Virginia Beach Goes For Facial Recognition

Raven42rac writes " It appears that my hometown, Virginia Beach, after summarily rejecting those ridiculous facial recognition cameras, has recently become the second city in the nation to use them. (Yay we're number 2, pun intended.) Citing the ubiquitous 'everything is different now after 9-11' defense that has become ever popular in yanking away our rights and liberties. The whole shebang is explained in this article from my local newspaper's website, and unlike some online newspapers, this one is completely free, and no registration is required."

Comments

Re:This sucks man

[shdragon]

I have an example for you. I do a lot of promoting for various production companies / clubs (read: d&b warehouse parties and such) around town. Now, since the 9/11 attacks the police (local, county AND storm^H^H^H^H^H state troopers) have used various recent terrorist related legislation to prevent/shut down/stop the event. Usually citing how we "support drug dealers and terrorists". In the past, it has always been fire code violations, permit "problems". All of which are bogus, but we would have to argue in court to allow it but by then the event date has already passed and it becomes a moot point. Recently a bunch of promoters were "invited" by the DEA and basically they tried bullied them around into "helping" them shutdown various events and crackdown on various (un-named) people THOUGHT to be drug dealers. This invitation was backed up by a friendly letter that said they would be investigated for "supporing terrorist related activities" under the USA PATRIOT Act.

I (as well as my friends / others that were working at these events have been threatened with arrest if we did not comply with their orders. Some of my friends chose to be arrested and a couple are currently suing. I chose, and continue to choose to comply and pursue a different means of protest. The scary part is that when we do shut down and tell the people WHY we had to shut down an alarming amount of them just accept it as "Well, if it stops the terrorists..."

Now please explain to me how this "giving up liberty for security" is FUD.

side note: you shouldn't have been moderated down as a troll. This whole thread has actually revived my faith in slashdot's ability to carry on interesting/followable debates.