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Brill's Contentious ID Card
pwackerly writes "The New York Times (illegal kidney sale required) is running a story on a private venture funded by the man behind CourtTV to sell ID cards that let you bypass security, both national (airports) and private (your business's lobby). Outside of the standard national ID concerns, now we'd have to worry about a terrorist stealing our super-secret ID from our wallet. Don't these people learn anything from reading 'Mostly Harmless?'"
Don't Terrorize the Homeland without It!
Don't these people learn anything from reading 'Mostly Harmless?'
Of course they did, they learned how to bilk gullible people out of money...
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
- 'cos these are the ID cards I'd vote for!
I, for one, accept our new ID card thief overlords. ...if anyone needs me, I'll be dipping my head in arsenic. ^.^;
Bít, zabít, jen proto, ze su liska!
Google link for NYT Story and of course the NYT Random Login Generator
.sig
You never seen Monty Python's "Live Organ Transplants" then? ^_^
...I'd buy one in a second. If it cut 15 minutes off my check in time at the airport, it would be well wroth it.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
...that these aren't the sort of people who read Douglas Adams.
This way we don't have to worry about poor terrorist... just rich one's with the capital to buy bombs.
Boy does that take a load off my mind. Thanks card inventor guy!
Damn! I sold one already!
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
is that Terrorist groups will start recruiting people who are not on a watch list and who have not convicted of a felony. If airlines use it for easy check-in, then you may as well call it the Shoe Bomb permit.
They can bypass the national security systems with a card but they can't get past the New York Times registration page.
Trolling is a art,
It seems those who are influential enough in government to fund quicker security at airports are the same ones who'd receive these ID cards.
So, you let all the influential people slide by quickly, and they'll never realize there's a real problem. I say let the influential people deal with the wait the same way we do, and then hopefully they'll do something about it.
Google link, no organ trading required.
Is that their are people with these cards before who could bypass security while us poor shmoes have to go through security!!
-Seriv
How, though, do they intend to verify that those applying for these cards really have the "credentials" being given to them? Background searches on that kind of a scale would be an extremely intensive undertaking for any organization. Furthermore, there is no way this could be done for the $30 or $50 mentioned in the article. They could, I suppose, require the applicant to submit proof that they meet the requirements for obtaining one of these cards, but then that raises a new problem: falsified records/information. "He said that the system was probably unworkable." I'd say so.
"Aye, and if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a wagon!" -- Montgomery Scott, ST:III
"Ohhhh, I'm much to important to bother myself with following the behaviors needed to ensure a civil society." This guy probably talks on the cellphone while driving his SUV.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
coolest thing I could buy since that elevator pass in high school...oh, wait...
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
Read it, didn't learn shit (except to avoid events that time travelers have alerted me will occur hence stalling my own demise.)
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
They would have to cut your hand too, since the card will be linked to fingerprint scanners according to the article.
Can be done.
Sure hope these cards have a picture on them though. Possibly a digitally stored fingerprint.
- Sherman
Please read my username and comply. Thanks.
With a government-issued ID you'd have clear standing to challenge a denial of "trusted" status in Federal Court. As private sector decisions, standing to bring a Civil Rights action is ambiguous.
Ben Masel: 51,282 votes for US Senate in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary
How naive. If it quacks like a national ID card, it's probably a duck trying to bypass security. Quick, increase to threat level fowl!
$30 to $50 dollars just to sign up and "a couple of dollars a month". It's could be a license to print money. Can you say "Monopoly", I knew you could.
This kind of card would only be "fair" if the modified free market is allowed to operate. You don't have to buy your server certificates from Verisign (of course the way that they bought other companies, it's hard not to), so why should all the card readers at public spots focus on one company's authenication system
Besides, as states tend to get more and more info on their id cards (aka drivers licences), the "need" for a separate system is becoming a moot point. Already some bars will "swipe" an ID rather than just look at the picture (also getting addresses, age and other data into their database).
Overall, I don't think that it will work, you might be able to get a couple of states to sign on but the cost is too high for the average person and it will be an "elite" privledge which will get lampooned in the public.
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
". . .rendering it essentially useless as a form of identification. . ."
As it should be for any purpose other than operating a motor vehicle on public roads.
KFG
Venture to Offer ID Card for Use at Security Checks
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
Published: October 23, 2003
mericans hate to wait. But will they pay - and submit to security screenings and even high-technology fingerprinting - to avoid the long lines snaking behind checkpoints in airports, office buildings and sports arenas?
Steven Brill is betting that the answer is yes. Mr. Brill, a journalist and entrepreneur, will announce today a new company, Verified Identity Card Inc., which will offer customers an electronic card containing data showing that they are not on terrorism watch lists and do not have certain felony convictions on their records.
If businesses, airports and government agencies sign on to the plan and put Verified's card readers at security checkpoints, cardholders would be able to zip through, avoiding the most thorough searches.
Mr. Brill, who created CourtTV and The American Lawyer and Brill's Content magazines, joins a wave of companies hoping to fill a need and make a profit as government agencies and businesses scramble to shore up defenses against terrorism.
