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U.S. Begins Digital Fingerprinting In Airports
lemist writes "Cross Match has rolled out digital fingerprinting at major airports in the United States according to MSNBC. It's designed to increase border security. They appear to be using Cross Match's Verifier 300 LC. Note that the actual capture of the fingerprint requires no interaction with the device. It determines when the image quality is excellent and grabs it."
28 countries are exempt from this testing including a lot of western european countries where the Sept 11th terrorists moved around with impunity. This fingerprinting scheme aint going to fix anything.
Welcome to gattaca !
Don't be mad when I offer the middle one.
I don't think this is a problem. I see how some people think this might be an invasion of privacy, and hey, if they put this thing in random public places, especially without letting us know, yes I'd be upset. But this is in AIRPORTS. You're required to check in before you ever get on the plane anyway. I think it's just another means of making sure that people who are on these planes really are who they say they are. That can't be a bad thing.
Damon,
http://actionPlant.com
So they have my fingerprint... Are they taking names and other info, or are they just going to have a database full of 5 billion fingerprint entries, but no names?
Anal probes ?????
Now, all we need to do is to have terrorists send us in a copy of their finger prints so we can keep em on file.
Wil Wheaton's new website design is pretty nifty!
(Too bad clones don't have identical fingerprints, and Raelian cloning methods still seem to be a bit .. umm .. fake? Besides, as the original, I'd be far more evil than any cheap knock-off!)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
It would be nice if a good fingerprint reader could be made cheap enough to use it for things like unlocking doors and starting cars. Wouldn't need to carry so many keys around. Should be simpler for these kinds of applications since it would only have to match against a very small local database of prints.
Are an incredibly easy way for the government to assassinate people. The skin there is exceptionally thin and perfect for micro-injection of virii or other agents. Plus they can be sure they got the right person. Goodbye privacy, hello death. It's the American way.
As seen on numerous billboards across the country, I had to bring this slogan here to slashdot.
Please read Orwell and maybe a history book about Germany in 1933-1945 and please don't block similarities off your mind by thinking "Nah! That can't happen here, we're a democracy!" - This democracy is rapidly declining and too many bury their head in the sand...
... here in Brazil we still use the only fool-proof method: Ink and paper!
;)
And BTW... I agree with the "reciprocy" we are giving to the americans
Why not just preventing everyone from entering your borders? That way you are sure no one will bother you anymore.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
All they have to do is walk across the damn borders (north or south).
I do not completelly agree with that. My country (Brazil) started January 1st do to that in our airports to, with a bit difference: it is required fingerprints and photographs only for north americans.
This law is based on the international reciprocity principle. Here it is used just as 'reveange' against the americans who were kind of humiliating the brazilian people on their airports.
I belive that when used for REAL security this is important, but just as a power and control game as it is being used will not solve anything.
and this is related to this discussion.....how??????
got me too lol.. how?
Because Wil feels that fingerprinting is an invasion of privacy. I kinda have to agree with him on that.
Or is everyone just assuming it, and not needing the labels? http://www.politechbot.com/p-04973.html
I've not one problem with improving security, as long as the improvements really are and work.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Nice move, eh?
"Money or your live!" they say.
"All my money is locked in the bank with my PIN and fingerprint!"
"TELL ME YOUR PIN OR I'LL SHOOT YOUR DAUGHTER!"
"1234!"
"Good. NOW YOUR FINGER PLEASE!"
*chopchopchop* -
There ya go...
Supposedly, (supposedly) DoD was looking into this as a replacement for military dogtags, and the BOP (Bureau of Prisons) was supposedly looking into it. Now sounds far fetched but according to the companies press releases: September 29, 2003 - Applied Digital Solutions, Inc. (Nasdaq: ADSX), an advanced technology development company, today announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, VeriChip Corporation, has retained the services of Stanley "Stan" L. Reid, a longtime technology industry executive and former congressional aide with extensive experience and wide contacts in Washington, D.C., to market VeriChip(TM) secure identification solutions to federal agencies.
...
Since 1996, Mr. Reid has served as president of Strategic Sciences, a Washington, D.C.-area consulting firm that specializes in marketing advanced technologies to the federal government. Mr. Reid has particular expertise in selling new, introductory technologies to government agencies, including the Departments of Defense (DoD), Energy (DoE) and State, as well as the agencies that have been incorporated into the Department of Homeland Security. (source)
Just think if they decided to do away with Social Security, or made this a standard for newer borns a-la vaccinations... Oh well that's why I'm glad I support the war on terror
MoFscker
Please excuse our xenophobic and jingoistic tendancies. Ya'll have a nice day now!
-psy
The Department of Homeland Security put out a PDF leaflet about the program, which contained their normal, almost incomprehensible pictograms like those on ready.gov
I thought they needed some better, and funnier, subtitles.
Some Americans would be pretty happy with that. To be quite honest, I'd imagine the bulk of the complaints about closing America's borders completely would come from potential immigrants, not Americans.
What was your point again?
everything in moderation
On one hand, this shouldn't affect anyone's privacy at all, because all travel information to foreing countries (or even domestic travel for that matter) is already a matter of record. As long as you are who you say you are, I don't see how this affects anyone not trying to travel under an alias.
On the other hand, particularly since 28 countries are exempt, I don't see how this will be very effective at stopping undesirables from getting into the country.
The libertarian in me founds this whole thing distasteful though, but in an imperfect world this is a rather small infringement on my rights and I suppose on the balance it is worth the inconvenience.
Well the US Govt has a stance of trust nobody, my question is whats going to stop a guy with three suitcases full of plastic explosives walking into an Airport and making a crater out of it. Fingerprints arent gonna help much then. All these security measures are just put in place to make the people feel safe, however a plane could come from a foreign country which doesnt have or cant afford to implement this technology. Osama is still to be caught, intelligence has done nothing, and you dont hear of any new breaks in locating him. All we see is his head on Al Jazeera threatening to eradicate the infidels. When Sept 11 occured, no one knew who these guys were, they could have been on the plane just as easily with the fingerprint technology implemented then. The real threat is knowing who your enemy is. All we have is one face, we dont have his many followers. This could just lead to a witch hunt of massive proportions
Brazil I guess is making every American do a fingerprint test to get into the country as a response to what the story is about. I found it pretty funny..
If all this nonsense actually DID increase security, then fair play. But it doesn't. From your statement you appear to believe that yet another privacy rape at the airport, in a climate where women have been forced to empty baby bottles because they might contain weapons, is worth it, do you? Would that be correct? It's all in the interests of national security...
Okay, then, over Christmas, the Bush regime (Heil Dubya!) raised the terror alert etc... saying an attack was likely.
Now let's see here, they claim this, which, to me, means ALL these new security measures have been a waste of time, effort and money, and done nothing other than strip American's of more and more of their rights. If there's a "clear and present danger" of an attack, the administration is admitting that all this nonsense at airports is rubbish because it has not stopped the potential for attacks.
In short: All this security at the airport is like the old adage.
"This rock in my hand keeps away all the lions."
"But there are no lions here."
"Exactly."
Let's look at it this way and assume the "threat" is real. The fingerprint system is ONLY as good as the intelligence it's received. If Joe Terrorist goes through and has never been fingerprinted before... Well woop de doo, when he flies a plane into a building, at least we'll know what his fingers looked like before they burnt up in the wreckage.
It's a useless security measure.
The real one is .NET not .ORG . Bleah ...
Domain ID:D103662685-LROR
Domain Name:WILWHEATON.ORG
Created On:06-Jan-2004 17:16:28 UTC
Last Updated On:06-Jan-2004 17:16:58 UTC
Expiration Date:06-Jan-2005 17:16:28 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:R91-LROR
Status:TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:GODA-05001368
Registrant Name:Derek Arnold
Registrant Street1:219 1/2 N Federal Ave Apt 8
Registrant City:Mason City
Registrant State/Province:Iowa
Registrant Postal Code:50401
Registrant Country:US
Registrant Phone:+1.6414217320
Registrant Email:monoperative@yahoo.com
Admin ID:GODA-25001368
Admin Name:Derek Arnold
Admin Street1:219 1/2 N Federal Ave Apt 8
Admin City:Mason City
Admin State/Province:Iowa
Admin Postal Code:50401
Admin Country:US
Admin Phone:+1.6414217320
Admin Email:monoperative@yahoo.com
Tech ID:GODA-15001368
Tech Name:Derek Arnold
Tech Street1:219 1/2 N Federal Ave Apt 8
Tech City:Mason City
Tech State/Province:Iowa
Tech Postal Code:50401
Tech Country:US
Tech Phone:+1.6414217320
Tech Email:monoperative@yahoo.com
Name Server:NS17.DR2.NET
Name Server:NS18.DR2.NET
Oh my God. This was on CNN 4 days ago & just now showed up on slashdot? What is this? A slow news day?
I'd like to know who originally modded this "Interesting". To me, it just proves that mozilla should block mouseOver popups
Hats off to you my friend:) Very nicely played sir.
How about a little formatting:
Domain ID:D103662685-LROR
Domain Name:WILWHEATON.ORG
Created On:06-Jan-2004 17:16:28 UTC
Last Updated On:06-Jan-2004 17:16:58 UTC
Expiration Date:06-Jan-2005 17:16:28 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:R91-LROR
Status:TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:GODA-05001368
Registrant Name:Derek Arnold
Registrant Street1:219 1/2 N Federal Ave Apt 8
Registrant City:Mason City
Registrant State/Province:Iowa
Registrant Postal Code:50401
Registrant Country:US
Registrant Phone:+1.6414217320
Registrant Email:monoperative@yahoo.com
Admin ID:GODA-25001368
Admin Name:Derek Arnold
Admin Street1:219 1/2 N Federal Ave Apt 8
Admin City:Mason City
Admin State/Province:Iowa
Admin Postal Code:50401
Admin Country:US
Admin Phone:+1.6414217320
Admin Email:monoperative@yahoo.com
Tech ID:GODA-15001368
Tech Name:Derek Arnold
Tech Street1:219 1/2 N Federal Ave Apt 8
Tech City:Mason City
Tech State/Province:Iowa
Tech Postal Code:50401
Tech Country:US
Tech Phone:+1.6414217320
Tech Email:monoperative@yahoo.com
Name Server:NS17.DR2.NET
Name Server:NS18.DR2.NET
With that kid in Iraq whose arms got blown off during the war....toe prints ????
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
We got ours taken at the American Embassy in Israel when we were there a few weeks ago (were there to get a new visa stamp).
Anyone 14 or over is required to have their prints taken, and chcked every time they enter the US.
The article is right; it really didn't take that much longer than usual. As long as it doesn't slow the already crappy process to go through at 5 AM after a 12 hour flight, it doesn't really bother me.
Seems the current state of the Great Wall shows that to be easier said than done.
I can't wait for digital fingerprinting to be a tourist attraction, listed in guide books and photographed by tourists.
Dehomag (the German branch of Hollerith - the ancestor of IBM) got its start assisting the Germans with a similar effort - using computing technology (punched cards) to track all kinds of things in the interest of security, efficiency, and thoroughness. They got their start automating the census, and wound up empowering governments with then unheard of levels of efficiency in attaining many of their goals, despite the changing nature of those goals.
Again we are seeing a watershed moment in the efficiency, security and thoroughness of states ability to enforce their policies. Lets hope that this time the population will gain a proportional increase in control over the agenda of the state.
The alternative will be no less than a repetition of history.
Who do we expect to protect our boarders for us? Canada?
Uh, no you shouldn't expect Canada to protect your borders for you, and the moral implication repeated constantly (such as your pathetic little sheep-like "oh wait") that we should is absolutely ludicrous. As a Canadian, I personally have no problem with the US crawling down into the basement, curling up into the fetal position and sucking its thumb -- It is your country, and as a visitor people simply have to accept each country's sovereign right to self-protection. Of course this measure would have done absolutely nothing to prevent 9/11, nor does it do anything to affect the hundreds of sleeper cells in the US, nor does it do anything but provide the illusion of safety for the ignorant (such as yourself). Of course this is from the same administration that is so bloody uninventive and unoriginal that they can only imagine that terrorist could only possibly conceive of hijacking airliners and smashing them into buildings -- until the terrorists put toxins in the water supply, at which point they'll then imagine that the world's terrorists are perpetually focused on putting toxins in water supplies...rinse and repeat.
Having said that, it is fascinating, though -- The United States currently hosts some 8 to 11 MILLION illegal aliens. The United States has rampant illegal weapons and drug trade. The United States Southern border has a guesstimated 6,000, uncaught, illegals crossing it every single day. Yeah, keep up the Canada jokes...You and Hillary Clinton can keep up the charade that we're the source of your security ills.
What did Mexicans and Canadians do to you?
Were the September 11 hijackers travelling under false passports? I was under the impression that they were not. If this system had already been in place in 2001, would the outcome have been any different?
Is accurate knowledge about who is entering the USA through airports really a significant problem for those trying to predict and prevent future terrorism incidents? I would have expected that a greater problem was knowing the intentions and tracking the actual actions of individuals.
If this system works perfectly, surely people with terrorist intentions will know it, and simply not enter the USA legally? It's not as if the USA's borders are impregnable - there are large numbers of people managing to enter without passports or visas. It's like carefully putting a lid on the bucket to make sure you don't spill any water, but ignoring the leak-hole at the bottom of the bucket.
... and once we all get used to this, I wonder how long it will be before they want to fingerprint ALL airline passangers. Many might say I am paranoid, but I have always been worried about "having control" of my fingerprints -- yeah, yeah, I realize I leave them behind everywhere, but there's something scary to me about the government having them. Just too bad that they don't have some kind of device that I could be reasonably sure would check my fingerprints against the known criminals and then DISCARD them -- I'd feel much better if I knew that they weren't keeping a permenant record of them for possible future use who-knows-when and who-knows-how. And, please, don't give me the age old line of "If you've done nothing wrong, what are you afraid of?" Some of us just like privacy (and respect it in others) for the sake of it.
I say bullshit.
Anyone who is ready to give their life in order to kill as many Americans as they can will have a backup plan. There are many ways into the country. And who checks the accuracy of the info the first time through?
Besides, this is an excellent example of treating the symptoms and not the cause.
I really think if we had a foreign policy that didn't run the equivalent of a rape-and-pillage mission every 6 months, we could forgo the whole war on terrorism.
Of course, it would be hard to powergrab and make billions of $$$ if that was the case.
Good ol' Tom Ridge was interviewed on the Tonight Show a while back. He said that the WOT would never end. I think he meant the War on Peace.
I am far more terrrified of our 'elected' officials than any AK toting zealot.
Will we have to start making Xerox copies of our asses to ride the subway?
Well Brazil thinks there policy of everyone into the pool no questions asked, and anything for a peso are more than enough in the security department.
It's time for some good old fashioned america first isolationism. Let the North Koreans shell Seoul. It would look cool on the news.
Let China invade Taiwan. Sure they'd win, and there'd be all kinds of refugees to turn away (isolationism remember), but man the Taiwanese would inflict some disproportunate casualties. And that's always funny.
Maybe Pakistan and India would really enjoy a nuclear exchange after the islamic extremists manage to assasinate their el presidente for life. I'm sure Smith Kline can manufacture more than enough iodine pills, and I'm not much of a milk fan of late anyway. Think of what it would do to IT oursourcing!
While I'm quite sure most of the asshats could use a good conquoring to help them forget their differences, I'd much rather build some sort of technologically amazing great missle shielding wall, and sink any ship we don't cotton too.
When people of the world decide to exterminate each other, instead of preaching, and prostlatizing about how we're all stuck together on this tiny rock, we should sell weapons to both sides and let them wipe each other out. Obviously cash up front, no credit.
Then for when asshats get really annoying. We can swipe a page from North Koreas playbook. The one that says, anytime anyone anywhere gives us any guff we say, "Don't fuck with us. Two words: Nuclear Fuckin' Weapons. You will all be fucking shadows!" But to keep everyone on their toes we can randomly space out such crazyness with disturbing periods of lucid behavior.
And any attack on the US proper results in the SPF 1 trillion treatment to the home nation of the offenders.
everyone is looking at the screen, not the finger...
Time to break out the gummy bears
This post patent pending.
What happens if someone was wearing gloves?
this is supposed to make america safer?
right
more please and maybe those xenophobic Americans will like getting treated like the criminals they are
good luck , 191 countries are applauding you
I am in a country expempt from fingerprinting (Canada), but because of this I will not vacation in or visit America. The US government has wanted to restrict Canadians in the past, and will find a way in the future.
European vacations are only a little more expensive than American ones, in the future I will visit Europe. If they want to go out of their way to make me feel unwelcome, why should I visit?
It's official! The U.S. is now a police state. It bad enough your government violates your civil rights, but it's something else when they do it to foreigners, who didn't even have the opportunity to vote in a *cough* rigged *cough* U.S. election.
I don't know how people can justify allowing themselves to be treated like criminals, just because it "speeds things up". The fact that that people have sold their liberty to be processed a few minutes faster is unconscionable. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. By contrast the price of sloth and fear seems to have become living in tyranny.
I don't buy this nonesense that fingerprinting and photographing people is going to save the U.S. from terrorists. Does a suicide bomber care if his picture or prints are on file? This is being done purely to feed Americans' fear of terrorists and simultaneously to make them feel safer, at the expense of those who can't vote in the U.S.
