own constitution. Do you think it's enough to protect your country from the future threat this technology brings? I hope so.
Bork!
P.S. If the people of the USA really wanted the constitution to become a list of rights and privileges of the people, they could make it so. Not a bad idea, on the face of things...
If it'll put people off stealing the phones it's worth it - mind you I'm sure it wouldn't be long before someone would find a way round it - and what would you do when you sold the phone?
Video Game cheats, hints a
Calling a restaurant:
- Would you have a table at 19:00 ?
:)
I dunno about everyone else, but if I could have a phone that would remind me of who people I knew... even if i had to tell it which person was which before hand, it would be invaluable...
:-P
i have a horrible memmory when it comes to remembering who is who...
then my only difficulty would be trying to look at my phone before someone realized i didn't know them right off..
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
Explain to me why the FBI has files on so many innocent celebrities. Explain to me why they have files on so many civil rights workers. Explain to me why they have files on so many random people.
I recall the case of a librarian who found out about the Freedom of Information Act. As a lark she wrote to the local FBI office and requested a copy of her file. They wrote back and refused to provide it because she was the subject of an active investigation, but said her file was 12 pages long. HUH? She was an *assistant* *librarian*. Her life was about as interesting as that sounds.
My uncle works in the defense industry. I stayed with him for a couple of months during the summer when I was 16. My aunt and I used to get followed around shopping malls by ridiculously obvious guys in trenchcoats. We thought it was funny and would just walk into Victoria's Secret and watch them get embarassed and leave, but nevertheless it was a waste of resources: we didn't (and don't) have any access to any sensitive materials, and we were doing very innocent shopping. Someday I will write to the FBI and see if it was indeed them, just out of curiosity.
I'll trust the feds/police/government to responsibly choose who to investigate/track when hell freezes over.