The card, he said, could serve as a more palatable alternative to a government-mandated national ID card, which is opposed by privacy advocates and the Bush administration.
Although the idea of a voluntary identity verification network is not new, Mr. Brill's is the highest-profile effort to bring about such a system. He has enlisted the Civitas Group as an investor. Civitas is a Washington company headed by Michael J. Hershman, a security consultant. Its co-chairmen are Samuel R. Berger, national security adviser in the Clinton administration, and Charles Black, a former senior adviser to President Ronald Reagan and the first President George Bush.
Other partners include Lehman Brothers; TransCore, the company that created the E-ZPass electronic toll system; and ChoicePoint, a Georgia company that will screen the customers.
Mr. Brill declined to discuss how much money he had raised or how much the start-up of the company would cost.
He said that customer data would not be sold or shared with other companies, and the system could not be used to track customer movements from checkpoint to checkpoint. He did say, however, that the company would probably alert law enforcement officials about an applicant whose name appears on a terrorist watch list.
He also said he planned to seek an independent ombudsman appointed by a privacy rights organization to monitor the company's privacy practices.
Those promises do not satisfy Marc Rotenberg, who heads the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. "I don't think it will necessarily come as an assurance to most Americans that a Big Brother card is being minted in the private sector and not in the government," he said.
He said that the system was probably unworkable. In any case, he said, it would have to be developed and deployed in close cooperation with the government, and would thus end up sharing many characteristics with the unpopular national ID card. "If it walks like a national ID card and quacks like a national ID card, it's a national ID card."
Matt Blaze, a cryptography and security expert at AT&T Labs-Research, warned that a central database could become an attractive target for subversion. "The card has to be almost perfect or it becomes worse than useless, because it provides a single point of failure for multiple security systems," he said.
Lawrence A. Ponemon, a privacy consultant based in Tucson, said that managing privacy while providing accurate identification raises remarkably complex issues. A flawed system could, for example, unfairly bar people who should have been approved. Still, Mr. Ponemon said he was glad to see the private sector tackle the problem.
Mr. Brill said that he got the inspiration for the company while working on his book, "After: How America Confronted the September 12th Era." He said that as he worked on the book and the security i
Heres an artcle on the same subject at Reuters but without the need to register to view it. http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=te chnologyNews&storyID=3678908§ion=news
This would open the door to other companies selling ID cards. Eventually there would be enough producers of these cards to allow disreputable produces to slip through. A few of these would be discovered thereby reducing the credability of them all. Causing the government to take over.
In short, this is just a step in the road to government issued ID cards.
Just because you're not a terrorist when you buy your "I'm a good citizen" card, doesn't mean you won't be as soon as the card's in your wallet.
I could buy my card, and knowing that I won't be patted down at the airport, smuggle on a pointy stick or other "device of terror" and go to town. BAAAaaad idea Brill....and nice suspenders, btw. [snicker]
Jesse Newland
A single identity card that would allow you to bypass invasive security screening. Because obviously, if you've never done anything wrong in the past, you clearly won't in the future.
I have to agree with all the people who are pointing out that this introduces a single point of failure into any system that honors it, but what's worse is that it seems to ignore the point of security checkpoints, which is not so much to merely identify people as it is to prevent the entry of weapons into a vulnerable area REGARDLESS of their identity.
be the influential people would they....love circular logic, I say let those willing to sell their freedom do so. The best solution is to just steal an identity, get one of these cards in that name and enjoy the benefits :)
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I agree completly.
You should Slow down, take a deep breath, wait for your knee to stop jerking, then write.
RTFA
Looks like the submitter didn't RTFA. From the article:
"The cards will be linked to their owners through finger- and thumb-print scans at security turnstiles."
It's relatively simple with current technology, to scan and verify fingerprints and other unique identifying features instantly with a high degree of reliability. Infact, we had an experimental setup at a school I went to, where the skeletal outline of your palm was verified against the one stored in the database. It was painless, and from what I hear, quite reliable.
I'm neither for nor against the idea at this point, but I like the part about it being voluntary, as opposed to a compulsary big brotherly ID card.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
We aren't looking for terrorist, so how will this card further increase our risk?
Until the government gets off its PC centric ass and starts looking for terrorist instead of weapons we might just as well mark airline tickets as shoe bomb permits.
It wasn't a shoe bomb or razor blade that flew airliners into buidlings.
This card just falls under the current "safety" situation. We want to feel safe, we just aren't willing to do what is needed to be safe.
Let them have their quick checkin card, its not like their time is more important than their safety anyway.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
So, when they screw up your records, it's not just your credit rating or phone service that's screwed up, it's your entire life. Forget about trying to get them to correct things--if you complain, you are obviously a trouble-maker and a terrorist. And think of all the wonderful "marketing tie-ins" that will come with this.