The Bush Adminstration has assured itself of losing votes in states that depend heavily on tourism. It has also done more to damage the U.S. economy as a whole. Moreover, it will become a diplomatic disaster, as Brazil will now start fingerprinting American visitors. How is this help any trade talks involving banned U.S. beef?
The U.S. is a scary place right now, with Ashcroft and the other lunatics in the Justice and Homeland Security departments prepared to stop at nothing short of having surveillance cameras installed in every room in every home in America.
This sounds like a place to rub a little anthrax.. well except for the fact that it would be targeting non-US citizens.
Seriously though, how many people will touch this same couple of cm of space within the same day, one right after another. I hope they have considered a way to keep this surface sterile - perhaps a UV backlight or something. Otherwise this sounds like an international virus hub.
ôó
Digital fingerprints? That's redundant. Fingers are also called digits.
How ya like dat?
... at Miami International. I just got back from winter break back home in Panama. The actual process is quite simple and none of the people I saw going through it seemed to have any problem with it, pretty much everyone seems to accept it as one more thing the US is doing in its effort to 'protect' itself.
It's almost business as usual at the airport, customs officers just have two new toys: the fingerprint scanner and a webcam. The added hassle is less than 20 seconds. Left index, right index, look at the camera, done.
Do I think it's a Good Thing? Not really, do I mind? Not really, after all, I'm not a terrorist!
Push the envelope. Watch it bend. -Tool
instead of spending my money in a country which once was called 'land of the free'. Now free to violate international law.
I think you voted for the wrong people last time.
No I've been keeping up with this and it was just for revenge. Not scanning non American citizens has no security advantage for flights into America. They're just pissy and don't understand the threat of terrorists killing thousands of civilians because it didn't happen to them.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
IIRC They were travelling under valid documentation.
Knowing who is on the plane or in the country would not have prevented September 11. They didn't know who was going to hijack a plane.
The scary part is focusing on foreigners isn't going to solve the problems. They end up harassing innocent people, and causing lots of bad will, but doesn't make it safer for anyone.
I can think of a few recent issues that really shocked & upset the US.
9/11
Columbine
Unabomber
Oklahoma city
The Sniper
Hmm, looks like picking on foreigners might not be the most effective way to decrease terrorism.
If you are travelling from a country that participates in a visa waiver program (e.g. Australia), you don't need to get your finger print checked. This is on the assumption that such countries will have biometric information recorded in the passport by October of this year. I'm guessing this means any Australian travelling to the US for less that 90 days that doesn't want to have to apply for a visa will need to replace their current passport (probably at considerable expense).
Between now and October, however, a traveller with a passport from a visa waiver qualifying country can get in without ever being finger-printed. The message from the US government could not be clearer: if you are going to commit acts of terrorism, don't tell us you are going to stay longer that 90 days when you first enter the country, and please make sure you do this before the next Federal election.
Ok, let me get this straight. This fingerprint/photo will NOT BE applicable to countries that have visa exemptions (read most of European countries). So another words, those traveler doesn't require this security measure if they can show a passport that they came from an examped country.
Uhm haven't 9/11 prove that terrorists actually got some brains? How hard is to to fake an examped country's passport and enter US from that country? During WW2, the fake docs produced by the concentration presoners were so good that it even fooled the Nazies. If those presoners can do it what are the chances that those terrorists could do it too?
This is just nuts, havn't those law makers got any sense of logic at all?
If you are going to do this, SCAN EVERYONE! NO EXCEPTIONS! It looks like 9/11 terrorists also achived something they never considered besides causing havoc. They have actually cause US congress to pass laws that have no logic. I am sure those 9/11 terrorists are laughing with the virgins they were supposed to get when they went to hell.
Is this REALLY about protection of US citizens? Then why does the current administration act the way it does, if this is the goal? I sure don't feel more secure, rather the opposite.
From Sorrows of Empire: An Interview we see that the administration is undermining security :
And the effects are not one might like :
yes it's invasive, yes it tacks on an additional 15 seconds, no we don't care if you don't like it
Oh yeah, the administration sendt that message too:
I'm going to blow up a piece of it.
Wtf is wrong with you people whining about govt keeping track of your fingerprint and even dna.. you think they want to clone your sorry asses? Yeah just what we need..
Seriously, if you have issues with the government trying to protect its citizens then piss off and move to another country where they just cut off your fucking fingers and keep THAT on file..
I'm tired of seeing all of these critics who slam every protective measure put into place without suggesting a viable alternative..
If it were up to YOU people (you know who you are) we'd open our borders wide and slap targets on our backs..
The road between democracy and tyranny is paved with secrecy in the name of security.
A fingerprint is just a fingerprint. It is, essentialy, just a fact with no meaning. The fingerprint itself holds no information about who the fingerprint belongs to, it's just a token.
DNA on the other hand holds a load of information in and of itself.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Back in my day, we had analog fingerprints, and we liked it. We used the stand by the fingerprint counter for hours just to look at them. I still prefer the analog version -- they are just richer and more mellow, y'know?
Tell that to the youth nowadays and they just won't believe you. Kids.
Okay, then, over Christmas, the Bush regime (Heil Dubya!) raised the terror alert etc... saying an attack was likely.
And no attack happened, though many flights were cancelled and some people were questioned (I'm not sure if anyone was formally arrested anywhere). Since there hasn't been a repeat of 9/11, it seems like the security precautions are working.
As for Americans being stripped of their rights, it's forners who are getting finger printed, not citizens. Besides, this is just an additional access control for people who already need a visa, anyway. And ya know what's usually required to get a visa? To be fingerprinted.
Nothing to see here, move along.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
What's to prevent the bad guys from putting a bit of rubber with a bogus fingerprint embedded in it to get around this?
:-)
If it's thin enough, a temperature test [and possibly pulse detection] could be fooled.
Maybe they should also scrub your fingertips with steel wool to make sure it's the real print...
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
required fingerprints and photographs only for north americans.
Brasil is fingerprinting Canadians and Mexicans too?
You can't take the sky from me...
This is crazy. Next thing you know they will be forcing all visitors to our free land to be finger printed and mug shots taken.
Foreigners pre-guilty until checked into Guantanamo Bay.
With the state of the US, I can't even make up a funny slippery slope, cause we are already at the bottom of the hill.
>This law is based on the international reciprocity principle.
Yes, this decision really was reported all over the globe within hours and I assume the majority liked to hear it as it is only fair.
605413? Yes, it's a prime.
Do you get the feeling that if no warnings were issued, and then an attack occurred, that the parent poster would be screaming for Dubya to be pilloried?
I do.
As an aside, who do you think that Osama bin Laden would rather have in the White House come 2003: Bush or Dean?
Well considering they match it up with the fingerprint in the passport that was put there at a consolate, I would say the US has AS MUCH information as the country from which they're traveling.
In short, this proves that the people coming into the country are the ones that went to the consolate. Unless we're invoking well forged documents. Which is fine, because that's difficult and expensive, and another opportunity for the terrorists to make a mistake without the good guys having to pay for it. Add RFIDs into future passports, you've got speedy customs + hard to forge documentation. With major inconvienences for a few where the system (which is very trusted) fails.
And as for the privacy. FUCK THE FOREIGNERS. If they don't like it, STAY THE FUCK HOME. Or go to Florida and get murdered. Either way, I'm fine with it. Just shut the fuck up.
Does anyone sell a product for removal of ones fingerprints from ones fingers?
never mind my normal looking body, I will be subject to the same treatment as pickpockets and lewd drunkards and prostitutes - being finger printed. Now, why arent Europeans being treated the same? The simplest answer is they are white caucasians and the rest of the world is not. I dont care for the privacy implications of it, but the ethnic and sectarian implications are just blatantly obvious - people from certain parts of the world are "normal" and the rest are just animals that need to be branded on their hind side. I would never have set foot in the US, had I know that even a straight forward honest person will be treated like a crook - albeit on his way out.
Way to go America! The land of the free and the the fingerprinting brave...
This is just another step. There are any number of other situations where you're required to present fingerprints and other information for background checks as a condition of employment. Need a security clearance? Want to be an elementary school teacher? A daycare provider? A warehouse employee where explosive materials are stored?
They take your fingerprints, and do what with them after the background investigation is complete? File 13? I think not. It goes into your "permanent record", and I ain't talking about the one that the high school administrators threatened you with.
Once you release the information to the gub'ment, you can't take it back. There are many seemingly innocent "checks" that will funnel the information into places you really don't need it to go. My fingerprints are on file with the gub'ment because of a job application that required a clearance. Ultimately I didn't take the job, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm "accounted for" to the same degree as someone who's been arrested. I didn't realize how disturbing it would be until after the fact.
There's only one major difference between Facist dictatorships and Communist dictatorships -- does the government own and control all industry (Communist) or is it controlled by a few private citizens who are close friends with the administration (Facist)? The methods of control and the usurping of democracy work the same no matter what econmics lie behind your totalitarian system whether we arrive there through bloody revolution like the Soviets or warmongering, security obsession like the Nazis.
(Yeah, yeah, f--- Godwin's Law. Remove the racist purges and replace zealous worship with apathetic inaction by the masses and you've got a good model of where we could be going if Bush were honestly an evil man instead of being mostly misguided. Read German history. The parallels are terrifying, and yet reassuring in that we did not step off that chasm that presented itself so many times.)
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
This is so damn amusing considering a new star was found 50 million times brighter than our own sun & broke the laws of physics today. Yet this was a refused story. See space.com to see real news for today. Read slashdot for this crap.
Uh.... I really enjoyed reading your politically incorrect post.
Thank you.
I especially liked the "two words.." bit.
Teh funnay way of saying what I've been thinking.
Disclaimer: This is not my work, I got it in an email and thought it was relevant to "president" Bush's Homeland policy building:
Consider the following, it's an old tactic: Adolf Hitler presided over a major national disaster (the burning of the Reichstag, the national parliament building) which he was discovered later to have participated in creating. That event gave him the opportunity to declare an emergency and expand his dictatorial powers further. He used the war-terminology "homeland" often, and whipped up fervent patriotism to support his wars. He used war as a means to distract people from domestic troubles and issues, kept the population of the country in constant fear, and exploited that fear for his own purposes. Hitler said in his writings that if you cannot create war then at least continue to propagate the idea that war is coming. -- R. E. Bell
"Never leave people in peace, because when they are in peace, you are nobody. Then they don't need you; your very purpose is gone. They need you only when there is danger; so create danger. If there is not real danger, at least create the climate of a false danger." -- Adolf Hitler
Important info:
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net
http://dieoff.org/synopsis.htm
http://www.peakoil.net
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I'm afraid you've set off the terrorist alert sensors. Run while you still can.
Meh.
I think I'll head over to Kuro5hin to find out why this is a great thing for our country
Want to let the terrorists win? Just get Osama's estranged cousin (who has honorary US citizenship) to blow up a bus in downtown Chicago.
You can bet that's when Big Daddy will require all citizens to carry intra-state passports (thanks to the interstate commerce clause) with all the requisite retinal/fingerprint data he could ever want in order to track your scrawny buttocks.
Yeah, right.
OMG, you're right! Well, we might as well do nothing then, rather than take incremental steps to make things that much harder for people to slip through. After all, you wouldn't design a computer network with more than one level of security, why try to protect your borders that way?
If you re-read my post you'll see there are TWO parts to what I was saying. The first is that the system will not catch 100% of terrorists. In fact if some nerd like myself can see a flaw within 5 minutes, I'm sure that the actual effectiveness with be considerably less than 100%.
The second part of my post is prefaced with the words "On a related note" meaning that you are supposed to consider this in conjunction with the first point. The second point is that there WILL be false positives. Some innocents are going to get labeled as terrorists. And that's not too much fun for whoever gets the unlucky draw.
This pervasive "well, it's better than nothing!" mindset that I see so much of these days regarding our counter-terror efforts really spooks me. It sounds as though you're perfectly happy to disregard all those false positives as no big deal or, perhaps, an acceptable cost for some feeling of safety. In designing a system, an engineer will look carefully at the trade off of Pcc (probability of correct classification) versus Pfa (false alarms). Then it comes down to a judgement call, of course. What tradeoff are you willing to live with. The purpose of my original post was to ask if anyone has any feeling for what those numbers are! If we don't, then we're just doing a bunch of bullshit to make ourselves feel good.
And, personally, I won't be feeling too good about sending innocent people to Gitmo.
GMD
watch this
Just charge Americans extra airport tax!
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
this doesnt have enough linux, get off the internet
Where, oh where have all our (and foreigners) rights gone?
A lot of other people would also be happy about that. Please ignore what immigrants want.
Now the US will be safe! No more anthrax letters, no more Oklahoma city bombings, no more highway snipers!
This will end all terrorism! Whoopdeedoo!
You can't take the sky from me...
...in a world where you can bypass a "high-tech" CD copy protection scheme with a magic marker, how long is it going to take people to find a way around this? Or inversely, how long is it going to take for mismatches to be made?
What the article fails to mention is the most important aspect of the new database: the Terrorist Boolean.
As the above biometrics only help to ascertain that you are you, it was felt an added feature to easily separate the terrorists from the regular population was necessary.
As such, as part of the interviewing process there will be an "Are you a Terrorist?" question. When the traveler responds the Terrorist Boolean is set accordingly.
The boolean may also be set at anytime by authorized representatives of the US Gov't such as the RIAA, and MPAA. In addition undercover officers looking for any Anti-American expressions or beliefs - including privacy advocates, anti-war activists, free software advocates, alternative energy supporters, and anyone generally disagreeing with the supreme-leader-of-free-nations, George W Bush.
(in case you missed it, my point is that biometrics of any sort mearly help confirm that you are who you claim to be - not what you might decide to do. The 911 hijackers came into the US, or were already living in the US, under their real name with valid papers. How would this new system help THAT?)
Blockwars: free multiplayer game
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
first: I can slap on elvis's fingerprints and go through customs. Then what?
second: Before this, you could change your name, get a new passport and enter the country with no one the wiser. Now what?
third: Imagine your itinerary says you'll be leaving from airport x on day y, but your fingerprints show up at airport z on day w. A note goes into your file for irregular movements.
The problem isn't that they have a name, its that they have it all digitized along with a fingerprint, which is a very firm identifier. Now you and your movements can be tied together closely. Whats to keep them from requiring foreigners to give up their finger prints to rent cars, planes, boats, hotel rooms and so on.
The EU has very strong privacy laws and they're being bastardized for the sake of the United States of America and their 'security' arrangements, which everyone generally recognizes as a dog and pony show so that people will feel better about travel. This, unlike most arrangements, actually has some real value to it, but like most *good* ideas it has to be invasive. oh well.
You got that gem in an email?!
What impeccable sources you have!
Next you'll be finding the quatrains of Nostradamus that predicted 9/11/01.
I especially liked the "way" you "cleverly" put "scare" quotes around the word President.
You blathering idiot.
Wow, you're a real piece of shit...and an idiot. Go ahead and sacrifice your liberty for security, or a false senese of it at least, but don't expect me to.
Time makes more converts than reason
If you're a victim of identity theft, you'll need to get that finger cut off.
Chip H.
"No, I'm *not* a member of the Yakuza."
goatse redirect (goes to neroonline)
how funny is this article that unwillingly proves the inefficiency of that measure.
After a short presentation, we have the list of countries that are exempted from having their tourists and/or workers scanned. Which countries are these ? Europe, Japan, Australia. I can understand for the two latters, but if September 11th proved something, it's that terrorist networks are deep-rooted in Western societies, especially Europe and the US. So, guys, you still have until October to make a great deal of this measure.
Plus a nice snippet in this paragraph : The travel data are supposed to be securely stored. Oh, Yeah.
The funniest thing is that people do believe in that kind of crap. They think it will make their country more secure. They think that preventing a crime or other legal issues -(Oh, Yeah)- charged person will prevent them from having some other non-beared people bombing towers with suicide planes. Or maybe it's the governement that initially thinks it will make the people more confident. Until the next time. But for now it's working. Psychological assault, well done.
Apart from that, there are remarks to make on a more general scale :
Again, I'm not trying to depict a black and white landscape. It's not the Arabs versus the Americans. But indeed it has some things to do with the global relationship of the West with them. Think about it ; we've been playing the geopolitic bastards with them for more than a century now. How may they feel ?
Regards,
jdif
Reminder : I'm not Arab :)
Let's overcome our weakness.
you make some compelling points, but man do you come off like a cheap parody of Bagdad Bob.
"Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts." - Henry A
But there's one group you'll definately start keeping out, and that's tourists. Why risk having your flight cancelled or getting turned around at the airport from a false fingerprint reading when you can just go somewhere else? It'd be interesting to look at the numbers of say, Canadian vs US ski resort visitors over the next few years.
One of these days I'm moving to Theory - everything works there
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Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
Have any of you actually been through customs as of late. Jesus now its going to take a full 2 days to get through god damn atlanta >_
Please reflect over your own sig.
I think its a hilarious move, after all, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Lets see France, Russia, China, N. Korea, random Middle Eastern Countries and others reciprocate the U.S. of A's security arrangements. It doesn't even have to be a terribly efficient or practical finger printing system, the mere presence will annoy the State Dept.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
When you get offered five fingers wrapped in a latex glove in return!
