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Your Fingerprint Buys Groceries in Seattle
lildogie writes: "The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that a Thriftway grocery store is installing fingerprint scanners that they will use to identify customers." Each customer's payment method (credit, debit) is then automatically applied at checkout. Haven't they seen Charlie's Angels?
"Citizen #31842785 purchased one gallon of milk, one bottle of aspirin, and.. oh wait, a pornographic magazine! Let's get the warrant quickly so we can protect this citizen's neighbors from his deviant activities. While we're waiting for the warrant, let's bug his phones, interogate his lawyer, and have his house searched so he can't expose anyone else to his sick mind while we're waiting for the warrant so we can bring him to the Thought Purification Center. You know, we really shouldn't need a warrant for this, it's for the good of the nation."
-This has been a John Ashcroft production.
All events in the preceeding story are fictional, until we can get around this ridiculous Bill of Rights with a new law entitled, "The Patriotic, Being Nice, Love, Protection, Good Feelings Act." (or any other name that sounds too warm and fuzzy to vote against.)
(mod me down if you like, but this is exactly what some people would like to happen. 1984 isn't just a book any more.)
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
The real problem will be, that people trust technology blindly.
Or, as in your case, they are terrified to death of technology they don't understand, and will do everything in their power to suppress to it.
Isn't this the old "you're going to get raped, you might as well lie back enjoy it" argument, applied to advertising? Wouldn't it be better to find a way to get rid of the advertising? Or have commercial interests so compromised society that such a thing is no longer even thinkable?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.