Give me a government run national ID card system any day over that. Institutions like the INS or IRS may be a pain to deal with, but they don't sell my data (well, not as much), and sooner or later, they have to put their records in order. Even Ashcroft and Ridge and their agencies are subject to more public controls than any private outfit.
is going to be blowing up the White House you can get red carpet treatment for $50 (plus a few).
Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!
KFG
If someone bypasses security in the lobby with this card and then goes on a shooting spree, could the company issuing the card be liable? What if they missed prior felony convictions in their background check?
-- Stanislav Shalunov
Who monitors this company who doles out these ID cards? Since this is Mr. Steven Brill's baby, does he essentially have the power to give himself and his friends (and perhaps those with a little too much cash on their hands) clean IDs?
Admittedly, I don't know how the public system works with regards to internal checks to the ID distribution system. However, if these companies were to become popular, this strikes me as an excellent opportunity to perceive each company as a weak link in an ever-weakening great chain.
Just because a person with one of these cards isn't a terrorist at the time the card is issued, doesn't mean they won't become one in the future. There would have to be a way to invalidate the card, which means that these card readers would have to be updated on some semi-frequent basis. (Not to mention that when the terrorist first gets denied at the gate, he will know that the government is on to him.)
Seems pretty unworkable to me.
Your mileage may vary, but mine is constant.
And how long before this is required by airlines and such?
"Sir, you cannot fly Delta Airlines if you do not have your privatized National ID card. What's that? You don't have one? Well, you must be a terrorist, because only terrorists wouldn't have one. Please remain calm, as authority figures have already been alerted and are en route as we speak."
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
So Rick, just stop reading NYT articles, OK? Go back to watching Fox News.
If I pay my money and fill out the application with completely fake information, is it a crime? Why?
If I miss my flight because the card and/or reader fails at the airport, will I be refunded? Why not?
Will the company indemnify me from losses if my fingerprint and card are stolen?
Once stolen, how long until all points in the system relying on this information are closed to my card?
Can an employer lawfully require me to get this card as a condition of employment?
Screw the ID cards, let's just skip right to microchip implants in the back of your neck. Think of all the time you could save!! You don't have to remember your ATM pin, just walk up to machine and you have access to your money. No waiting to pay at the store. It'd be great.. because no one who fits the security profile would ever turn out to be a terrorist. And of course, like all new technologies, it's sure to be infallible.
I hope we don't have to wait until 2060 for the next big counterculture movement.
The real player here is Choicepoint, whose database will be used to determine who gets an ID. That's right, the same folks Katherine Harris hired to purge the Florida voter rolls of "convicted felons" in 2000, striking thousands of mostly Black electors for having the same, or similar, names as actual felons.
(I'll trust the replies to provide links.)
Ben Masel: 51,282 votes for US Senate in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary
And not for the tinfoil hat security reasons, but because it undermines the ideals of equal justice under the law for all. Rich people should NOT be able to buy preferential security treatment. If the law is "everyone gets their anus searched for bombs", then we all get in the same line and have the same kind of search. Simply having the money to buy an ID card that "proves" you've got a clean anus isn't equal protection under the law, it's preferential treatment for sale.
And the same goes for people who claim that they should have it because they're frequent fliers -- that's just a way of abstracting the fact that you have a lot of money.
Any law should be applied as equally as possible, ESPECIALLY if the law is some national security measure that happens to be a major invasion of your privacy and a general pain in the ass like airport security.
NO special rights for the rich, ESPECIALLY no special security rights for the rich.
So use the same ID and password for all the stupid sites.
Pretty clever, huh? Bet you're sorry you didn't think of that.
For the lesser informed of us, who is this Brill character?
Th
It's optional.
And terrorism is not like inner-city gang crime, terrorists won't have a string of prior convictions. Most suicide bombers are not repeat offenders.
This is what comes next: miglaki
I also don't feel like filling in a bunch of lies on NYT forms; and I certainly don't want NYT junk mail (after all, I'm not in New York anyway); so these articles are pretty worthless to me.
I think a great product slogan has already been provided in the link to the story: ID cards that let you bypass security!
Who wouldn't want one?
If you read the article, you must have missed the reference to Choicepoint, who will screen their ALREADY EXISTING DATABASE before issuing a "safe" rating. All Brill is providing is the Sales and PR front.
Ben Masel: 51,282 votes for US Senate in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary
Sorry, that's not security. That's an invitation.
He was just kiddneying!
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
It's just like a national ID card, except we have to pay for them!
Considering that the Bin Laden family has had dealings with the Bush administration for the last ten years and he allowed the whole family to fly out of the country the day after 911; that the majority of the terrorists were Saudi and that the government is uber-cushy with these Saudis, you can bet the first people who get these bypass-scrutiny ID cards would be the very people most of us would be concerned about.
I know I feel safer already.
2) Frequent waiters buy cards to shorten their wait too.
3) The majority of waiters now have cards
4) Not enough people get screened
5) Screeners no longer alllow card holders a "free ride"
but hey, at least Brill and his investors get rich.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Waiting at airports for screening that solves only half the threat and can be bypassed easily is a problem. If someone wants to comondere an airplane or crash one in a populated area they can shoot it down or hijack it still.