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
I see nothing wrong with ID-ing visitors from other countries at this point. After all, in the US, we are in a state of war. And until that changes, there will continue to be clampdowns in the name of security.
Does anyone remember the ColdWar? I remember hearing about those "Duck and Cover" videos children had to practice for in an event of nuclear war. Yet, I don't hear anyone bitching about that.
Life is not for the lazy.
All this extra security at airports, then add in the health-screening if SARS gets loose from China again. (One new case found) In that case, everyone might as well stay home.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
awww... i'm gonna be pissed if that's it...
I was hoping for a cool dragon tattoo....
Why US corporations managed US president and turned its attention to Iraq, after having failed to find ex-CIA agent Osama Bin Laden in Afeghanistan..?
:-)
The writer Salman Rushidie was told by the British secret service not to fly to New York at Sep. 11, 2001. Why..? British are the best SS of the world and CIA just sucks..?
It's impossible for four planes to leave their flight paths for 90 minutes without being intercepted. Why the US Air Force attacked just one airplane..? It crashed in rural Pennsylvania.
A bomb truck attacked Pentagon and they said that was a hijacked plane.. why..? That hole at Pentagon wall was so small that you can't put the airplane wings inside it.. and were is that video...
The tragic events of 11th sep 01 were to play a pivotal role in the presidency of G W Bush who, almost overnight, was transformed from a president with a dubious mandate into a national hero.
US terrorists, leave your fingerprints at our country, too.
Please note that this is an incident that happened in Japan and not the U.S. However, it doesn't quite seem like that long of a shot.
A friend of mine (American citizen) living in Japan had been in the U.S. to visit family during the holiday season. On his way back to Japan, he had a number of gifts and personal items, including a few porn DVDs. In Japan, for some strange reason, porn is OK, but all pubic regions need to have mosaic or other methods applied so that you can see them. Weird, but true.
So my friend's collection of American Porn (actually, it was non-mosaic Japanese porn sold in the U.S.) was considered contraband. He was smuggling porn into the country.
They took him aside to a small room, where all of his luggage was searched for other contraband items such as drugs. They also strip-searched him. And... yes, you saw this coming, they performed an anal proble to make sure he wasn't hiding anything up his rear side.
Anal probes to search for hidden porn!! Is that twisted or what? But the point is, your joke isn't that far-off.
Now now, I don't know about any of that.
Disclaimer: IANH (Hitler).
I want to know whose products they are using to do the one-to-many match on the backend. How much hardware do they need for an "instantaneous" match? How big is the database? Are they keeping fingerprints that don't show up in the DB or discarding them? All these would be more interesting to me than what box they use to initially capture the prints. Perhaps someone from Cross Match submitted the article? The article itself doesn't mention Cross Match at all.
Lasers Controlled Games!
This seems raciest IMHO. Why are almost all the countries on the list white-European?
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Is any of this digial information being tied back to demographics? I don't see how a two finger biometric and a facial image are going to do much good if no other information is being collected. Are they scanning the visas and associating the biometric data to the scanned visa data? It certainly sounds like these "biometric stations" are just harvesting biometrics and not actually performing searches against an AFIS.
Since there hasn't been a repeat of 9/11, it seems like the security precautions are working.
There are no elephants on my lawn, I guess it must be because the pepper I put down every night keeps them away.
or others in the US administration should get fingerprinted when they visit brazil.. roflmao...
hahahahahahahahhaha
that wud be so funny!
"welcome mr.president... please your fingers tightly against the ink pad and press then press them on to this paper- right here. You may wash your hands now"
hahahah
Here's a tidbit from yours truly, a bonafide illegal alien. I'm not exactly an illegal alien, but somewhere between today and one fine day 15 years ago when I first submitted my green card application (still pending), there exists no doubt one or two technical violations the INS could dig up that would render me "out of status" (read "I can be shipped out tomorrow in handcuffs along with the latest batch of men with more complexions more swarthy than my own).
I mention the above not for sympathy but to offer some perspective. During the last 2-1/2 years (when I started counting), not only have I re-submitted previously-submitted documents (big pile of paper with a fee payable each time), but also I have been fingerprinted 5 times. "Five!" you say? Yes indeedy. Seems the INS has become more and more keen on this sort of thing since their last in an on-going series of reorganisations.
What struck me about the last round of fingerprinting was not the fingerprinting itself. I've since long gotten over the dumbfounded feeling aroused by contemplating the only two logical possibilities I could come up with for the nonsense, to wit, that (a) the INS had again lost my fingerprints (a distinct possibility as they've repeatedly "lost" my paperwork for months on end; or (b) they're concerned the tips of my fingers have changed or been otherwise altered since the last time they were inked and rolled smudgingly onto little square outlines preprinted on white sheets of card stock. What was interesting was that the notification letter arrived in my mail box soon after Mr. Ashcroft and Co. began implementing the Patriot Act in new and creative ways.
There's 2 interesting bits there to consider. First, there's the Patriot Act, which we all know protect y'all from us Canadians and anyone else looking to steal jobs, welfare money and virgin brides. And second, there's the "my mailbox" part. "What's so interesting about that?" you ask? Well, in 15 years I have never (ever) received a letter from the INS. My lawyers (several over the years) have received almost as few, and with the exceptions of overdue responses to occasional FOIA requests (stating no information was to be found), or the receipt of a notice (demanding new copies of old documentation), I'd say my lawyers have received nothing either. In fact, most of the notices I have received from the INS have resulted either from my lawyers' visits or my own occasional "whassup?" treks to the Federal Building offices in the city where I live. (If I was looking for sympathy, I'd additionally point out that these visits routinely consisted of arriving at 10:00 in the evening to be somewhere near the front of a Mon-Fri 2,000+ person line eager to get into the building when it opens at 6:00am, or at least by 1:00pm when the probabilities approach zero that I or anyone else would be so lucky to actually get in to stand in line for a number for a chance to wait another few hours to see someone who might actually know something. But I'm not. So there.)
So, what's the point to all this rambling? Again, 2 things: THEY now know who I am, and THEY know where I live. Not that I believe either of these two new realities will advance my application for residency, make me a better person, or otherwise add to the quality of my life or those around me, but I am confident it's made the majority of Americans sleep better at night knowing that SOMEONE is doing SOMETHING. I just wish I knew what that SOMETHING part was. My proud-to-be-an American-citizen dad did, too, but he passed away waiting to find out.
All in all, I'm an easy-going happy-go-lucky type. I do wonder, however, whether the millions of people that travel to the US every year will react with the same graciousness when subjected to a scrutiny unknown across most of the developed world, save for those arrested or imprisoned for crimes.
Of course not. They are cool. Just for US terrorists...
I live in Canada, which is one of the "exempt" countries, but this exemption hasn't stopped the U.S. from fingerprinting and photographing Canadians of Persian descent.
Basically this exemption is for white people of European descent in the end...
I won't bother mentioning the frightening parallels this brings to mind...
Still #1 -- Lonely Gay Geek
Anal probes ?????
That was an excelent interview. The last paragraph really said it best...
"The only hope for the planet is the isolation and neutralization of the United States by the international community. Policies to do so are underway in every democratic country on earth in quiet, unobtrusive ways. If the United States is not checkmated and nuclear war ensues, civilization as we know it will disappear and the United States will go into the history books along with the Huns and the Nazis as a scourge of human life itself."
If this were to happen, let's hope that there is someone left to write those history books.
What?
"This rock in my hand keeps away all the lions." ....
"But there are no lions here."
"Exactly."
I want to buy this rock.
terrorist with no fingers!
The US government has already exploited that chance by forcing all foreign visitors to fill out an insane form on the plane, asking among many, many other mostly bizarre things
The point is not to pick out people who are traveling under false papers, the point is to build a database of foreign nationals. 28 countries are exempt only because the United States could not diplomatically get away with insulting these exempt countries this way. The truth is that if GWB could get away with doing this for US citizens as well, he would. It's all about control.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
In spite of their propensity for guns and the fact that they make bitchin' tanks, the Americans know jack about security.
Before it was 'This is a picture of Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers' now it will be 'This is a picture of Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers. These are the fingerprints of Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers. This is the retinal print of Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers. This is how many hairs he had on his left butt cheek. This is how many hairs he his on his RIGHT butt cheek....'
The point is all you REALLY needed to know was that he was an Al-Quida sleeper agent, and they didn't know that.
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
Apparently the moderators are Hitler, too.
Then surely no other hijacker or terrorist ever will! Oh hang on. Before Sept 11th no hijackers had flown a plane into the WTC either. That didn't mean they never would. No measure is going to offer 100% protection. All that can be done is to attempt to identify areas where a door is open for attack (whether someone has walked through that door previously or not) and to attempt to close that door.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
If they don't like it, STAY THE FUCK HOME. Or go to Florida and get murdered.
I take it you're referring to the media flap, a few years ago, abut the shootings of visitors to Florida. Some background:
* Florida (after a rash of rapes, drug-import related violence, and other crime) liberalized its firearm concealed-carry law, so that any law-abiding citizen could get a CCW after a background check and a short training program.
* Contrary to predictions of a bloodbath, violent crime dropped like a rock. It seems law-abiding citizens don't shoot others who aren't attacking them - and are VERY good at not making mistakes on this subject. (After several years - and hundreds of thousands of man-years of carry - under the new policy, only ONE CCW holder had improperly shot someone. The shooter turned out to be a crook they'd blown the background check on.)
* Now that carjacking the residents had become hazardous, an enterprising criminal gang recognized that people VISITING Florida wouldn't be armed - especially when coming out of an airport (where guns are federally banned) in a rental car. So they set up spotters at airports and also took advantage of the special license plates for rental cars, robbing and carjacking identified out-of-state visitors at rest stops.
* The increased rate of victimization of visitors was noticed - and made the news.
* Florida reacted in three ways:
1) They began issuing Florida CCWs to NON-residents. B-)
2) They took the special identifying plates off the rental cars.
3) They managed to catch SOME of the crooks.
The crime wave against visitors disappeared.
* But even during the peak of the anti-tourist crime wave, a visitor to Florida was MUCH less likely to be violently victimized than a visitor to its major competitor for sun-seeking vacationers: the gun-ban utopia of California.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
All this added security means longer lines in the unsecure areas, where people are always temporarily abandoning their big carts of luggage. It would be extrordinarily easy to suitcase-bomb large airport crouds these days.
Excerpt:
In 24 months the United States defeated two of the most hideous regimes in modern memory. For all the sorrow involved, it has already made progress in the unthinkable: bringing consensual government into the heart of Middle Eastern autocracy, where there has been no political heritage other than tyranny, theocracy, and dictatorship.
And:
Contrary to the invective of Western intellectuals, the American military's sins until recently have been of omission -- preferring not to shoot looters or hunt down and kill insurgents -- rather than brutal commission. While the United States has conducted these successive wars some 7,000 miles beyond its borders, it also avoided another terrorist attack of the scale of September 11 -- and all the while crafting a policy of containment of North Korea and soon-to-be nuclear Iran.
SIG:Slashdot: indymedia for nerds.
But how else are you going to come up with the fingerprint database and be ready for when the government determines which patterns of whorls on fingers mean you are a terrorist? They will be able to pre-emptively execute or at least imprison terrorists thanks to this simple practice, except you, you ungrateful wretch, you're trying to get in the way. :P
How will George Bush know which sorts of whorls mean you're a terrorist?
I'm sure God will be good enough to tell him.
Blah blah. That old saw.
Hey, I give up my freedom to kill you, so that you won't have the right to kill me.
If anarchy is so great, why aren't there any countries founded on it?
If you don't want to be fingerprinted, don't come to the US. Freedom is wonderful like that. Look at all the choices.
I see lots of claims and very little evidence in your post.
1) We are without question in greater danger of terrorist attacks today than we were on September 11 two years ago. Afghanistan has descended into an anarchy comparable to that which prevailed before the rise of the ruthless but religiously motivated Taliban.
If Afghanistan is in such horrific "anarchy", then why did the Afghan government just approve a constitution? Sure, there's still a civil war going on with the remnants of the Taliban government, but a civil war is a long way from anarchy. And was it really any better when the "ruthless but religiously motivated" Taliban government was openly operating training camps for Al Qaeda?
2) The war in Iraq has already had the unintended consequences of seriously fracturing the Western democratic alliance; eliminating any potentiality for British leadership of the European Union; grievously weakening international law, including the Charter of the United Nations...
The author you cite (Chalmers Johnson? you didn't attribute him...) doesn't provide any evidence. On your first point: the NATO alliance is still quite strong as far as I'm aware; do you have any quotes from alliance members or partners to bolster your position? As for the second, the British have never really been the prime movers in the E.U.-- a lot of the initiatives are really pushed by Germany, France and the low countries. And lastly, I fail to see how, by enforcing a U.N. resolution, the U.S. is weakening the Charter.
3) As for your last point, the United States was unwilling to seek a modus vivendi with Islamic nations and was therefore an appropriate, even necessary, target for further terrorist attacks-- failing to reach an accomodation with Saddam Hussein hardly equates to being unwilling to peacefully coexist with any Islamic nations. Recent diplomatic advances with Iran, Libya, and Pakistan are prominent counterexamples; if Iraq's your only example (a nation run by an odious genocidal dictator) then I'm not particularly persuaded.
My British Passport doesn't What really bothers me is that this process is going to add so much more time and aggrivation to flying. It's already bad enough x-raying shoes. Many airports here in the states are small or just can't facilitate enough security checkpoints to filter the amount of people the airport handles. Another thing is (I heard this on NPR yesterday) that the biometric data will be compared to US criminal records of drug lords and other wanted criminals, etc, since there isn't a conclusive list of terrorists. I mean, by definition terrorists are random people who probably will blow themselves up, so it'll be hard to keep tabs on them, unless they are "top dog" like OBL. People screaming about privacy infringement have a point that the kept names, faces, and fingerprints of foreigners can be used for "evil" rather than good. We can just look at the stolen election of 2000 in Florida as Jeb and his cronies (incl attorney general) turned a lot of the state's poor democrats into felons from other states by making name matches. Personally, I'm a believer in the possibility for all things made to be unmade, and that in a Godelian way no systems can be totally secure. Although the plan has good intentions, it won't stop much.
You really do have no idea what is going on in the world, do you?
The Chinese have hundreds of spies everywhere. So do many other places. The Chinese nuclear program grew rapidly in the 90's, mainly due to spying. And they are just one of many. We have only caught a handful of spies recently. For each one caught, there are probably hundreds. Granted, the USA has spies everywhere too, but other countries are expelling/capturing/killing them too.
Let's just say that no matter what you think, the world about 100 times more dangerous than you can possibly imagine.
This is a good thing for two reasons. #1 - it adds extra protection, and while not much, when combined with everything else, is a good start. #2 - it reminds us that we are still a target for numerous terrorist groups that for some reason feel a need to blame the US for all of their problems.
Mod me down if you want. The truth is the truth.
Oh, and the intelligence community has been saying for years (before 2001) that it will never be possible to end terrorism.
Everyone out there likes to complain about things, but you offer no real solutions. One of the loopholes this is supposed to close is people overstaying their visas. Several of the 9/11 highjackers had overstayed their visas. Is this the best way? No. But, it at least lets people know that it is there, rather than impliment a different system that is designed to be covert.
think about it.
I think that many people would prefer that we didn't have to do anything like this, however, we should never get as careless as we did during the period of 1993-2001. bin Laden & co are just biding their time until we get relaxed again (and just ignore the global terrorism problem). Then, they will hit us again.
-CPM
---You're all I need, When the water runs deep, You're all I need, Now I cry my soul to sleep -- Collective Soul, Needs
We are without question in greater danger of terrorist attacks today than we were on September 11 two years ago. Afghanistan has descended into an anarchy comparable to that which prevailed before the rise of the ruthless but religiously motivated Taliban.
Are they describing the country that just had constitutional convention? The one that just agreed upon a constitution?
The United States will feel the blowback from this ill-advised and poorly prepared military adventure for decades. The war in Iraq has already had the unintended consequences of seriously fracturing the Western democratic alliance; eliminating any potentiality for British leadership of the European Union; grievously weakening international law, including the Charter of the United Nations; and destroying the credibility of the president, vice president, secretary of state, and other officials as a result of their lying to the international community and the American people.
Blowback? Are they considering the fact that Libya has invited in inspectors to verify the end of their WMD programs blowback? Notice that N. Korea has invited some "independent" inspectors to have a look at Yong-byon. What about the Saudi crack-down on Al Qaeda in that country? All of this is bad? As for the EU, they can't even keep to the terms of their own agreements. As for the UN, note that it is the organization that passed 1441, as well as many other sanctions against the regime of Saddam. France and Russia were quite happy with Oil-for-Food program though, given that they got to skim off so much in "Administrative" fees, so one might question who was risking credibility.
Don't get me wrong, war is a terrible thing, and one can only regret the loss of innocent life and destruction. The U.S., however, didn't start this conflict. It would be insanity to wait for the totally compromised UN to solve the problem for us, after the enemy announced his intention to attack us, and did so, several times.
Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons had feelings! -Feynman, maybe
I thought I'd promote my fingerprint Imaging software. And also mention that this seems kind of bogus. Like others have mentioned none of the terrorists of 911 faked their identities and faking fingerprint with gelatin has been done.
Stolen from Denis Leary. He has a song, "I'm An Asshole" he sings, the version I have is off his album "No Cure For Cancer"
bhagavana uvaacha.
