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U.S. Biometric Passports By Late 2004
truthsearch writes "The Register is reporting 'Current plans call for the new passport books to include a contactless smart chip based on the 14443 standard, with a minimum of 32 Kbytes of EEPROM storage. The chip will contain a compressed full-face image for use as a biometric. European biometric passports, by contrast, are planned to feature both retinal and fingerprint recognition biometrics on their smart cards.' How they tie this to '9/11 fears' is curious considering the hijackers had valid paperwork."
Iris scanning is possible from a bit farther away click here for info and facial scanning from even further away.
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
I love the quote "you can read a chip and confirm its validity, but you cannot create one. That is the beauty of public key technology," from the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Passport Services. So they will digitally sign the data, how long will it take for some entity to crack the key and then they can sign the new passport. Once the key is cracked will the US government revoke all passports signed with that key?
I can imagine the h@x0r application W1NPa55P0r7 -- with a USB camera and a simple EEPROM burner you can make your own passport.
Since all the verification information is digital how will a simple security guard check to make sure you didn't just create a simple passport mimic circuit? At least with a physical passport a forgery requires printing equipment and skills that can't be purchased for under $20.00 at BestBuy.
The trouble with most of these types of security measures is they offer no real security above what we already have.
One basic concept of security is you never trust the client -- verify everything! All these security measures have all the data stored on the client! To make this more secure, each passport should contain a unique id and each passport check point should be networked to a central database. The passport reviewer would then see the picture stored on the passport, the picture stored in the central database, and the face of the person standing in front of him. If there are any discrepancies simply punch his ticket for Camp X-Ray.
And please tell me where it says I don't have a right to demonstrate anonymously?
The very concept of free speech revolves around anonymity. Pamphleting was upheld by the Supreme court to be a necessarily anonymous activity, for the pamphleteer could be subject to persecution (think Tom Paine).
There won't be any protests if the protesters know that a mad administration is cataloging their names. And that's the whole idea of cataloging the protestors... isn't it? To get them off the streets, and shut them up.
This administration already has come up with the idea of a "first amendment zone". You see, if the Appointed President is scheduled to show up in public, the Secret Service calls the local law. The local law will set up a pen, usuallly a mile or more away from the AP's speech location, in which all protestors are required to stay.
Needless to say, Republicans are bussed in from the burbs if necessary to swell the AP's crowd numbers. And no protestors are in evidence.
Back in the Pen, or First Amendment Zone, the cops and the Secret Service set up cameras on tripods and recording equipment galore, all pointedly pointing at the traitorous ones.
Imagine if Clinton had penned up and cataloged the Monicaites. I can't imagine it, 'cause the local law and the SS would never have done it. But for a 'publican? No problemo!
In such a situation, privacy is obviously being removed in order to intimidate any future protestors from ever trying to protest Bush ever again.
After all, imagine what could be done with that info the SS are gathering. Employers could be called, a goodly majority of which are hard-right 'publicans. A large number of people in the U.S. have been fired already because they disagreed with Bush in public. That info is obviously going into an "enemies of conservatives" file somewhere, as well. Who has this info? WHY do they have it, and who the hell told them they could pen up people and catalog their identities?
Where the hell are the reporters? No one seems to care.
This is why the Ninth Amendment regarding unlisted rights not specifically enumerated exists: the right to privacy does indeed exist, altho not listed specifically. The government is not only bound by rights enumerated, but implied.
If this does not seem to go over well with the radical right, then we do need to enumerate our rights with new laws. The pity is, those laws can be rescinded, whereas the Constitution cannot be, easily anyway.
The United States Supreme Court said it in:
FOUNDATION, INC., et al. No. 97-930
DECEASED v. OHIO ELECTIONS COMMISSION No. 93-986
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