The solution, of taking money to bypass the problem, is just stupid. "How else are we going to fund all of this?" the jackasses will ask us. How indeed?
The problem was stupid, the fix is easy - quit making the problem. Let people buy tickets with cash, get on with a simple metal and explosives sniff test and go. The costs of our reaction to 9/11 is several orders of magnitude more than the event itself. Restrictions on commerce screw everyone.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
So, the group of have's get to bypass the security checkpoints while the have-not's must endure hours of security checks. If the have's population is very small and limited to 'influential' people, and the have-not's represent a large percentage of the total population then I would be forced to call it class warfare.
I'm not saying the proposal has a malicious agenda, instead I'm trying to imagine what an ID card type system such as this one could evolve into given time.
Shh.
Let's offer a "bypass airport security" card and charge enough for it to pay to have agents tail anybody who purchases one full time, as they're the most likely terrorist suspects! While we're at it, maybe we can issue Bush's daughters "bypass liquor sales age check" cards! And how much would former Enron executives pay for a "get out of federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison free" cards?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Is that because of the subject or because Michael (hope that kidney was worth it) posted it?
Those who open their minds too far often let their brains fall out.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I fly a couple of times a month and I am always "randomly selected". Every single time. And the reason is that I fly:
This is the profile. Everyone knows this is the profile. Which is why the 9/11 highjackers flew:
...and this is the really nasty bit...First Class. Even fllowing the airlines current policy, there is no way the 9/11 highjackers would be subject to extra searches currently. Because they don't fit the "highjacker profile".
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
Okay, fine. What if you don't have a printable finger?
No, I'm not attempting to be facetious. There is a small, yet statistically signifigant percentage of the world's population (IIRC, around 2%) whose fingers just don't produce the patterns of whorls and loops in any usable form. Usually, the skin doesn't form deep enough ridges (result: a blurry, useless smudge.) There was an article carried in the local news a couple of years ago about a woman who was having troubles with the INS because she couldn't be fingerprinted, for just this reason. Also, there are those who have suffered severe burns. Scar tissue doesn't give a usable result, either. Or, what if an applicant is an amputee? I can see a potential loophole here that an ADA lawyer would give his/her left arm to exploit.
Much as I've come to dislike airport security (think you've been embarrassed by the screening process? Try having the underwire in your bra trip the metal detector), I've come to the conclusion that it really is one of the last few great equalizing experiences. Everybody suffers through it, regardless of who you (think you) are, and everybody should. IMN-S-G-D-HO.
Doing my level best to piss off the religious right wing...
I love reading these stories about how everyone wants to make a national id card, Oracke wants to run the database, IBM wants to provide the hardware etc...
As long as there is a centralized database of any kind, the potential for abuse is there. The only way that I would get a national ID card of some kind is if it were similar to the following:
The card would have to be a smart card, and store the following:
-An MD5 of my PIN number
-A "fingerprint" of my fingerprint (i.e. the datapoints that are stored instead of fingerprints themselves)
-A picture of myself (stored digitaly)
-I may or may not want info like eye color, hair color, weight, height etc.. I hesitate because I don't think they are particularly usefull in identification. I've never had anyone actually check my eye color when I present ID.. and I know women who change thier hair color more often than thier desktop background.
-Although I really dislike the idea of including it, my SSN will probably be necessaraly included. I'd prefer a MD5 of my ssn, and be required to key it in when necessary, but like income taxes the genie is out of the bottle and I don't see any act of congress to repeal SSN's coming soon.
This should cover the standard security pillars.. Something you have (the card), something you know (your pin) and something you are (fingerprint). Any one is easy enough to fake. Any two require some serious nastyness to get from you, and all three require some form of intimidation to get from you.
Now, all that info should be cryptographaly signed by some government agency. Preferably each location (or maybe each operator) that provides registration/card creation service would have its own private key to sign the information. That way, fradulent cards can be traced back to whomever signed them and they can be appropriately beaten and charged as a terrorist w/o due process.
Now, the most important thing is that.. this information must not be stored anywhere aside from on the card! If there is a uber database of everyones name, photo, ssn and fingerprint that just screams to be abused. This would still allow interoperatability with the watch list du jour via ssn's, and I believe it would even be approved by most privacy advocates.
Any improvement ideas? Post 'em!
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
If they actually manage to employ something like this, we should know if there is anyone on the plane we board that has bypassed security. I don't mind going through security and the hassel, but I do NOT want to fly on a plane that has anyone carrying one of these cards that has bypassed security. It's our right to know.
There will be good honest folks, true-blue Americans all, raised from the dead to provide verifiable identity, because no agency knows for sure who's dead yet.
....
... many ... many others. Politicians and CEOs will help build the future of America.
Then again in a few years they will get a big database going that identifies all the verified dead. The contract for the database will go to the Database American Future Technical (DAFT) Company who's parent company is "Patriotic Alliance" Halliburton Brown & Root
Anyway, DAFT subcontracts to small businesses in Pakistan and China will perform data entry as it is received from the US Deaths Agency that received the data from the FBI who verified the death from local municipal records.