This is a very good example of what a Paradigm can do to you:
In this "highly technical" society, the only way to enter the Country is by an airplane, so, let's take a picture and finger scans of all that people because we may catch a bad guy."
People who thinks like that never realizes that in reality there are a lot more "unsophisticated" means to do it. For example, the US can be entered swimming, rowing, walking, jumping, driving, and yes, even flying in a completly undetected manner.
Do you think Terrorists are going to even blink at this measure? Of course not!! They'll walk across the line along with the thousands more that do it every day.
BTW, I know somebody who have twice entered the US by car, without a passport or visa, met the migration police at the border and by just pretending to be an american citizen, they let him thru. Of course, he's Mexican, but he's also white and "looks american".
This measure will not prevent terrorism from happening inside the US. It is just another stoopid way of wasting money, stretching diplomatic relations and bothering people who for some crazy reason or another, want to enter that country.
Kudos to Brazil, I wish my country did the same.
No, he's right. You're a piece of shit and an idiot. Only an inbred backwoods hillbilly like yourself, one who's never left his home town, would approve of the USA's current strategy of anti-social behavoir with (a.k.a. pissing on) the rest of the world.
If Joe Terrorist comes through and has never been fingerprinted before, he will be a new entry into the database. The next time he comes through, he can't use an alias or the fingerprints won't match and he'll be caught.
It takes one tactic out of play: false identities. There are other countermeasures against other tactics.
It all adds up to terrorists having a more difficult time succeeding.
Four days ago I took LH444 from Frankfurt am Main to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta, and I was surprised to see this, uh- system in person.
The fingerprint scanners were pretty snazzy, but the cameras at each officer's desk looked like cheap spherical plastic webcams ziptied to even cheaper-looking lectern microphone holders.
As a US citizen and ostensible taxpayer ;) I'm actually somewhat impressed they considered off-the-shelf consumer products. OTOH, I don't feel any safer, but a more-expensive camera would have no effect on that feeling.
Has anyone else seen these? I'm curious whether these cheap cams are strictly an ATL thing - which would be strange considering it's the biggest airport in the country - or if this is a standard observed at the other ports of entry.
Snickersnee3: Build your own 3-watt Luxeon Star headlamp from scratch
Aren't all fingerprints digital?
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
Having had the pleasure of being treated as as criminal by USA immigration and being scanned in I have to say good luck to the Yanks. You now live in the least free country of the world.
Land of the free, land of the sick and corrupt more like.
On arrival you have pictures of Il Duce Bush on the wall, you are processed like a criminal and then let out into a society where everyone is shooting each other. Its like the film Escape from New York without the benefit of being fiction
Pakistan are prominent counterexamples
To be fair. Pervez, if can speak so informally of him, probably got a slightly different ultimatim than the Taliban did. And he understood his country's military capabilities clearly, in a way the Taliban did not.
When the US comes quietly calling with an offer of "peace, or else," and you've got nuclear weapons, and you know what's lurking under a few hundred meters of water off your coast, and that there is no way in hell you'll find it, I imagine it's easy to pull the trigger on that particular agreement.
Libya is intersting, one presumes he's trying to provide some stability so that when he dies, there's something that lasts to show for his life. Who knows?
I've got to agree about one thing though. The UN is a joke, only it's not funny, and the US isn't wholly to blame.
And for the prospect of a public and fair trial (yes, even horrendous criminals has that right in a state ruled by Law) :
So you see, some of the very members of the current administration was supporting Saddam at the height of his crimes. Do you know understand why so many are quite cynical about Bush'es declaration of democracy and human rights for all?
Linda Lovelace is Hitler.!
Marcella Bocelli is Hitler.!
Krisztina Bella is Hitler.!
Britney Spears is Hitler.!
Carmen Electra is Hitler.!
So, let's fuck Hitler...!!!
agreed. I have never met the man, but i shut my eyes and imaging him to be the hillbilly guy from the simpsons. Whats for dinner ? BBQ squirrel? Mmmmmmmmmm
Indeed. Outside of Kabhul and a few other areas, Afghanistan is ruled by brutal war lords. And they are feuding among themselves.
I made the reference because people were likely to be familiar with it.
:).
I cold have said Louisiana, and don't chase the muggers. I could have said Washington DC, or even NYC. But I felt Florida was more pithy. I appologize for offending your delicate, statistics backed, sensibilities
I've even been to Florida without being murdered.
Let's start by taking a logical look at this program as it stands today and where we are ultimately planning on going with this.
As it stands today it is only being used in selected airports on citizens from selected countries. Most of Europe is being excluded entirely. Presently this system is extremely ineffective at stopping terrorists from entering the country. Simply avoid coming in through airports equipped with the technology.
If this system is eventually deployed in every international airport there will still be several ways to avoid it. You could obtain fake documentation forged to look like you're a citizen of one of the exempt countries. You could enter the USA via a land crossing or by sea. If all else fails you could enter illegally by bypassing a land border crossing altogether, entering via Canada or Mexico. The government, IMHO, is also overlooking a huge issue. Many of the 9/11 hijackers came into this country on valid visas. This system is never going to be able to stop that. If a person is recruited and is going to attack this country, this new system will do nothing if that person is not on a watch list and is able to get a valid visa.
All in all I'd say the system, even if it is fully implemented at all land, sea, and airports, is never going to be able to protect us from determined terrorists. What this system will probably end up doing is giving us better border control in other areas. I'm up in the air about these effects. While I respect others right to privacy, I strongly believe every country is completely within it's bounds to try and effectively control it's borders. No foreigner has the "right" to enter into any other country. It's up to each individual nation to decide who it's going to let in and who it is going to keep out. It's also within every nation's rights to implement some kind of system to try an enforce it's policy.
The stated goal of this system is to stop terrorists from entering this country and I don't think it's really going to accomplish that. If fully implemented it will certainly make it harder to get in, but a determined individual on a watch list can still sneak in. Finally, it is never going to stop terrorists, like many of those who took part in 9/11, who are able to obtain valid visas and are not on any of the watch lists. Given all these facts and the associated costs I'm still in favor of the system because it's going to allow us to tighten control of our borders. We desperately need to tighten our control of our borders and this will certainly help in some respects. I am, however, not under the illusion that this is a perfect system. I know even if it is fully implemented at all land crossings, seaports and airports a determined known terrorist can still sneak in and an unknown/unidentified terrorist will always be able to get in if they get a visa and are not on the watch list. In the end the bottom line is that we have to try and do something and I have not heard anyone else propose anything better. I'm afraid that given the current technology and the current global realities, a system like this was bound to be implemented sooner or later. Let us hope, and constantly seek to ensure via some kind of oversight, that this system is never abused.
Am I the only one that really does not care or see the controvery hear? I guess my point is if you have such a problem being finger-printed on the way in then don't come. The only thing that I am annoyed with is how come everyone doesn't get finger printed and photographed. If you get a Texas DL you get finger printed and photograhped. The US should be allowed to track people as they come and leave the US. It is the right of the country to deny and admit people into the United States and knowing who is in the country is not a big deal. For the most part the United States Government knows about 99.9% of the polulace from tax records and drivers licenses. It is not so much of a leap nor an extreme injustice to know about the aliens visiting. Just because the US is going to start to track those visiting, and thereby knowing who they are, is no more intrusive than your local DMV, the IRS, Social Security Admin, et al, knowing about you.
Then the other thing that is blowing my mind is how come Brazil is having such a problem with this. I can understand that they feel a little singled out, but this reciprosity seems a little extreme. It is not like the US is singling out Brazilians only -- just those countries were we have the Visa-waiver program in effect.
This is seriously a non-issue.
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
when they pry it off of my cold dead hands!
CB
free ipod and free gmail!
I like it. You don't want to be fingerprinted, then don't come into this country. I'm not sure of the reasons behind some countries being exempt, but my understanding only those countries citizens are exempt. I'm from Atlanta where this was tested, and they caught over a dozen people on the terrorist watch list in just a couple of months with this program. Seems to me it might help something...and hey, you don't HAVE to come into our country. You don't like it, deal with it.
Brazil is being kind of childish, by responding with only finger printing US visitors. We're finger printing almost everyone, while they act like we're picking on them.
Thena gain, Brazil is being run by anti-US socialists so what more do I expect?
Derek Greene
Because none of the terrorists were known criminals. There are plenty of deluded Islamic people with otherwise clean backgrounds willing to become gun fodder for their Cause.
This sort of statement fundamentally misunderstands the reasons for World War 2: [...] resentment and anger [...] crushed economy as well as bruised egos left the people ripe for ideological exploitation [...] created scapegoats for existing problems
So, wich one of these did you say isn't relevant to the US now?
You can't take the sky from me...
Are you suggesting that since the threat level was raised and nothing happened, that we should just forget about the whole thing?
You indicate that these measures have done nothing and will do nothing to increase our security. I wish to see what evidence you have to base this on. But furthermore I would like to know exactly what you propose we do instead to increase border security.
It appears to me that the gist of your rhetoric is thus centered around speculation and assumptions. Primarily that our President is evil and has some sort of perversion that would make him wish to oppress us, but also that terrorists have up and decided to just _stop_ being mean to us..?
In case you didn't know, one of the President's primary duties is to protect Americans.
Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. -Ayn Rand
191 must do that. Brazil must be the world leader. They don't have nuclear bomb, they have jungle, they have beautifull girls boys and shemales, they don't have GM dangerous stuffs, they don't threaths nobody, don't make war, their latin lovers make love. That's all, 191 countries follow your leader.
Seriously, you are a stupid fuck.
Oh wait! I forgot how innocent America is and how they're the only victim of terrorism in the entire history of the world, ever.
Oh wait...
I disagree with most of his post, but there's nothing wrong with quoting "President", when the title is applied to Bush the Second. Face it, Bush stole the election through the connivance of the conservative dominated Supreme court (which has psychos like Scalia on it - he's really crazy, just read some of his arguments). Oh, and apparently a not-insignificant portion of the ignorant electorate voted for him on the assumption that he was his father (the father was a man whom I respected for his long service to the nation and his expertise).
"The slave who knows his master's will and does not get ready...will be be beaten with many blows."Luke 12:47-48
This could be dangerous for americans traveling to Brazil. The relationship with foreign citizens there is based on reciprocity and that latins boys have big monster dicks.
And no attack happened, though many flights were cancelled and some people were questioned (I'm not sure if anyone was formally arrested anywhere).
Considering that a french flight was cancelled because a passenger was a suspected terrorist, and after interregotation it turned out to be a baby, no, no one was arrested.
These are the people in charge of your security. Feel safe, citizen?
You can't take the sky from me...
Traveled all over North America as a kid, never left the hemisphere. New places just don't interest me as much as new things, so now I don't. Why I don't even take vacations at all anymore. No sir, don't like 'em.
However, not only do you think that other countries are not obligated to help the US find the bad apples, you also now don't think the US should be allowed to help itself. No one is asking these people to come here. They do so of their own fucking free will. Should circumstances change I encourage them to stay the fuck away. I encourage that anyway.
The US isn't pissing on anyone. We're taking a few seconds from everyone to prevent someone else from taking thousands of lifetimes away. That's it. Don't like it, go to Brazil. They're more than happy to have you I'm sure.
But seriously, fuck them. If the tables were turned, we'd be helpful. In fact, I think we should just stop being helpful. Why not have a little America first isolationism. It's what everyone says they want from america anyway. Then we FINALLY wouldn't have to listen to you bitch. You don't here us bitching about all the people robbed and assaulted in Brazil, aside from a word of caution to those traveling there. You don't hear us demanding to know why the French tried to kill all the old people off during the summer. That is their damn business. Weird, and noteworthy, but it's their business we have no opinion.
If you want anti-social, it's within our means to offer that. But I wouldn't call the French profiteering off of the suffering of Iraqis living under a genocial psychotic paranoid meglomaniac noble. Or the German, or the Russian, or the Chinese. How those state owned news services going in Russia? China? Fantastic. You have a good one.
As with all losses of freedom there are always people fine with it because it does not affect them. However, as Martin Luther King so eloquently expressed, if all of us are not free then none of us are free. Eventually these measures will be applied to regular US citizens. This system is being perfected at the cost of the freedom of foreigners (myself included). Have no fear, ur next.
btw...all those going ons in Guantanamo...don't worry ur next for that too (Padilla was just the first).
Maybe he does, but that has nothing to do with said comment...
awww, are you still a little bit steamed that Al Bore lost?
Newflash, aint no Democrat gonna win next time either.
Um, what liberty are Americans sacrificing for this "security"? They don't need visas for traveling within the US.
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
Afghanistan has descended into an anarchy comparable to that which prevailed before the rise of the ruthless but religiously motivated Taliban.
Are they describing the country that just had constitutional convention? The one that just agreed upon a constitution?
The Taliban are gaining territory again, there are large parts of the country that are still under their controll.
The USSR fought the talibans for years before giving up and leaving them the country (back when the US called them freedom fighters...go rent Rambo III and that Timothy Dalton James Bond...Liscense to Kill I think), and the US bombed the shit out of them and then moved on to bomb the shit out of Irak...
The U.S., however, didn't start this conflict.
List of countries the USA has bombed since the end of World War II:
China 1945-46
Korea 1950-53
China 1950-53
Guatemala 1954
Indonesia 1958
Cuba 1959-60
Guatemala 1960
Belgian Congo 1964
Guatemala 1964
Dominican Republic 1965-66
Peru 1965
Laos 1964-73
Vietnam 1961-73
Cambodia 1969-70
Guatemala 1967-69
Lebanon 1982-84
Grenada 1983-84
Libya 1986
El Salvador 1981-92
Nicaragua 1981-90
Libya 1986
Iran 1987-88
Libya 1989
Panama 1989-90
Iraq 1991-2002
Kuwait 1991
Somalia 1992-94
Croatia 1994 (of Serbs at Krajina)
Bosnia 1995
Iran 1998 (airliner)
Sudan 1998
Afghanistan 1998
Yugoslavia 1999
Afghanistan 2001-02
You can't take the sky from me...
The South plans to implement a similar scheme, but only for yankees. The southern states are excluded.
No. Our business is our business. Your business is your business.
Would it be nice if Indonesia tried to do a little something about their security, probably. Should Australia act premptively, just in case, maybe. How about western Europe, sure. Brazil, you'd think so, with that Carnival that attracts how many tourists? Brazil doesn't want to, and perhaps can't afford to, provide the security assurances the US would like to have to increase the probablities in their favor. Fine. No one is making them. But we still have to be sure even if they aren't, and don't feel the need to be. Which is reasonable, after all, Brazil, and the US are very different countries.
So because the Brazillians aren't threatened by acts of terrorism happening to the US, small wonder, the US standard should be the Brazillian standard. That's your argument. But somehow I'm the idiot.
If you can't give a few seconds and a fingerprint, that's too much of an expense, GOOD, GREAT, FANTASTIC don't come here. I also don't care if anyone from the US can go to Brazil. (I'll never want to, because if I ever go on vactaion it's going to be to Prague, St. Petersberg or Bejing). If the Brazillians want to ignore their own security short comings, don't care about the needs of the US, that's fine too. Probably stupid, but utterly irrelevant. They're lucky we don't take the same attitude when it comes to IMF funding. How's that inflation?
By the same token, no way in hell I'd go to Greece to see the Olympics.
not really: now you can board a plane with nothing on you, spot a marshall, steal his weapon and hijack the plane. it has made air travel less safe.
I don't have fingers you insensitive clod!
Not citizens = no "constitutional" protected expectation of privacy
Here we get our photo taken along with our fingerprints when we have done a "CRIMINAL" act.
While the fingerprints for Australians only apply for people requiring a VISA, which is for a stay of over 3 months for citizens, I don't see myself going to the US any time soon as I'm not feeling too welcome by our Anzus partner.
By the way, would you object to a national ID card? Would it bother you if they where able to track and analyze your movements and purchases, the books you read and the people you associate with? I'm sure Microsoft would be more than happy to supply the database technology, although Oracle would be a better choice!
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
ok what if someone boards a plane in mexico or canada or brazil or any other country in north and south america and then while they're on american soil, just before a landing decides to hijack and crash it? a helluva lot of good the stupid fingerprinting system will do then, not like its going to make any different. all bush is doing is wasting tax money in good for nothing schemes which is destroying america and the freedoms it once stood for.
AC writes No one is asking these people to come here.
Tourism you fucken plonker.
...and Spanish passports, and Italian passports, etc., whether they come from these countries or not. Getting honorary citezenships based on ancestry, business ownership, "artist" status, or whatever is trivial. Many people I know have several passports. I bet some of the 9/11 terrorists had one or more European passports too, whether or not that's where they were from.
Ever had a flight delayed because the mechanics thought something was wrong, then it turned out to be no big deal? Would you rather they just shrug their shoulders and have the plane take off, anyway?
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
December 09, 2003 02:10 PM US Eastern Timezone
VeriChip Corporation Signs New International Distribution Agreement for South Africa
PALM BEACH, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 9, 2003--
Minimum purchase requirement to maintain distributor exclusivity for 5 years calls for sale of over 51,000 VeriChips - initial order placed
Applied Digital Solutions, Inc. (Nasdaq: ADSX), an advanced technology development company, today announced "immediately after its CEO's appearance on CNNfn" that its wholly owned subsidiary, VeriChip Corporation, has signed a 5-year exclusive international distribution agreement with AfriTrace (Pty) Ltd. of South Africa. AfriTrace's sister company, IdentiPet (www.identipet.com), has purchased over 300,000 animal microchips from Applied Digital's majority owned affiliate, Digital Angel Corporation (Amex: DOC) over the past 14 years.
Under the five-year exclusive distribution agreement, AfriTrace must meet annual minimum sales quotas to maintain exclusive distribution rights in South Africa. If these annual minimum sales quotas are met, the new distribution agreement calls for the sale of over 51,000 VeriChips and 2500 proprietary VeriChip scanners. AfriTrace has placed an initial order of 300 VeriChips.
With years of experience in the mining industry of South Africa, AfriTrace initially intends to use VeriChip technology for mining applications; e.g. identification of miners and location of miners within complex mine labyrinths.
About VeriChip(TM)
VeriChip is a subdermal, radio frequency identification (RFID) device that can be used in a variety of security, financial, emergency identification and other applications. About the size of a grain of rice, each VeriChip product contains a unique verification number that is captured by briefly passing a proprietary scanner over the VeriChip. A small amount of radio frequency energy passes from the scanner energizing the dormant VeriChip, which then emits a radio frequency signal transmitting the verification number. In October 2002, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ruled that VeriChip is not a regulated device with regard to its security, financial, personal identification/safety applications but that VeriChip's healthcare information applications are regulated by the FDA. VeriChip Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Applied Digital Solutions (Nasdaq: ADSX). For more information about VeriChip, visit www.adsx.com.
About Applied Digital Solutions, Inc.
Applied Digital Solutions is an advanced technology development company that focuses on a range of life-enhancing, personal safeguard technologies, early warning alert systems, miniaturized power sources and security monitoring systems combined with the comprehensive data management services required to support them. Through its Advanced Technology Group, the Company specializes in security-related data collection, value-added data intelligence and complex data delivery systems for a wide variety of end users including commercial operations, government agencies and consumers. Applied Digital Solutions owns a majority position in Digital Angel Corporation (AMEX: DOC). For more information, visit the Company's website at http://www.adsx.com.
Statements about the Company's future expectations, including future revenues and earnings, and all other statements in this press release other than historical facts are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and as that term is defined in the Private Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties and are subject to change at any time, and the Company's actual results could differ materially from expected results. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect subsequently occurring events or circumstances.
Contacts
CEOcast, Inc.
Investor Contact, Mathew Henderson, 212-732-4300;
mhenderson@ceocast.com
Im all for it! Give the yanks more guns. Build a BIG wall around the usa and THROW guns in there. Should sort the problem out in a couple of decades i reckon.
It's reassuring at least, to know that there are always people screaming for the US to do more and more, and less and less at the same time.
When we offer bread, you demand caviar. Nice.
They're analog!
2004/1 ... Jack-booted Good ol' Boys arrive at /. to track down the posters of every subversive comment. .. Bush renames "White House" to "White Palace" immediately after election. .... Bush declares northern Mexico part of Texas, throws out residents, and builds "Texas Palace" there. .... In new "Freedom of Religion Act", Catholics, Muslims, moderates and atheists are declared official terrorists. Pre-dawn raids on the Vatican successfully eliminate the terrorist threat known as the Pope. .... Loyalist US Army enforces "Two terms is Two Too Few" Executive Order.
... .... In "Most evil people in the last 200 years" poll, George Bush beats Hitler 10 to 1.
2004/11
2005
2006
2007
2050
I recently travelled to Canada from Bermuda (passing through the US), and at the Bermudian airport's US customs preclearance desk they had the fingerprint scanner the submitter mentioned. They also had what looked like a Logitech Quickcam Express (the black one) to take your picture. I asked what I'd have to do to get fingerprinted and they said 'we have our criteria'. Pretty tight-lipped :D
Am I the only one that sees this as a stab on the future use of biometric identification schemes?
How can I, being for ex. a businessman of a foreign country competing with a US company and traveling to the US, trust on using byometric ID for anything important in my corporation afterwords?
It is know, or at least suspected that inteligence gathered info was supplied and used before by US corporations to battle foreign competitors (ex. Boeing vs. Airbus Consortium). Who is going to have access to the database?
How can I allow a foreign country to have precise byometric info on me, and to keep it in a database, cross-referenced with my personal info?
This might be as much a privacy issue as a trade secret one.
These "homeland security" measures that Bush and Ridge are saddling us with are a giant conjob. I travel around NYC, and they've reduced the NYPD to a bunch of overtime crossing guards. If I were sick enough to want to sabotage something big enough to get on TV, it would be really easy. The airports are just as porous. Meanwhile, the Sunday before New Year's Eve, somebody buzzed their small plane around the Statue of Liberty ( under a mile from the hole where the World Trade Center stood) for several minutes before the FAA even warned them away from that closed airspace. During a Christmas/New Year week of steady Orange Alert. Any heads roll? Any tightening of the security? Found any "evil doers"? No. This is a scam to keep us scared, obedient, and ignorant of the very real changes the Feds are pulling on us.
If you want to know why, just think about all those military contractors that Bush was going to hook up with "missile defense shield" contracts ($100s of billions - trillions). After the WTC planebombings, they couldn't convince anyone the #1 threat was missiles. So they turned their proposals and whitepapers into "TerrorWar" marketing and "Iraqmire" lobbying. Do you think all that Pentagon biz development just went away? They need that money! And they're getting it. But they don't have actual TerrorWar products, so they're just keeping up the smokescreens and scapegoats while they retool. By the time we catch on and get tired of just rounding up foreign looking people, their systematic abuse of every possible fringe group will probably have produced actual nuts who will follow Osama bin Laden's career highlight. Then the contractors will be able to say "I warned you", and keep business rolling. Unless we start calling them on it, and stop playing along by watching their TerrorTV and taking them seriously.
--
make install -not war
One problem is that even if you can correctly identify every single person entering the country, you can't stop any terrorists until they have a known terror record.
Still, this should effectively put a stop to anyone attempting their second suicide bombing! And that's no worse than most of these anti terror programs.
It seems not too long ago that the US and especially the US press used to go on about how fingerprinting when entering Japan was an invasion of privacy.
I don't hear them yelling in protest so loudly now.
All except the ones they've been doing for the past hundred-some odd years before the computer.
Bseides, last I checked, my fingers are analog.
Contact Me (got tired of viruses emailing me).
"Security"? How's that going to help? You just may be able to prevent a single person from being murdered by erecting walls around them (read: the president) but how are you going to protect an entire country?
Don't you see that something else is wrong here? For one, maybe the US shouldn't be training terrorists like Osama Bin laden, the world would already be safer then.
So stop nagging about security, get your head out of your ass, and start thinking about why this trrorism is taking place.. It's just a symptom of a bigger issue and digging trenches or shutting your eyes to reality (and calling it 'security') is not going to help.
What we need is open minds to face the world of tomorrow. Not a reactionary, "we are better than the rest so it's okay for us to kill other people" and then expect that everyone will like you for it.
I won't call you a moron because I don't want to offend real morons.
If the plans by the US Office of Homeland Security come through, I won't be able to fly over to the USA with my brand new EU passport without submitting my fingerprints and/or retinal scan with the visa. The new passports will, at the request of the beforementioned office, have to feature digital biometric information that will be fed to a federal database.
I will not submit to this.
litigious bastards
suck it sco!
Well, this is the first step for doing it the way it's done in the 5 element.... later they will add few pistols that will point to your face if you are found to be a criminal :)
.... you know what will be coming in the futur....hum....hope that 5th Element Jovovich will fall in my cab soon.
That's why I love Sci-Fiction
Karma: Very Very Very Very Bad
It is hard to believe that either Washington or London would relish the prospect of an open trial. They would not want Saddam to adumbrate their support for him - credit-by-credit, pathogen-by-pathogen, weapon-by-weapon - during the 12 years before he became an official enemy by invading Kuwait in August 1990.
I frequently see opponents of the current administration claiming that the administration does not want a trial, but the actual statements from the administration don't support the claim, in fact they contradict it.
I'm no fan of Gorge Bush, but I hardly think it's a reasonable debating tactic to put words in his mouth, then attack him for them.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Just wait until all incoming visitors to the US must submit DNA as part of the recordkeeping. After all, we wouldn't want any visitors committing crimes, and then leaving the country wihout someway of tying physical evidence to the ingress/egress record, right? Next step after that is to have all US citizens leaving the country submit DNA as well... just in case you're leaving because you're on the run. We'll just have to screen it against all current open crimes...
Once this registry with very current info is established, expect everyone from the left to the right to start mining it - late on your car payments? Exit visa DENIED. Forget to turn in your library books on time? DENIED.
At a certain point in the future, you'd better have your papers in order when travelling from Chicago to LA...
An unjust peace is preferable to the most righteous of wars. - Cicero.
Even peace may be purchased at too high a price - Benjamin Franklin .
(I just read those two quotes together in a book VERY recently, and they stuck in my head. Does anyone remember what book it is??? Arrgh!)
Forget about US national security. The real reason for these measures is that someone in the Bush administration has been short-selling airline stocks. There really seem to be a real desire to drive the industry to the ground at all cost.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
In short: All this security at the airport is like the old adage.
"This rock in my hand keeps away all the lions."
"But there are no lions here."
"Exactly."
Or, as was said by the IRA after they tried to blow up Maggie Thatcher in Brighton:
"We have to be lucky once. You have to be lucky every time."
Back in the Clinton era, if this was attempted, you would have had Limbaugh and O'Reilly as well as every half baked right winger in this land screaming out "Big Government!!!" and "Jackbooted Thugs!!!!", but now it's OK??! What happened to your fervor my friends? If it just because it doesn't apply to you that it's OK? If so, I'm glad I don't live in your head, my brain would get cramped in something that small.
8 of 19 alleged hijackers are still alive.
Waleed M Alshehri - alive and well in Casablanca, Morocco
Marwan Al Shehhi - Alive; same link as above
Ahmed Alghamdi - Alive; same link as above
Wail M Alshehri - Alive
Ahmed Alnami - Alive; same link as above
Abdulaziz Alomari - Working for Saudi Telecom
Salem Alhamzi - Working at a petrochemical company
Saeed Alghamdi - Alive; same link as above
The US has dealt with the problem. bin Laden was at one point Minister of Defense of Afghanistan. Right before the US crushed that government flat. No country is going to tolerate "terrorist training camps" aimed at the US for years to come.
So lighten up already. Yes, there will be incidents in future. But they'll probably come from some completely different direction, like the Oklahoma City bombing, which was done by 100% Americans. We'll have to deal with that when it comes.
With all these Orange Alerts recently ("They're going to attack on Xmas - no, New Years - in Rapahannock County - no, LA - no, Vegas") it's beginning to look like al Queda is down to a couple of guys mouthing off to get attention.
By nightfall your country will be teeming with orcs!
One of these days I'm moving to Theory - everything works there
its all feel good bullshit thats the real reason and raising the terrist threat level is a classic case of Catch 22 if they didnt and some major shit hit the fan people would have screamed "WHY DIDNT YOU RAISE THE LEVEL!!!" and since they raised it and nothing happaned people now scream "WHY DID YOU RAISE THE LEVEL!!" I do agree this is all BS to make people "feel" safe.
Okay, that was news to me. There's still no reason they wouldn't fake passport from whitelisted countries instead, though.
(There's no need to e-mail me to get my attention. My preferences ensure I get a message when I get a reply, and I keep an eye on the reply counts. If I don't reply to someone it's likely because a) I can't be arsed b) they're rude idiots c) they're anonymous cowards or d) they're rude, idiotic, anonymous cowards (got a lot of those today).)
I for one welcome our new SCOviet Russian overlords to whom all our base are belong.
Let me mention that most people in Brazil are OK with this decision to identify US citizens.
The mayor of Rio de Janeiro is the one against it, and some people there bought that idea too, but they're just a minority in Brazil.
This is obviously immigration control disguised as an anti-terrorist measure.
The stories we are being spun just seem like a grown up version of the Man from U.N.C.L.E. and
THRUSH. The Man From U.N.C.L.E
I am concerned as to how the War on Terror affects me, personally. Already I was never entirely
trusting of tall buildings and so no change there. I am a little nervous of flying but there
are enough things to go wrong already that hijacking is just another problem. And as we are
going to win the War on Terror, so we are told, I will be able to re-enter high buildings and
sleep on planes. But only when everyone who hates us is dead will tall buildings and planes
be safe. A lot of people are going to have to die.
Which is insane! There must be another way.
Anyway, back to the mundane issue of how this all effects me. And you. We are all being told
by our governments to be vigilent. We are on variously coloured alerts of several levels of
seriousness. We have to be on the lookout for terrorists. Which presents us with a problem:
How do we identify a terrorist? By suspicious activity. We have no choice but to tolerate
being viewed suspiciously by the police and other more secretive government agencies.
This news story from CNN provides insight as to what is meant when the authorities say that
some activity is "suspicious" or "consistent with known methods of al-Qaida". You might
already be guilty of this behaviour so click here:
Don't annotate your almanac!
Perhaps it is one of my many character flaws but I find I am unable to obey _all_ the laws
_all_ the time. Sometimes I feel guilty just passing by a policeman. [Othertimes, like you,
I smile and say hello.] Did he see me jay-walking? Have I fastened my seat belt? Is he
aware I have annotated my almanac?
I assure you this does not happen often but next time my collar is felt by the local constabulary
I wonder if, having now read the CNN article, I will find myself babbling that the jottings
in the margins of my copy of Lonely Planet are not "suspicious".
USA and UK law allows a policeman to arrest someone he suspects of terrorist activity and that person can be help incommunicado but lawyers
are critical because the laws are pretty vague about what this activity is. Such activity,
presumably, would be "consistent with known methods of al-Qaida". By the measure of the USA's
FBI advice to policemen described in CNN's above referenced article it seems any of us can be arrested at any time.
Am I the only one who thinks that the erosion of civil liberties is unlikely to address the
threat of terrorism? Should you share my opinion about the suspension-of-liberty vs terror issue
(i.e. that it's not the either-or choice we are told it is) I advise you not to air it at USA
airport security. Were you to do so while you are prodded in the genitals both with enthusiasm
and a Geiger counter (or while they flick though your almanac) I bet you would miss your flight.
In my view liberty is fragile and is threatened more by authoritarians than by terrorists.
All these supposed counter-terrorist measures are getting too invasive and pervasive for me.
Paul Beardsell
PATRIOT ACT I
and Bush signed in parts of the second act
What we need in the white house is someone who will cut so much useless government out of our lives that they will live in their own house instead of a publicly funded one.
carlahowell.orgDo you hear soccer moms bitching for a woman in the White House? This one has some views on gun rights that would shock the sheeple!
This guy has good ideas; but with our stupid media they will probibly just make fun of his ears(he is NOT bush) Yay Liberty!
Learn lisp today!
They only get known when they're dead.. I mean, after they blown some bomb, plane or such.. What do you expect? Bin Laden showing himself in person at an airport?
...and tonight, as I was trying to rush through customs from one flight to a connecting flight, the entire validation system went down for about 15 minutes, leaving me and about 200 other people in a panic of nailbiting anxiety. The customs agent told me that the crash was due to their having installed the new software needed for the fingerprinting and photo database, and apparently the system had gone down all over the US. All the agents were issued backup CDs to boot up from (although my agent seemed to be having a hard time figuring out how to put the CD into the drive) and then things were back to normal, although presumably without the new photo/fingerprinting system. All the computers were running W2K Professional and had a cool (tho ominous) Department of Homeland Security logo on them.
Think back to the 9/11 attack. Can you recall how fast the names and photographs of the hijackers were on the front page of every newspaper? That tells you they had the names -- yes, the names on the flight manifests! -- photographs and doubtless much more but these guys got on the planes! Having that assemblage of data, can anyone explain to me why every airline's reservation service didn't have lookup tables for known terrorists? Okay, the Administration claims, "Who coulda' known?" But lookups are so simple, fast, non-intrusive and operate before the flights take off(!) it seems they should have been and still be in place. Anybody know if they are in use?
Those who trade freedom for security will soon have neither.
What will they do if I sand off my fingerprints?
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
You HAVE sat on the subway's seats, haven't you? :-)
More than mere navel gazing.
You have no rights when you try to enter another country. Customs does not need probable cause or a reasonable suspicion to search your person and effects. The immigration officer can refuse you entry for any or no reason. That isn't just the United States, that's every country in the world.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Garbage indeed, but there was solid prosperity mixed in with that garbage. The Nazi economic platform consisted of a government designed to faciliate business. It might even be said that they formed the first modern Corporate State (as fascism is 'corporate' by nature), especially considering that the Nazis were focused on Germany's military-industrial complex.
There is a reason that one of our better Presidents warned America of that poisonous alliance between business and government; I fear all the "security" infrastructure we are building is only expanding that danger in a new direction.
So to bring this back to the point at hand. Even though comparisons between the current US Administration and the Nazis are.....tenuous, at best, that does not mean that the path is being paved for another madman ten, twenty, or thirty years from now.