Finally, corporate America will be able to issue ID cards to whoever walks through the door. This is not a job that politicians would want to have civil servants perform, because America Businesses do everything better then government employees. Examples: Global-Cross/Double-Cross, Enrun/AnRun with the money, Diebald/Scalped,
Hell, maybe Mexico (in 50 to 100 years) will eventually be able to invade and save US.
OldHawk777
Reality is a self-induced hallucination.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Hey, your trolling is improving and your hardly repeating your self. I can still tell it's you and I'd still probably reconize you across the street but one small step back for man, one giant leap for...
Surely you must have something better to do with your time other then harass these fine up standing youth from enjoying this most excellent day. You posting are mediocre at best but usually are just annoying. If your really hurting bad enough to cause some grief why not just twist a puppies paw or two. The result is the same and most importantly we don't have to read about your mundane life.
BTW God bless you and have a nice day.
have a thumb/iris reader along with the card to say that you are the person who is supposed to have the card. That way I show the card at the airport and they allow me to go through a turnstil which grabs my iris or thumb print and passes me.
Parent was not flamebait, you stupid sap.
This post is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Nice try, physics expert! You won't get me with this one!
From the New York Times registration page:
Get your facts straight, michael.
Well the reason the New York City councilman James Davis got killed is because certain people were able to bypass security measures. Therefore the gunman was easily able to do just that and then just shot Davis. If we have these cards, something like this may happen again.
Both behaviors trade EVERYONE'S safety for their convienence. (Granted, the SUV crack IS a stretch, but what country did those hijackers come from again? Where'd they get their funds?)
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Which is an interesting point, and true.
This post is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
First, Al Jazeera is a TV network, not a terrorist network. Second, our civil rights are designed to protect the unpopular, not just the people who follow the rules. If we start registering people who "are a risk to society" we have lost our rights. It is these people who threaten our society (founding fathers, MLK, Malcom X, Lenny Bruce, Hippies, Communists, Libertarians, etc.) who allow our open democracy to grow.
If you are truly a law abiding citizen with no strong political affiliations, the government is not going to be watching your backyard with spy satellites unless they mistake you for someone else. Therefore, if you truly want to protect your rights, protect the rights of the people the government "thinks" are committing bad acts.
LIVE, Love, die
Why should we, you didn't.
McFly777
- - -
"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?" -Marilyn Pittman
Like I need another card, between the Civilian CDL, the doctors exam certifacation, the army drivers lic, the military ID card, the Amature Radio lic., the Concealed weapons permit, the 2 gun club cards and 5 library cards... this will prove I am the person all these cards say I am...
I'm told you are what you eat, does that mean I can be you by tomorrow with some A1?
Yeah, how could anyone object to that?
Quite the contrary, my friend. Putting everyone through checkpoints to do anything only ensures that everyone gets treated like a terrorist -- guilty till proven innocent by the wave of the magic metal-detector wand. Except, that is, for the actual terrorists, who will no doubt have cased the weaknesses in the system long ahead of time and will have few hurdles to cross -- plastic explosives, anyone?
No, far more effective to root out evil at its source than to attempt to filter it once it's floating freely in society.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
So, upper class white people need special cards to be indentified? I mean I thought that being an old white dude was supposed to be like a special pass in and of itself, I mean, you have to be born into being a rich white dude, or have lots of expensive surgery? Why would these people need an ID to allow them to bypass security that they've already been bypassing?
Seriously, as others have said before the point of a security checkpoint is to check people, a lot of these radical elements use agents that have totally clean records. If a checkpoint is just letting people past because they have some stupid little card then the whole point of having the thing has just gone out the door, I mean it isn't like the checkpoint is some line rfor a ride at Disney World where you can pay an extra $200 (I have no idea how much) to get into a special fast lane thing. The security is there to prevent very bad things from happening.
I say that we label these people as terrorists, raid their corporate offices and send them off to Guantanamo, because this idea compromises national security more than any peace demonstrator or person who calls a spade a spade and a Dubya an idiot.
This is something I've never understood, all this talk about a national ID card, when we could very simply reduce the amount of IDs one carries, and maybe even save some money. How? How about a national driver's license to replace the state ones? The testing to get your license is Federal DOT mandated and regulated, so why not eliminate the middle man(the state) and just have the DOT handle testing and licensing? Use that one ID in turn to replace your SSC, Green Card, and Passport, an voila, less papers to keep tracked of, a national ID card, and perhaps some money saves(unlikely), in one fell swoop.
*--*
Woggle
(lost my password again)
....the Enron executives already paid for their "get-out-of-jail-and-maintain-physical-integrity" cards - isn't that what "campaign contributions" are for?
.. and go straight to body cavity check. Seriously, is anyone going to subscribe to this besides the terrorists?
Gee, the next thing we'll know is them suggesting that we have microchips put under our skin, so we can't complain about it getting stolen. Unless they wish to cut off our arms. But if someone were to put a microchip under skin, I'd worry about what else they secretly put with it, like what if they figured out a way to put a deadly virus in the chip to be released on command. But of course, I'm paranoid.
I seem to remember someone saying that the terrorists that participated in 9/11 received their tickets using their real names and all legitimate information. What's stopping this from happening with the ID cards? How many terrorists are in this country legally and not on any watch list?
Would Timothy McVeigh been given one of these? I'm guessing so. Oops!
The NYT -- which asks my identity every time I want to read their poetry, and which seemingly has an exclusive deal with /., since it beats all other fu-Beep-ng U.S. newspapers in referrals from /. -- carrying a newsstory about ID theft?
What next? An article on the ultimate protective device for paranoids?
Please! Somebody put captions in reality so I can start trying to understand...
`I'll do the jokes,' snarled Ford.
`No,' said [Vann Harl, editor-in-chief]. `You will do the restaurant column.'
He tossed a piece of plastic onto the desk in front of him. Ford did not move to pick it up.
`You what?' said Ford.
[...]
.
[Harl] `Every possible position of every possible electron balloons out into billions of probabilities! Billions and billions of shining, gleaming futures! You know what that means?'
[Ford Prefect] `You're dribbling down your chin.'
[...]
[Harl]`Excuse me,' he said, `but this gets me so excited.' Ford handed him his towel. `This is the most radical, dynamic and thrusting business venture in the entire multidimensional infinity of space/time/probability ever.'
`And you want me to be its restaurant critic,' said Ford.
`We would value your input.'
`Kill!' shouted Ford. He shouted it at his towel.
The towel leapt up out of Harl's hands.
This was not because it had any motive force of its own, but because Harl was so startled at the idea that it might. The next thing that startled him was the sight of Ford Prefect hurtling across the desk at him fists first. In fact Ford was just lunging for the credit card, but you don't get to occupy the sort of position that Harl occupied in the sort of organisation in which Harl occupied it without developing a healthily paranoid view of life. He took the sensible precaution of hurling himself backwards, and striking his head a sharp blow on the rocket-proof glass, then subsided into a series of worrying and highly personal dreams.
Ford lay on the desk, surprised at how swimmingly everything had gone. He glanced quickly at the piece of plastic he now held in his hand -- it was a Dine-O-Charge credit card with his name already embossed on it, and an expiry date two years from now, and was possibly the single most exciting thing Ford had ever seen in his life -- then he clambered over the desk to see to Harl.
He was breathing fairly easily. It occurred to Ford that he might breathe more easily yet without the weight of his wallet bearing down on his chest, so he slipped it out of Harl's breast pocket and flipped through it. Fair amount of cash. Credit tokens. Ultragolf club membership. Other club memberships. Photos of someone's wife and family -- presumably Harl's, but it was hard to be sure these days. Busy executives often didn't have time for a full-time wife and family and would just rent them for weekends.
Ha!
He couldn't believe what he'd just found.
He slowly drew out from the wallet a single and insanely exciting piece of plastic that was nestling amongst a bunch of receipts.
It wasn't insanely exciting to look at. It was rather dull in fact. It was smaller and a little thicker than a credit card and semi-transparent. If you held it up to the light you could see a lot of holographically encoded information and images buried pseudo-inches deep beneath its surface
It was an Ident-i-Eeze, and was a very naughty and silly thing for Harl to have lying around in his wallet, though it was perfectly understandable. There were so many different ways in which you were required to provide absolute proof of your identity these days that life could easily become extremely tiresome just from that factor alone, never mind the deeper existential problems of trying to function as a coherent consciousness in an epistemologically ambiguous physical universe. Just look at cash point machines, for instance. Queues of people standing around waiting to have their fingerprints read, their retinas scanned, bits of skin scraped from the nape of the neck and undergoing instant (or nearly instant -- a good six or seven seconds in tedious reality) genetic analysis, then having to answer trick questions about members of their family they didn't even remember they had, and about their recorded preferences for tablecloth colours. And that was just to get a bit of spare cash for the w
From the article:
Well, isn't it nice to know that they're at least considering the possibility of letting law enforcement know of potentially dangerous people getting hold of an Id card that would allow them to quickly bypass security.
Beyond that, I have no comments because, unlike much of the rest of this country, I actually have some patience. I will continue to arrive one hour and a half ahead of my scheduled departure time so that I can snake my way through the lines. As long as they don't become the only way to get through the various checkpoints in life, I don't mind the idea. The only concern I have is that a centralized database of information makes a very tempting target for nefarious individuals (particularly for money-making deeds). But, hey. That's not my problem since I won't be buying one.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Until the government...starts looking for terrorist instead of weapons...
What difference would that make? Apparently a college sophmore with no terrorist training (apart, I suppose, from what you pick up naturally by being a college freshman) was able to smuggle exactly the sort of items they are looking for through "security" not once, but several times.
So what does it matter what they look for, if they aren't able to find it?