==============
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
"The U.S., however, didn't start this conflict."
theres always a few words or a phrase to latch on to in unintelligent posts. i think thats the one right there. what conflict are you even talking about?
the war in iraq? umm... when did iraq attack the usa? i forget.
osama bin laden? an american trained terrorist doing handywork.
please give me one example of a conflict that the usa did not start.
just one
thats all i want.
oh and read your history. most of the resolutions on iraq were placed there under the strong guidance of the USA. they hurt the people and not sadam, as you can see by the jewel encrusted faucets and gold plated ak47s that were strewn about.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
...until you are actually admitted into the US (hence, Camp Delta, Guantanamo Bay). Assuming you are already an American citizen (which I am, since you say "our borders"), "our" civil liberties will be unaffected since only travelers from 28 foreign countries are to be fingerprinted - and the US is not one of those 28, obviously. I can't believe people think that travelers from other countries shouldn't have to verify their identities before entering the United States. Bush critics criticize him for not doing enough on the war on terror, while simultaneously criticizing him for doing too much.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Clever but unrelated to anything.
If you once had an elephant on your lawn and pepper made it go away and there were rogue elephants roaming your neighborhood and you were told by an elephant expert to pepper your lawn to ward off elephants, then you might have a point.
But you don't.
Nice try.
There were several terrorist incidents when we were stationed overseas - I witnessed one, my family avoided one thanks to our chronically late mother (Thanks, Mom!), and some escaped Basque nationalists stole our car (that was not fun). Three in three years if you discount the occassional ass-beating by local teens who hated Americans (well, us anyway), a riot (my bad), and the consequences of unwise activities by myself and fellow American teens (often misguided patriotism or plain mischief).
Nevertheless, the other 99.5% of the time we were as safe and sound as bugs in a rug, living in a great country with kind and friendly people, immersed in a rich culture, surrounded by millennia of history, and had a fantastic time. Those are the times that I remember and cherish - going to the Prado, walking through El Escorial, marveling at the Valley of the Fallen, visiting the tombs of Saints, roaming through ancient castles, seeing the Hanging Gardens, touching Queen Isabella's jewelry box (it was about the size of my Shuttle XPC), meeting Queen Sofia...and tons more great experiences.
Even at the height of tensions between American military folks and Spanish civilians (during the biological warfare accident/linseed oil poisoning of olive oil) we - the Americans - were never subject to the invasive 'security checks' foreign visitors experience coming to the United States.
Fast forward exactly 20 years from January of 1984 (when we settled into our new stateside duty station)...
The Patriot Act I and II, fingerprint scanning, CAP fighter and Apache patrols over American cities, "orange" terrorist alerts, "war on terrorism" with ever-shifting definitions of "terrorist", jailing of American citizens without charge for years, propoganda in American media ---
After one terrorist incident in three years (albeit a terrible one) wrecking the peaceful tranquility of the nation's daily domestic tragedies, America is moving toward a police state. Even as hopping Spain was with machinegun toting Spanish military dudes and several terrorist incidents (bombings, shootings, mass poisonings), 99.5% of the time everything was cool and there wasn't nearly the level of hysterical anti-democratic overreaction we've seen here in the United States. Nobody got on TV to talk about how terribly vulnerable to terrorism we were; everyone knew it. Nobody went out to fingerprint, track, and data-mine everyone in the world - you just needed proper ID; match face to picture and signature to signature.
All the security in the world isn't going to stop terrorism; just ask Israel - it probably has the best-trained and equipped security forces on the face of the planet. By their own figures they stop 90% of suicide bombers, but nobody can stop them all. The Palestinian resistance has demonstrated its capability to carry out a 'successful' bombing on a daily basis - killing a dozen or more civilians and wounding scores - terrorizing millions.
Even if we could wall up everything, put cops on every street corner, monitor and surveille whoever we wished - we cannot stop terrorism, not without addressing the root cause that motivates people to kill themselves and a bunch of people. And I'm not talking religion here.
I'm talking a sane foreign policy that doesn't make enemies out of everyone we walk over or steal from to 'protect our national interests' - or enemies of the 'friends and allies' with whom we used to divvy up the spoils.
Instead, we need a policy that simultaneously roots out genuine terrorists while helping those who have a legitimate beef with us for having trampled all over them. We need to focus on reducing the environment that breeds terrorists and terrorism, not fueling it.
To everyone who says that we are less safe today than we were before September 11, I say that we were more safe within an HOUR after airplanes flew into the World Trade Center towers than we were before, especially with respect to airline travel. And all this extra airline security does very little. Here is why:
Much has been made of the fact that the highjackers on 9/11 used boxcutters to hijack the planes. This is rubbish. The highjackers used the threat of blowing up the planes with a bomb as their primary weapon to take control of the aircraft. The only thing the boxcutters did was to further intimidate the passengers and to ensure that all sharp objects would henceforth be zealously confiscated before boarding a commercial airplane.
Less than an hour after the first airplane hit the tower, passengers on United flight 93 began calling their loved ones by cell phone, and learned about the attacks in New York and DC. When they realized what the terrorists were going to do with their airplane, they hatched a plan to take the plane out of the hands of the terrorists.
Imagine you were flying in a commercial jet today and the plane was being hijacked with men armed with boxcutters, or small pocket knives, or any similar small weapon. What would you do? I would assume they were trying to pull off another 9/11 style attack, figure I was going to die anyway, and take my chances tackling the guy with the boxcutter. I believe many people on the plane would do the same. For a group of terrorists to pull off a highjacking today, they would have to kill nearly every able-bodied adult on the plane before they could take control. On an aircraft where they are outnumbered 10-1, that's not likely to happen if they're armed with machetes, let alone boxcutters.
Turning commercial jets into missiles was a clever trick (and evil and nefarious and all that), but it can only work once. I know it, the government knows it, Osama Bin-Laden and Al Qaeda know it. There will never be another airline highjacking again, because the terrorists aren't dumb enough to try it, especially in the U.S. where images of 9/11 are still very much fresh in people's minds. They could try to blow a plane up, but there hasn't been a successful airplane bombing in years. There are just easier targets out there for a bomber, like crowded public areas or any building you could drive a truck up to.
So why is the government making such a big deal about its new security measures? Because that's what the people want. People are scared and they want to know the government is doing something to address the issue, which makes them feel safer. It's largely political. I don't think its really possible to make substantial improvements in public safety with respect to terrorism. Take border security as an example. The new fingerprinting scheme is intended to make sure people coming into the country are who they say they are and discourage them from overstaying their visas, not to prevent them from hijacking a plane. It will probably have very little effect on either. Thousands of illegal aliens stream into the country every day from Mexico. Overall, I don't know if it is feasible for the government to completely secure U.S. borders. I doubt it.
In the meantime, I still don't know what to do with my Leatherman when I travel, and I have no bags to check in. I usually take it everywhere with me, but I can't pack it on my carry-on anymore. Do I go up to the check-in desk with a 4 inch long box and say "I have 1 box to check, please!" I don't think they would let me on the plane if I did.
Some facts for you:
Your first-world country is great man!
Just keep buying goods from the poor miserables here! (sigh.. you know that my computer is made of used cans and coconuts?)
DNA id's are composed of junk-DNA strains.
They contain NO information on individuals that we are aware of.
Its not like they keep a _complete_ DNA picture of you.
"/Dread"
Your enlightened and well reasoned argument composed of decomposing straw men has led me to the light of salvation. The world really does run on hugs. Thanks! That was just super of you.
Maybe, just maybe I'm mistaken here. But a little conquest can be good for people. Would the Russians be powerful if not for their subjegation at the stirups if not hands of the mongols? Or China without it's warring states period, and the same, followed by further victimization at the hands of the West? Sometimes people just need killing. It's not pretty, it's not happy. But not everyone is reasonable, especially the psychopaths, and sociopaths. If I came to your house to kill you, and rape your wife and daughters before I looted it, would you offer to make me a hot cup of coco while we talked about my troubled childhood? Doubtful.
You're invectives are so original and clever, I feel almost silly pointing out it's unreasonable to expect everyone to be reasonable given the empirical evidence. But what do I know. You've got so many buzzwords in your vocabulary, I'm like mondo intimidated!
instead of trying to keep them out. Why is it that Yanks never address the reasons WHY you are so hated in so many places? Or the irony of where people like Bin Laden got their training, anthrax, etc.
You tried prohibition, it didn't work. You waged a "War on Drugs" that didn't work. Now you are waging a "War on Terrorism". Even if it WAS something more than a thinly veiled excuse to protect the price you pay for gas it would still likely fail because you are treating the SYMPTOMS and not the CAUSE. And here's a lttle CLUE for you - adopting a strike-first, unilateral foreign policy is not going to make you safer. It will breed more resentment, hatred and suicidal zealots.
Is an industry.... So who are the people sending invitations. I'm not familiar with institutions like corporations, let alone trade associations being refered to with the pronoun "one."
If you'd like to criticize my spelling or grammer feel free, God knows their both lacking. But hey, is it TOO much to ask that you limit your criticizms to my mistakes and not yours projected onto me?
Thanks, that'd just be super. Now kindly shut the fuck up you limey snaggle toothed lead paint chip snorting sex starved ass bandit.
They should have put *that* on the statue of liberty:
We. Don't Want. You.
followed by:
Keep your crappy beaver pelts, shells, pine
cones, or whatever the fuck you use for
currency.
We don't want you here.
BTW, please try not to use "we" as though you speak for all americans. You don't speak for me.
We are high risk company from Middle East and Central Asia. We are looking for supplier of either passports from these 28 countries or the technoology to forge them. We pay good money.
Ahmed ibn al-Kaif el-Kazar, CTO
Osama and Co.
Bombed ?
... and frankly, it should stay that way.
Where do you get your facts ?
Indimedia ?
Anyway, it doesn't matter - you don't get to do decide about anything more important than say , which fucking tshirt you are going to put on every day
you fucking troll.
The USSR wouldn't have survived without proxy-armies battling its expansion?
What armies and what expansion? Since USSR was founded, Finland separated from it, and the only army that actually fought for USSR Communists was their own (sometimes "helping" governments that didn't ask them, though that was quite rare, and limited to the immediate neighbors). USSR had its sphere of influence, but for the whole its history it didn't do anything to expand it, with the exception of WWII when it became inevitable. Its economy was closed, it could get no benefit from trying to be a robber baron, so its military policy was defensive (and shut up about Afghanistan already, it shared the border with USSR, and was massively messed with by some very hostile groups of people -- not that the situation changed much since then). "Support" of Iraq and other "allies" in the Middle East and Africa was a drain on the USSR, and even now those countries owe huge amounts of money to Russia, that they have no intention to pay back.
US on the other hand, did everything that you accuse USSR for -- supported foreign wars, created proxy armies, expanded its military presence to pretty much everything from Japan to Germany to Cuba, not to mention that its involvement with other countries always ended up providing benefits for American big businesses at everyone else's expense.
I have a long list of things I blame Communists/former USSR government/current Russian government for, but the things you have mentioned just aren't there, and to put it simply, you are ignorant about history.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
What you just described also perfectly describes the end of the First Punic War.
s/Hitler/Hannibal/, and voila! Second Punic War. Of course, without all the gas chambers and concentration camps.
This system just adds to a database. A LARGE database, actually created by a company I indirectly work for. (And we will leave it at that.)
Any time you make a travel reservation - airline, car, hotel - anything - it is categorically stored and used in later profiling. This happens now, I am sitting not 200 feet from systems which contain this very data, as I type this message! And I mean, every single little tiny detail of your information that you submit (everything) is captured.
Fingerprint ID is just a way to tie you personally and physically into this same information store. One of the fundmental difficulties of profiling criminals is determining their identities - however if you can cross-reference millions of peoples' information with their physical ID, profiling of that data becomes a more trivial task.
Whether you believe me or not is irrelevant. I know this is happening because I know where the data comes from, and how it gets there. Here's the real kicker, hold on for this one... How can this be, you ask? "But this is invasion of privacy!" you say. Well, no. The government FUNDS these data stores, but they are handled by NON-GOVERNMENTAL agencies, at least in the collection of the data. It's all big corporate level stuff, who allows the government access. There are no checks on who can use it or how, because the government itself is not collecting the information. There is a big gaping loophole and I'm sure they'd rather you not know about it...
Then again, we're fighting a war across the world. Who has time for this crap anyway...
Can't seem to find my post anywhere, so here is my little news item again. WMD found in TEXAS!! http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1229/p02s01-usju.htm l
A ferry line in Denmark recently started using fingerprint scanners in their frequent traveler program (questionable, I know, but that's not the point). Now, this line goes to an island (Bornholm) which is home to a lot of craftsmen, especially potters. Turns out that many of these potters have lost their fingerprints from years of turning clay. I wonder if they'd be allowed into the US.
"A *person* is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."
- 'K' in Men in Black.
Sure, Israel is a US ally, great. So are many other countries. Why is the status of Israel among US allies sacrosanct? Trust me, Israel is more than capable of looking after its own interests (check its war record again). Questioning why the US should constantly fuck itself over in deals with Israel is not tantamount to advocating throwing the Jews in ovens.
Christ, get a sense of perspective. Of course, perspective does seem to be lacking in the Jewish community: for instance, last time I visited a Jewish Center there were three times as many Israeli flags as American flags, so I guess they do not care about alienating their fellow citizens.
Looking at all this ruckus about fingerprinter etc from a European (UK) perspective, and having spent 30 years of my life before that in South Africa, I think that all these measures are nothing more than a Dog & Pony show: smoke and mirrors . ..
In the bad old days of South African Apartheid, the white government legislated all kinds of things, pumped millions into the security forces, and spent huge chunks of the budget on trying to prevent attacks by "terrorists" from the banned liberation organisations such as the ANC and PAC. What good did that do? Sweet blue blow-all. All it did was challenge those organisations to be more creative about infiltrating their cadre's and hitmen & women into society, and the bombings continued, as did the agitation. Leaders of these organisations were identified and incarcerated, to no avail. It just didn't work, despite the fact that it turned the country into a police state.
Likewise, there is SBFA that the American administration can do to prevent determined terrorists from getting into the country and committing acts of terrorism - nothing at all. Personally, if I were an American citizen, I'd be protesting about the pointless waste of my tax dollars.
The only way the USA can make itself less of a target, is to change its arrogant attitude toward the rest of the world: realise that not everyone wants to live like an average American, and not everyone defines freedom and democracy in the same way as the USA does. In the same way that the freedom movements in South Africa were rebelling against the arrogant tyrany of the white government, who considered its world-view to be normative, there are nations out there who see the USA's attitude in much the same light.
I don't in any way condone the use of violence as a means of protest, and what happenned on 911 was just not on, not for any reason, but once again drawing a parallel with what happened in apartheid South Africa: put yourself in the shoes of the average oppressed black man for just a moment. Your back is to the wall: there's no more room for manuever. What option do you have but to resort to violence? Especially if that is all the government understands?
In this respect the USA (and Tony Blah) is supremely guilty: the WMD ruse was just an excuse to use an option that should have been an absolute last resort. What options do those nations have where the USA and other western nations have interfered but to resort to violence?
Didn't they know about how easy it is to fool fingerprint systems?
Graduate of the LeRoy Funkified Badass School of Soul.
While taking the fingerprint may only need 15s, checking the print against a database of 200, 500 million prints will take much longer and will produce many false positives that have to be investigated.
No... your metaphor would work if terrorist threats were currently being fixed by putting World Trade Centers all over the place for them to run into, as that's the way the previous 'elephant' was made to go away.
Uh gee- remember Oklahoma City, The Unabomber? Ring a bell?
Definitely have a need to watch out for who is in the country already. Unfortunately while we happily go along violating our own human rights we don't have the will to concentrate our efforts and resources on those most likely to be terrorists, i.e. people like us.
Keep agreeing with asinine policies that don't make you safer but erode your liberties.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Remeber to scream that many times the day the system fails and you are spirited away to Guantanamo without any legal recourse.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I dont know what the percentages are, but I recall that rock climbers and people who work on building sites are very hard to fingerprint because they are always rubbing down their prints. So spend every flight sanding your hands down and explain it away as 'I climb on gritstone';
If the goal is matching fingerprints to terrorists, the probability of matching will be low, as their database will be horribly incomplete. all they can realistically do with biometrics is (a) verify that the person in front of you matches the person who was granted the document (not that their identity is actually valid), and maybe (b) when registering docs, pick up on duplicate identities through duplicate fingerprints.
And neither are many of my co-nationals.
Since the US instituted these and other insane measure flight occupancy for flights from Mexico to the US has fallen by 30%.
For the first time I am reading and listening to middle class Mexicans that emphatically refuse to be treated like criminals.
No we don't like it, and as much as I regret it (I really wanted to see NY and Las Vegas) iw will follow your kind advice and will not visit your country until those demeaning measures are repelled.
My considerable purchasing power, and the one of as many people I manage to convince, can be used elsewhere.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
How many international Terrorists does it take to blow up the Oaklahoma Building ??
Whats the point in being paranoid about all the strange and foreign people when your school kids blow the crap out of each other and your own people do just as much terrorism with in their own borders ???
Kingdom of Loathing (www.kingdomofloathing.com) Addicted is me
"It would be insanity to wait for the totally compromised UN to solve the problem for us, after the enemy announced his intention to attack us, and did so, several times."
And what was exactly the problem for the States that you have solved invading irak?