-- MarkusQ
Let me guess, Sir Whacksalot was (is) the kid who got beat up all the time in school. This would explain a lot.
Exactly this flagging system is totally flawed. Let's pay special attention to the guys that look like xyz and do abc. Problem is once the bad guys figure out what your looking for they'll change. Now they'll look like the opposite of xyz and do the opposite of abc. The problem is they're not focusing on solving the real problems. The problems were :
1) No way for the pilots to protect themselves
2) No locked cockpit doors
No amount of searching and screening are ever going to prevent a weapon getting on an aircraft by a determined person. The human body is a weapon. Professional boxers for example can easily kill people with one single punch. Are we going to ban boxers from getting on planes? Let's focus on securing the cockpits and the pilots.
Well, how about just banning Mike Tyson?
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO
I'm of the opinion that the parent post was moderated down simply because it happened to be a first post by an anonymous coward. However, it doesn't do the typical "first post" yelling, it doesn't otherwise pander, and while I suppose kidney sales and dead bodies aren't directly on topic, it's an attempt at humor related to the actual entry (e.g. he does mention kidney sales). It might not be the funniest comment ever, but I'd be willing to bet if Wil Wheaton happened to post it it would be moderated up rather than down.
Just food for thought.
This is just an example of the "Carnival Booth" algorithm for identifying which of your terrorist buddies are on the watch list.. and which are NOT. Then the guy not on the watch list can safely board a blame, knowing he will probably not be searched.
"Carnival Booth: An Algorithm for Defeating the Computer-Assisted Passenger Screening System"
cpeterso
So, Taco, how about a "NYT" topic for all these stories, so we can filter them out?
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
It never ceases to amaze me about the stupidity of others.
How can they think this? How will this be secure? How do they get into these jobs? Why havent they won a darwin award yet?
Why doesn't the US government actually hire someone who KNOWS something about security first.
-two sigs are better than 1
imagine if Dick Cheney is the smart one!
"You're on my side and the dark side, like Lando Calrissian?" --Gimpy, Undergrads
Our personal freedoms are restricted too much as it is. I'd rather live my life with a chance of being blown up by a terrorist rather then live in a police state.
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
Dead men don't need royalties
This is like the cards they used to sell that "certify" the bearer tested negative for HIV.
Never mind what has happened since the card was issued, especially if the card was used to do things you wouldn't do with someone who wouldn't pass the test.
Don't these people learn anything from reading 'Mostly Harmless?'
Well, it's probably hard for people who presumably get laid with regularity to get any book-larnin'
Emacs: for people who just never know when to
1. Complaining about NYT registration is now considered whining, as the registration is free, you don't need to use real info, and in every NYT submission someone always posts NYT login information.
2. Jokes about NYT registration are not funny, because the requirements are not onerous.
I'm sure it seems unfair to have to do anything to gain access to world-class content, but really it's not. Thank you in advance.
Completely off-topic, but I laughed myself hoarse at this:
Emperor Buh
Maybe I should ask my American friends if they're planning to vote for "President Buh" next year...
I found it interesting that the guy behind this partners with the people who made EZ-Pass. I have driven the roads in NJ. EZ-Pass was and continues to be a complete and total disaster that has cost more in new expenses than the revenue that would have been lost if tolls were simply abolished in this state. If EZ-Pass is behind this, I am sure it will be an "EZ-Pass" for terrorists...
Suppose you live in a country where everyone has an RFID tag implanted in the back of their necks.
You meet a good-looking member of the appropriate gender in a bar. You chat. You have a few drinks. You are getting along well, so you get invited back to their place. You have more drinks.
Next thing you know, you are lying in a bathtub, covered in blood. The back of your neck hurts like hell.
Or maybe you just don't wake up at all.
It would be like the stolen-kidney urban myth all over again.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
If you live in the U.S., consider youself very lucky when it comes to terrorism. Before the destruction of the WTC, your chances of being the vitim of a terrorist attack were 0. In 2001, your chances were 1 in 100,000 (makes sense). From then 'til now your chances were... 0.
Most terrorism is domestic and is not happening in North America.
This sure seems like "The American Way", though... how do you tell if someone is trustworthy enough to have one of these r00t cards? Charge a lot of money! If they're rich, they have only the interests of the American people at heart.
Actually, Osama bin Laden's got about $30 million kicking around...
The US Army: promoting democracy through unquestioned obedience
This will not work. Identity theft is common. Why won't the terrorist be able to preform identity theft?
1) steal some goody-two-shoes identity
2) get a "I'm not a terrost" card in their new name
3) blow up a plane
History repeats?
.40-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun into the council chamber undetected, along with an extra four bullets in his socks.
A NYC councilman was shot and killed inside City Hall. How did the "perp" sneak a gun into the seat of city government?
Well, he was himself a councilman...
The two [the shooter and his victim] did not pass through a metal detector, which is not unusual for elected officials, apparently allowing Askew to slip his silver
Why do we keep making the same farking mistakes OVER AND OVER again!?
Will Muslims have special markings on their ID cards, so officials know to harrass them?
Not flamebait. The parent post made more sense than anything I've read up to this point. But what do you expect from a bunch of snivelling, politically correct assholes? Anything that comes close to the truth around here gets swatted down immediately.
They simply can't handle the truth. If only I had some points to use.
Let the whole fucking world know that if there is one more terrorist attack on U.S. soil that Mecca is toast. Yes, that's right. Nuke it.
Then if there's another attack, nuke Medina. Then continue with one Islamic country's capital after another.
Want us to stop? You stop first. We got a lotta bombs.
[from the article]:
" Other partners include Lehman Brothers; TransCore, the company that created the E-ZPass electronic toll system; and ChoicePoint, a Georgia company that will screen the customers."
First Class Citizens, without any of those troubling "black marks on their permanent records" that their high school gym coaches warned them about, will be recommended by some of the best liars in the business. These card carrying inoffenders will be vouched for by the Lehman fraud company, the EZPass system (that we bought under assurances of court-order privacy protection, now for sale to lawyers for divorce investigations), and ChoicePoint, which "arbitrarily" erased the names of >55,000 Florida 2000 voters (probably >80% Gore voters). Weapons of Mass Deception.
--
make install -not war
I remember when Brill's content was giving away free credit for use in their online site; you could get $20 or so for recommending the site to others, and use it to buy books, including the postage costs.
Now Brill has to go and ruin a good memory. Do I have to be scared now that Brill has the name of my family and friends and some database somewhere?
No Osama
No Saddam
Spending money like water
secrets with no good reason to have 'em.
Haliburton selling gas to US forces at 1.59 a gal, when the Iraqies get it for under a buck
No air conditioning even now for the majority of the troops.
Nothing but tents for the majority of the troops
Our men and women get a 2 week vacation after more than a year of service where people are trying to kill them, but our president takes month long vacations.
Persistant rumors that the inactive reserve may have to be called up.
Now they want a national ID card. Well, we've had 'em for years, but we just didn't know it. Please explain to me what a forged or stolen card is going to prevent.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
This is from Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams. Get it from somewhere other than Amazon. The story submitter and I both forgot to mention the name of the author, and not quite all slashdot readers will immediately know what we're talking about.
It's a bleak book, as Douglas Adams admitted. It's also very funny in places.
I detect moderatorial controversy. It's rather a large quote. Or is it more of an unauthorized extract?
Please don't forget the fourth and most important factor in fair use.
And I thought I was just aiming for "Informative". Shame about the attribution. Even after 259 comments here, there is still only one mention of the name "Adams".
I think that's a wonderful suggestion. Bicycle, car, truck, bus, plane... all the same. Let any schmoe with the cash jump on board.
... anything? Do you think ~300 people will ever allow such a thing to happen again? Can you say "bum rush"?
What? What about the 9/11 incident(s), you say? Well, if those ~300 people *per plane* hadn't been thoroughly conditioned to stand by and do nothing, do you honestly expect that five people armed with 3/4-inch "knives" could have gained control of
Freedom and complete security are incompatible. Deal with it.
It seems the FBI and everyone else is to interested in your credit history. How the hell does that indicate crap? Your credit history could be perfect because you don't have any or it could be perfect because you just went BK and have a totally assumed idenity you just stole.
Just something that is a pet peeve.
And Fuck Stven Brill too, Court TV is one unending automatic assumption of guilt before proof of such. The last thing we need his involvement in "identity verification."
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
Before jumping into how, try asking why? What good does an ID card do? So that after the plane explodes you can figure out who was on it?
The major problem with airport security and the reason why it will always be a joke is that 99.999999% of the population is allowed to fly. Trying to find the 1 in 1,000,000 person who is a terrorist (who does not carry a little terrorist ID card) and screen them out is impossible.
Military bases and other high security areas can check ID cards and have this be a useful security measure because 99.9% of the population is NOT allowed in.
Checking of IDs is, at best, simply a stupid idea thought up by bureaucrats to make it look like something is being done. At worst it is another step on the road to a complete police state (Show me your papers!)
com'n, all hackers unite, and deport this guy
When I heard about this, I was surprised because City Hall always has police cars, gates and a security station with a metal detector. I wondered how could they have possibly gotten a gun in there. Later that day it came out that the Mayor, city councilmen and their guests and others were allowed to pass without going through the security procedures. After that incident Mayor Bloomberg said that he would now go through the security procedure just like everyone else.
You can never really know who to trust. And loopholes will be found and exploited by adversaries.
Those who trade freedom for security will lose both, and deserve neither" -- Ben Franklin
Well, not very bizarre really. It's just like the Pilgrims who sailed to America--they didn't really want a new land where nobody would be oppressed for their religious beliefs; they just wanted a place where they would be the ones doing the oppressing.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Simple - they elected Rabin, Peres, Netanyahu, and Barak first, but none of them could make peace with Arafat. It's only after all of the peace efforts of all of the above were met with ever increasing terrorist activity on the part of the Palestinians that the Israelis elected the formerly unelectable Sharon.