That is the stuff that I dont see..
nuff said :(
Oh well, why do I ask, I am sure a responsible administration would never ever consider holding some hundreds of innocent people in custody for the sake of possibly capturing one or two suspected terrorists.
That's the arguement that supports Stupid Security
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
Not the thumbs.
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
I agree with you. When I arived in Germany around '89 I was a little kid and remeber checking the car with my mom for bomb before we got into it. That was normal. I still live in Germany, same base. Funny thing now is that the Germans are patrolling the gates to the US bases. Why? Becouse the US military is so undermaned.
1 .s tm
I think the reason US is going nuts is becouse the last time US citizens experianced war was during the civil war. Even WWII, Americans that lived in the US didn't see or hear any gunshots.
Anyways, if you want to read something scary, read the artice below. Note the date.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/west_asia/3702
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
It does amaze me that people will herald Libya etc. as our new best friends all of a sudden.
GWB made specific references pre-war to the ending of the policy of appeasing dirty, dictatorial regimes for the West's advantage. (Hence wiping out recent history with Iraq, and leaving them open to attack them).
Now the new policy seems to be the appeasement of dirty, dictatorial regimes to fit the US's purpose.
At least I figured the guy was going to be consistent after the war, if Sadam was his big enemy, then so were the rest of them Gadaffi (sp) and Saudi royals included.
Bush should have followed up on the warnings by placing the FBI, State and INS on a higher state of alert (i.e., look carefully at middle eastern visitors and what they are doing). If such a state was in place, the warnings raised earlier in the year may not have been ignored.
See my journal, I write things there
Now you can't wait for the toilet........ From the Sydney Morning Herald "Qantas passengers have been ordered not to queue outside toilets while making the 14-hour flight to and from the US. The directive was issued late yesterday by the US Transport and Security Administration, which is demanding pilots make a pre-flight announcement banning passengers from "congregating in groups around toilets or anywhere else in the aircraft". "
To get your German license, you will need official proof-of-address (Anmeldbecheinigung) and your passport. No fingerprints, but they have a good lock on who you are and where you live.
See my journal, I write things there
Fake passports aren't easy. Especially from the "whitelisted" countries. US Immigration is quite good at detecting fake passports. The good fakes come from official blanks, but there remains a problem with the serial numbers. About five years ago, I heard a fake passport using genuine blanks from EEA country would cost about $10K. I would guess that has gone up several times more recently.
See my journal, I write things there
Godwin's law! Point to red! Face! Bow! ...err, damnit, you HAD to go and invoke Godwin's law AND make plenty of good points.
If I ever meet you I'm gonna punch you right in the kisser, because it's the closest hybrid between kicking your ass and humping your leg.
In related news...
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
How are you gentlemen !!
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Some awesome points there... I agree with you, it is stupid for the administration to react like this, all it does is expose just how insecure and afraid the government really is. How much more have we been hearing about terrorist this, and al queda that sdince sept 11th? I'm sorry, move on, it was a horrible tragic day, but don't let it live in 'infamy' and plague the minds of your citizens for the rest of the decade. Because of bush and all this 'fast-law-passing' the country is now more afraid than it ever has been.
Is anyone thinking about what happens to all this finger-printing and photo-id data? We live in a digital age now, and it's not like paper records, that can get lost or deteriorated. We're talking about trusting the most personal aspects of a human being to a government who doesn't even respect basic international policy...I'll be damned if they'll be getting my finger-prints and a picture...
"Um, what liberty are Americans sacrificing for this "security"? They don't need visas for traveling within the US." ...yet ;)
If you think about the above flamer is average american citizen and voter, you can guess whats coming at you, when that gang will be re-elected.
BTW, I wonder, if in case I go to USA for holiday, which finger should we show to scanner? Index or other? heheh
Time to practice heavy accented english like "Master, me don't know your kulture" while showing middle finger...
maybe they mean digital as in inputed into a computer
...a subdermal RFID chip injected directly after birth? Or a little necklace containing an emitter, like those used on wildlife animals, so your whereabouts can be tracked via satellite? It'd be small and you can add some fancy gems to it if you want. Even better, they could add pain generators to it, that go off every time you approach a sensitive building without permission: 100m - makes you wee in your pants, 50m, knocks you out. Something like that. Possibilities all over, great security.
As long as I could get a fake id that way, it doesn't matter what controls are in place. I'll show up as a valid UK Citizen with a valid identity.
Wake up UK, control identity theft first. This nazism (which has just been proposed by the UK Government http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3375711.stm )
doesn't solve the problem of terrorism.
Didn't anyone learn anything from the IRA troubles in Northern Ireland and the Basque Seperatist troubles in France/Spain.
Sigs. We don't need no steenking sigs.
That early into the administration all the previous administration's methods were still in place
That's actualy not true at all. The bush admin got rid of a lot of senior admn. people including those working in national security, and replaced them with republicans.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Looking at the operating system they are using (Various Win32 platforms) it should be trivial for any Al Qaeida script kiddie to hack in and change the details. Id be very dubious of placing Airport security in the hands of such Security Moguls as microsoft.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
0.1% is 1 in 1,000. Not one in 10,000, you mother fucking idiot.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Yes, Bin Laden at the time was a freedom fighter. I wonder what the Soviets called him?
There's a fine line between terrorist and freedom fighter and the line is drawn depending on who's being blown up.
Freedom fighters don't just blow up military targets. They also blow up things that would adversely effect the military, such as power stations, which also effect civilian lives.
It's the same skill set for a terrorist.
How is a proposition to invade that many states less of a holocaust? I tell you: Arab countries have ~600 million inhabitants. 400 million of them are surely pissed off right now at the US and will snap out when Uncle Sam invades another country. You can "pacifiy" only so many countries in a decade and even that is going to create huge problems.
Invading _more_ than 7 countries in a decade is enough to being worse than Hitler.
Hitler only attacked Russia, Poland, Slovakia, France, the UK and 2 countries in north Africa - 7 countries.
Say hello to World War III, Mr. Ultra-Ignorant.
How dare you compare Bush to Hitler. Hitler was a democratically elected leader who until Germanys final defeat was mostly respected by his countrymen.
Many will cry foul, but even I, a radical free-rights person, don't see a problem
These are people that are voluntarily coming to the US to visit.. Its a choice. We dont need them here anyway, so if they balk they can go back where they came from.
Now when they start that with citizens.. that's a problem.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The fingerprinting system may or may not prevent terrorist attacks - it's really impossible to say. In a way, it makes sense to get the visa system clean first (or at least try to clean up this horrible mess).
But what has apparently be overlooked by American authorities / officials is the psychological impact. It really pisses people off. Even here in europe.
I have dealt with the US immigrations authorities a lot (i was studying there) and it's hard to describe the feeling when you are at the receiving end of it. Maybe prison is comparable. You talk to people behind bullet-proof glass, watched by marines with M16s, go through security scans like at the airport, the place is filled with posters that show handcuffed people who broke some immigration law (implying: YOU could be one of them), and, what's worst, the immigration officers do not believe a single word you say - regardless of what it is they always suspect some kind of scam. Even the holy pope himsef would wonder if he had done something illegal.
And that's in Europe! Other places are probably even worse.
Fingerprinting and taking pictures is not improving this situation.
You reap what you sow. And american immigration sows distrust and suspicion. In order to win peace in the world, the USA must win the hearts and minds of people. As it is, America is doing the opposite, most visibly at its outposts all over the world. The free world, looking like a prison or fortress...
I am not against checks, but there has got to be a way to make this humane, and to remove this aura of complete and utter paranoia. (European newspapers were reporting of "snipers on roofs and marines in attack-helicopters on new year's even in NY... )
One of my pet peeves is the way we assume we know stuff about the psychological state of "the German people" in this particular case. I had a textbook in college about how the Germans, each and every one of them, had a father complex as a result of The Great War. Seriously.
Can't we just accept the consequences of Versailles without going into a bunch of mumbo-jumbo pop psychology? I don't mind sociological explanations -- resentment of Versailles, and in particular of its economic consequences -- just the mind reading we're supposed to be able to use to explain an entire society at once.
This is like saying Americans are accepting these increased security measures because we're all so "co-dependent." You may as well cite Chinese astrology to explain that the "Ram Generation" in America is particularly accepting of involvement in Afghanistan due to its fondness for mountains.
He created scapegoats for existing problems in the person of the Jew....
If Hitler "created" antisemitism, there's a long history I just don't understand. This biography I'm reading about several generations of Czech women makes no sense at all...
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Don't you see that something else is wrong here? For one, maybe the US shouldn't be training terrorists like Osama Bin laden, the world would already be safer then.
Now that the Soviet Union is gone and Europe is free the US has no need to train terrorists, the same as they have no need for dictators anymore either.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
And ya know what's usually required to get a visa? To be fingerprinted.
Oh really? I got American visa twice, as a citizen of a former (thank you god, for the past tense!) commie country, and guess what: no fingerprints. No idea where your information came from, but my guess is that people in other countries requiring visa for US similarly aren't fingerprinted.
This a horrible idea because this fingerprinting system will not work if certain countries are exempted from this system. What is going to stop a terrorist from getting a passport from one of these exempted countries and using it to get into the USA, the answer is not much, all they have to do is steal someone's passport and their identity, because identity theft is now a big thing in this country.
Sincerely MonkeysKickAss
And lastly, I fail to see how, by enforcing a U.N. resolution, the U.S. is weakening the Charter
Exactly, it is mainly the French and Germans who are responsible for the weakening of the UN. Throwing out warnings and deadlines, and when the deadlines are not met and the warnings not listened to they just threw out more warnings. All along they were hoping that Saddam would not call them on it, and he did. And what happened then? Nothing... just more and more bs.
I also find it interesting how since the US did not do enough (or anything really) to help those in Rwanda and other countries, that we are to blame. And lets not even get into Serbia and Croatia... We're only one country... don't other countries have armies? I swore they did...
If we did indeed supply Iraq with chemical weapons (which isn't really in doubt) it is even more of a reason that we needed to get rid of Saddam. If we made a mess, we should clean it up.
Casual Games/Downloads
Oh, but the US has nothing to worry about... why would we ever want sky marshalls on these planes?
Associated Press
PARIS -- French authorities are searching for a passenger who didn't turn up for a scheduled Air France (search) flight on Christmas Eve, France's justice minister confirmed Wednesday.
The comments were in response to a report by a television network saying that European authorities were searching for a man with alleged Al Qaeda (search) links who failed to board an Air France flight on Christmas Eve.
"I confirm that we are looking for someone, but I can't say more," Justice Minister Dominique Perben (search) told RMC radio. "What's important when someone who doesn't take a plane is to know why he didn't take it."
The ABC report cited unidentified American officials as saying the passenger had a French passport and was believed to have undergone training in Afghanistan.
The report also quoted French officials as saying that the man was feared to have a small bomb whose components might get past airport security. The report said he was ticketed for Air France flight 68 from Paris to Los Angeles on Dec. 24.
The flight was one of six between Paris and Los Angeles on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day that was canceled following security talks between U.S. and French officials.
Perben declined to respond to questions about whether the suspect was a French national, had a criminal record or was on a watch list of the French counterterrorism agency, DST.
Opening it?
Previous policy was to cooperate with hijackers to prevent the loss of life. Open the door. Stop them from murdering the passengers and stewardesses.
Go along with the flow. Don't fight it. It will be resolved.
Times change. I doubt a hijacked flight will happen again without alot of bloodshed, and I doubt even stronger that, should a hijacker kill someone.... they will make it off the plane alive.
People have been goaded into taking actions and no longer becoming the passive sheep they once were on said plane. At least I've got to hope my fellow fliers feel so if it happens to me.
As long as you do not address the core problem, no security is going to help. To every intelligent security measure, there's comes an equally intelligent counter-measure. Nuff Said...
That seems to imply a different biometric measurement...
Tim
reading it at my work right now...
and the advert on this article gives me the following:
Forbidden
You were denied access because:
Access denied by access control list.
How perfect for this article
The people who complain about the fingerprinting are exhibiting the same paranoia as the ones who agree with it. The only difference is who they are paranoid against.
One is paranoid against the government, and the other against terrorists. It is basic background.
Some points to make:
1. Foriegn Visitors with valid documentation like VISA's and other items have been known (over 100,000 still in the US) to not return to thier respective countries when the VISA has expired.
2. US Citizens are protected against unreasonable search and siezure but NON-US citizens are not. There is a double standard, but that is the case in ALL countries.
3. We are required to have a passport and the amount of information included should also include a fingerprint. This would allow better identification for various reasons and prevent as much passport abuse (YES I HAD MINE STOLEN in CANADA of all places).
4. The fingerprints matched up against a database CAN also be used to find criminals.
5. False positives may cause some hassle but then again you can die if you walk out your door.. some risks have to be taken.
6. From a fingerprint, you cannot tell what a person looks like, or smells like, or has in thier mind. A fingerprint, picture, and name is all they have.. NOT DNA.
7. There is a difference between domestic and foriegn terrorism.. its that US Citizen double standard again.
8. Sniper and 9/11 and Earlier World Trade Center are all from foriegn terrorists.. and guess what, a lot of them were here ILLEGALLY.
The final point is my opinion here. I do think some measures are fine to put in place and this simple fingerprinting is DONE even in BANKS now to verify for checks.. so I have no problem with it.
Ask me about DNA.. and you got a line drawn. If you are a criminal and have been convicted.. then your DNA can be taken... another discussion.
I can program myself out of a Hello World Contest!!
NOT TRUE!!! Hitler had a plan and published it before taking action...
bush.. does not have a clue of what he is doing now... not even to mention about what he is planning to do!
The supposed terrorists that trained at the Fla flight school trained on Cessnas.
US company Raytheon landed a 727 six times in a military base in New Mexico without any pilots on board. This was done to test equipment making future hijackings more difficult, by allowing ground control to take over the flying of a hijacked plane. [Der Spiegel, 10/28/01]
(Slashdot recently ran a story on 'upcoming' advances in flight technology that would allow for remote control. The New York Times and other media outlets ran similar stories about 'upcoming' technology after 9-11. Bush made reference to such 'upcoming' technology. According to Raytheon's press release, it existed in 2001.)
James Bamford's 2nd NSA book, "Body of Secrets," mentions a set of proposals by the Joint Chiefs (acquired via FOIA) to terrorize US citizens in a plot to provoke a politically-motivated war with Cuba. (Google "Operation Northwoods")
I have yet to see anything more than circumstantial evidence linking the "list of names" to the terrorist deed committed on 9-11. Not that it's comprehensively listed above, but there does exist just as much circumstantial evidence to suggest that the source of terrorism was either internal or known-about and orchestrated, as there is to suggest that the mystery names or Al Quaeda "did it". Why are most people willing to jump to one conclusion based on evidence but not consider the others?
Why do most goats follow the Judas?
"If Joe Terrorist goes through and has never been fingerprinted before... Well woop de doo, when he flies a plane into a building, at least we'll know what his fingers looked like before they burnt up in the wreckage."
Why is everyone consistently missing the point that they fingerprint you when you get _off_ the plane.
Not when you get on.
And presumably not at all if you've flown it into a building.
Does anyone know what happens if you haven't got any fingers?
Oh, is that so? Please post a link to the declaration of war by Congress, I must have missed it. Also, can you tell me which country we are fighting against -- was it Eurasia or that other one I can't seem to remember? ;p
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
If you look at their policy they have allready started the surveilance of foregin travelers, they will continue with americans traveling abroad, by pushing machine readable passports with biometrics and internatonal regulation, and they will continue with restrict the abillity to within the US.
Anyway as a European I don't see why I should go to USA. Ever.They are building up the infrastructure to scan (fingerprints and facial) everyone in the US. It's naive to belive that they won't start using it after the next terrorist attack.
They (DHS) are allready launching programs for vouluntarily scanning:
There are plenty of other examples of states such as Italy, Germany and the Soviet Union slowly evolving into totalitarian facist regimes.
Why should I accept being treat like a criminal with a foregin state taking fingerprints and facial scans of me? What benefits does a personal entry into this database offer me? I would not accepted that any other state like Soviet, Nazi-Germany, South-Africa, North-Korea or Israel where doing this to me, so why should I accept that USA are doing it?
My conclusion is that until USA gets back on track as a trully democratic and open country I will refuse to travel there.
As a traveller I'm not willing to bear the cost of US foregin policy. Just beacause you are constantly running a policy which results in terrorism against you, I'm not willing to bend over at arrival in your country. There are plenty of other places I could go so it's not like it's a big loss for me, but I feel sad for those that live in a country on the way down the drain.
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
there wont be a next time, he'd have blown himself/herself up by then.
Basically- if I wasn't already holding a US
passport, I would cross off "visiting the US"
from my list of things to do.
I don't see how it is right to treat citizens
of other countries like common criminals; I would
not put up with it and I would boycott US
tourism.
There are lots of nice places on this planet to
visit that won't treat you like someone caught
at the scene of a crime.
Sign me "An American who loves his country but is
disgusted with his government."
The President is completely responsible for what goes on while he or she is in office. Blaming 9/11 on Clinton is like blaming Carter for high gas prices now.
Bush IS responsible for 9/11 and where's why:
1. He ordered the Air Force wing assigned to guard Washington to stand down on 9/11
2. He waited over 15 minutes after the first plane hit to stop reading to children at a photo-op before doing ANYTHING
3. Him and his family's oil business have long connections to the bin Laden family oil business (coincidence?)
4. Both of the New York bound flights crossed an Air Force base before hitting the city, when both where as many as 200 miles out of their lanes.
5. Bush has yet to respond to 9/11. Specifically, against Yemen and Saudi Arabia, the two countries that attacked us. Instead, he bombed the shit out of the two poorest war torn countries in the area, for doing nothing other than having very unpopular governments.
Bush is responsible for 9/11. The terrorists are merely pawns. He, not Clinton, ignored the calls from Chirac warning about this specific threat. He, not Clinton, was engaged in backroom business deals with the Afghanis and Bin Laden to build a pipeline though Afghanistan. That deal went bad. Bush is the president who did act accordingly after the attacks.
The two countries that did attack us escaped with impunity.
Bush is responsible for everything that has gone wrong in this country since he took office. His economic policies have devastated this community, and countless others. He is a liar (false claims about WMD), he is a cheat (using the Supreme Court to overrule a recount, what are you afriad of dubya?), he is convicted criminal (1976 DUI), a cocaine abuser and he is AWOL from the Texas Air Guard.
He is not fit to command a military that he abandoned. How dare he wear the uniform of the country when he couldn't even show up sober for service.
Screw him. He got us into a war we can't win, in a country we don't belong in. Thanks to him, either a fundamentalist Islamic state will be created in Iraq, or a new dictator will emerge.
George Bush Sr. and George dubya are the two worst presidents this country has ever had. The first created a huge mess, and ruined the economy. The latter took after his old man. When our nation was attacked, he saw an opportunity to finish his paw's evil works. Just remember, we knew Saddam had weapons of mass destruction - we have the receipt!
People from the "exempt" countries who are in the US under green cards and other semi-permanent visas (I say semi-permanent, meaning work visas and such, as opposed to general tourist or travel visas) are going to be fingerprinted as well.
As I see it this is two things:
1. It's the US government doing something to create the ILLUSION of action (it won't solve anything, but the general masses in the US will think it does).
2. It helps pressure non-exempt countries into abiding by certain US policies. "Do our bidding and we may make you exempt."
I'm over simplifying, but politics is politics.
The fingerprinting on American airports is an overreaction and a sign of paranoia...
By acting as an independent state instead of a US client state, and by electing a president (Lula) who doesn't bow to the wishes of the World Bank and the IMF, Brazil has cued itself up for a "regime change" or a "liberation."
The US usually does this in open countries by funding and instigating unrest and anti-government violence (as they did in Chile and are now doing in Venezuela). The spooks who work these kinds of projects come into the country disguised as businessmen and really don't like to have their fingerprints and photos on file there. When the unrest and violence start in Brazil (and it will), at least your country will be able to look through its records where it may just be able to identify the perpetrators.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
As an aside, who do you think that Osama bin Laden would rather have in the White House come 2003: Bush or Dean?
Probably Bush, since he let him get away with the first attack.
The perceptible attitude of the US suddenly changed, and not for the better.
None of that justifies anything, but given that the guerilla or terrorist swims in the population as the fish swims in the sea, that sea suddenly got less hostile than it had been and things that may have been too hard to plan successfully may have become less likely to fail.
So yes, a very sudden alteration in risk could be produced by a very new president, even though the conditions in which that risk was experienced had been set up by the previous administration.
One important thing you've touched on is the character of terrorism; it's an information/propaganda war designed to use the weaknesses (and strengths) of the mass media against the populace to make them more fearful than they rationally should be.
42,116 people died in car accidents in the U.S. in 2001 and the death rate was 14 per 100,000 (see National Highway & Traffic Safety Administration). For comparison the national murder rate is only 5.5 per 100,000. And more people died in car crashes in California in 2001 than died on 9/11. Yet this doesn't make the news because it isn't dramatic enough is it?
So you're right. In addition, it's utterly pointless to put the whole country on the same level of alert. I don't think the terrorists have any targets in Peoria, Illinois. I suppose they have to make the alert national to prevent terrorists from figuring out whether the feds are onto them.
Mark my words, this is the beginning of the end for the United States. We are becoming a culture of spoon-fed MTV kids who whine about being entitled to only the best things in life and who have ADD and pay for everything with credit cards. Ironically, in our attempt to "defeat" the terrorists in an unwinnable war, we have accomplished what the terrorists wanted in the first place: the partial destabilization of our country. In combination with the rise of the MTV culture, this illness of America is likely terminal.
Rosa Parks - style.. .
This is a measure designed to delay brown-skinned people. (notice, the average skin-color in the exempt countries).
The brown-skinned people will be delayed in boarding, and thus will end up with seats in the back of the plane. Segregation, 1950's style. The way Strom Thrumond would have wanted. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Actually the USSR was preparing for expansion before WWII. They considered their responcibility to advance the communism elsewhere. And the war with Finland, and crabbing of baltic states was already planned ahead. It was just implementing the 19th century plans for defence of Leningrad... And they already made preparation years before WWII for attacking finland. Afghanistan was planned assault.
Europe after WWII was out of question due the nuke problem. China had too much population to deal with,
and middle east would of gotten them full scale war against Nato. So what they could of done?
I mean they didn't wan't to get a full scale war against nuclear states and wanted to expand anyway. Their hands where pretty much tied up. Their navy was not as capable for non nuclear warfare as NATO so getting a naval assault on small country was not an option. It was simple.
Before WWII they didn't have industry and military prepare for war. And after US got nukes, and there was strong enough allience to stop em with conventional weapons at non european fronts. Europe is a No, no for soviet expansion because of nato... Now what comes next... Middle east? Well thats US oil, and they properly estimated the result of getting a war in there. Next central asia, well they tried in afganistan, and last is china/mongolia, both communist regimes and war against mongolia would result war against china, with US supplying chinese infantry with weapons...
They expanded during WWII and tried to hold that as much as possible and tryid to expand also but failed. Basicly there was EXPANSIONIST individuals in power for some time. Like stalin and lenin...
(Yes Lenin was expansionist he just though that the country was not ready for it and was correct.)
Finlands,baltic states, belorussians and Ukranian s separation was part of a peace deal between russia and germany , and the war that formed USSR got two of those states back. One because it was base operations of the other fraction and other just because... The smaller states was left intact, just because the internal image would of hurt if they wouldn't shown that they kept their words, until the controlling system was build up.
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
Look at this pic from crossmatch, the makers of the fingerprint system.
The hand in the pic has hair and veins sticking out. It's a guys hand with a woman's fingernail.
These are the people we are trusting to "secure" our airports? It sounds like an oxymoron on par with "Microsoft Security"!
Think of it this way, prior to 9/11 there were no incidents of terror attacks involving airplanes. I guess the security was good enough to prevent them.
Who is this 'enemy' that attacked us 'several times,' and what does Iraq have to do with it? Besides the two Islamic terrorist bombings in the United States (both against the WTC), what are we talking about here? The Oklahoma City bombing? The anthrax letters? Please be a little more specific in who and what you are referring to.
==========
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Having had to do the dance with INS in the process of getting my wife to the US I'd have to say that while they are definitely annoying and beaurocratic I can't see where/how you would get to compare it to prison.
(This was dealing with the US Embassy in Peru where they had designed the place to deal with the Shining Path back in their hey day.)
While the building was quite well fortified there was no oppressive feeling to it. (To top it all off we picked up her Visa on 9/11.)
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
your fingers are "digits" ;-)
Iraq did, by attacking Kuwait.
Then violating the UN resolutions set by US.
America-Bashing is fun, but you gotta remember to get your head outta your ass.
Which is all I know, so I welcome more thorough and educated analysis. :)
:P) then eventually you will settle into a mutually beneficial cooperative state.
:P).
It's a variant on the strategy used in the "prisoner's dilemna"*. In that game, and here, you have a choice to make and so does your opponent. You can choose to try to benefit only yourself at the expense of your opponent, but if your opponent does the same you both suffer. If you cooperate, you both get some benefit, but less than if you choose to take and your opponent chooses to cooperate.
How do you get to the cooperative state? If you volunteer to cooperate, your opponent can take advantage of you. You have to discourage them from taking the larger reward. The solution is to do whatever they did last, every time. If they cooperate, you start to do as well. If they don't, you don't next time. If your opponent is also rational (a huge assumption in game theory, which is why it's theory
So yeah, if Brazil's goal is to get the USA to stop fingerprinting, then this is a decent strategy. Not that it will work (see parenthetical about the assumptions of game theory
I wonder what would happen if we did this with everything? What if we killed 3,000 of the Taliban and then stopped? What if, instead of bulldozing a village after a cafe bombing, Israel stopped after they'd killed the twenty or so militants needed to match the number dead? What message would it send? No, it would never work. There's more going on than a single binary decision. There are too many varied interests involved on both sides for them to resist the temptation to try to grab more for themselves. But once again, that's why it's theory!
* Ironically, the strategy does no good in the actual "prisoner's dilemna" situation, since it only works on repeated instances of the same choice.
The enemies of Democracy are
Can they use a hash of DNA? This way they will not know the privete information about you (if you are likely to develope diabetes, or if you are likely to turn out an alcoholic... or alike).
Looking for the 'root causes' of terrorism is just as fruitless as looking for the 'root causes' of racism. They are both irrational, hate-filled ideologies. No matter what a powerful country like the US does, there will be people who hate it. Just like no matter what a particular minority does, there will be people who hate them. The only thing that dictates how a nation should act is it's national conscience.
Of course, it is not going to work. There is no way fingerprinting can prevent a bunch of giggling terrorists chattering on the satellite phone about wild tales of future attacks, and then laughing while the US blunders about trying to prevent it. Al Qaeda wants fear, economic damage, and the US humbled. Satellite phone chatter is a cheap way to get it, and the idiots in Homeland Security fall for it. Or cooperate with it and the terror in America's heart that results as a way to make Bush out to be some evil conquering good guy in an election year.
You hit the nail on the head with "War on Peace". Of course the flunky of the King of Terror's favorite pet, the Mongol King George, would think Peace is the real threat. Not that Peace is amused by their antics: the last time Code Orange was invoked to hinder a peace protest, Mongol King George got dumped on and spent quality time stuck behind a snow plow!
If Peace can get one of her special ops doves to infiltrate the Pentagon (last May), perhaps she can get a human dove in the White House to save us from this mess.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
It was "The Living Daylights." :-)
Free, legal music for iTunes users.
It sounds as though you're perfectly happy to disregard all those false positives as no big deal or, perhaps, an acceptable cost for some feeling of safety.
"Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither."
--Benjamin Franklin
doesn;t something new of this scale need a law/bill to be passed before it's implemented?
They don't need visas for traveling within the US.
Sure you do. You need a drivers license or other state issued ID to get on an airplane or drive a car. You're legally allowed to walk between states, but then again, if you're found without ID, the cops can hold you until they find out who you are.
Looks like another variation of the Nolan Chart.
The basic idea of the Nolan Chart and its variations are to clump the many separate components of political opinion into TWO groups, rather than one.
Measuring their values and laying out "political position" in two dimensions more clearly shows clustering of ideologies and differences between them than collapsing the many components of opinion into a single "left-right" scale. Using only one dimension causes ideologies with a pair of extreme positions to be mashed together with middle-of-the-road milksops, obscuring major difference.
More dimensions would be better. But opinions on various subjects tend to be highly correlated. So it's easy to pick two (or three) sets where cancelation won't confuse any two popular ideologies. Also: Examining (and naming) the nature of the subjects where opinions cluster can lead to additional insight into political thought.
My personal favorite version is World's Smallest Political Quiz, which groups opinion on ten subjects into two groups of five - half on regulation of personal behavior, half on economic behavior - then displays the data with the chart rotated into a "diamond" position, so that the traditional "left-right" axis (which ends up at 45 degrees in a 2-D cartesian plot) is left-right, while a new "authoritarian-libertarian" axis appears as up-down. (Of course the "libertarian" corner is at the top. But a communist, fascist, or member of a US political party might prefer to invert it. B-) )
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
You obviously have no idea what you are talking about. We're not talking about fingerprinting every person that comes into the USA. We're talking about people who need VISA's to get in.
r am/index.html
Therefore, if you are from Europe, Canada, Japan, Singapore, etc... where all you need is a passport, you're fine.
At least that is what CNN is reporting:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/01/05/fingerprint.prog
So relax, this is a minor inconvience for only some people, and frankly I'm surprised it took this long for us to have something like this. I would have even expected this elsewhere by now...
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
Do you even know what a visa is? Didn't think so.
An official authorization appended to a passport, permitting entry into and travel within a particular country or region.
This URL appears to have been long-since changed. It seems like the BBC changed the way their entire site works..
Anyone else pull up what the poster mentioned?
"In 24 months the United States defeated two of the most hideous regimes in modern memory. For all the sorrow involved, it has already made progress in the unthinkable: bringing consensual government into the heart of Middle Eastern autocracy, where there has been no political heritage other than tyranny, theocracy, and dictatorship."
I would applaude, but unfortunately Saddam Hussein was propelled to power and protected for a number of years by the US, France and Britain to the extent where the Kurds were bombed with weapons from those nations. Before Saddam was President Kassim, who had the temerity to pull out of the Baghdad Pact (Think the Middle Eastern NATO), nationalise the oil industry and point out that Kuwaiti oil had more right to be in Iraqi hands. That's a matter for history, but you'd have to be a pituitary retard to not realise that Saddam Hussein, funded and armed by the CIA in the sixties, was trying to do much the same thing recently. You can argue the right and wrong of it, but don't rewrite the history.
So the US managed to correct one of it's sillier mistakes after serious loss of life on all sides. Big fat hairy deal.
We could always examine the US/British 'no fly zone' in Iraq, or the fact that they ran daily sorties...go find the Security Council Resolution that allows that. You might be hard pressed to find the casualty figures from the British or Americans; they aren't anxious for people to find out just how many people have been illegally slaughtered.
I should point out that _every_ nation on earth has the right of sovereignty...that's what the UN is all about; stopping countries that have a problem with each other invading as the first course of action. Of course, this hasn't stopped Isreal invading a number of it's neighbours on a fairly regular basis, but the Security council mandates are on record for the nation described as the 'Biggest threat to world peace' during an EU vox pop survey.
The invective you promoted is simply myopic. It's flag-waving jingoism intended to portray the US in the best light to a population that _believes_ in the idea of doing the right thing. American people are fine, but the government is nasty, corrupt and intent on simply retaining as much control outside of it's borders as possible.
It is not 'intellectual invective' to point out that Iraq had a public healthcare system unrivalled in the Middle East before Desert Storm. It's certainly not 'intellectual invective' to point out that any farming and construction land is now so polluted with DU (Depleted Uranium) that the infant mortality rate is going through the roof.
If you choose to be blind to the reality of the situation as reported by Medicine sans frontieries, red cross, red crescent and UN observers and believe the sneering triumphal edicts issued to make it all seem okay by government (who've got a great record when it comes to objective truth), then you really shouldn't cheerlead from a single source.
Oddly_Drac in drag
Actually the USSR was preparing for expansion before WWII.
If you mean, Trotsky's doctrine, it was rather unpopular even then -- at the extent that Trotsky was exiled and assassinated.
And the war with Finland, and crabbing of baltic states was already planned ahead.
At the extent of only doing it as a part of poorly planned, but obviously defensive on USSR part treaty with Nazi Germany? The same treaty that was promprly broken by Nazi, who had found that the Western border of USSR was very poorly defended, leave alone prepared for anything offensive.
Europe after WWII was out of question due the nuke problem. China had too much population to deal with, and middle east would of gotten them full scale war against Nato. So what they could of done? I mean they didn't wan't to get a full scale war against nuclear states and wanted to expand anyway. Their hands where pretty much tied up. Their navy was not as capable for non nuclear warfare as NATO so getting a naval assault on small country was not an option. It was simple.
[the rest of the "evil russians planned to conquer the Earth" factless rant skipped]
That's a nice piece of fiction. Too bad, it has nothing to do with reality. If not for other reasons then simply because any such expansion at that point would be impractical -- they would get worse land and less resources than what they already had trouble handling in Siberia.
Finlands,baltic states, belorussians and Ukranian s separation was part of a peace deal between russia and germany , and the war that formed USSR got two of those states back.
Belorussia and Ukraine were a part of USSR before and after WWII. Not to mention that they (and Poland for some time, too) were a part of Russian Empire for centuries many before USSR.
One because it was base operations of the other fraction and other just because... The smaller states was left intact, just because the internal image would of hurt if they wouldn't shown that they kept their words, until the controlling system was build up.
What "smaller" states (who is smaller than Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia in that region)? Many people in Eastern European countries were pissed at USSR for installing and supporting Communist governments there immediately after WWII, however there was no further expansion. And USSR in its turn was pissed at Yugoslavia and China that, despite being "Socialist" and rulled by "Communists", had almost nothing in common with USSR at that point, yet the whole situation remained peaceful.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Or in our case a single dubya. With all the racism in the world do you see Nigeria putting up 20 foot walls around their borders? Israel is attacked constantly and you dont see them putting a Nuke in the middle of Saudi. And yet we start bombing diffensless countries. I did not vote at all. My vote would not have mattered. I live in IL and there was no chance of dubya getting our electoral votes. And now he is killing both Americans and anyone else who looks suspicious to him. Dont talk about national conscience, when we did not even elect our leader. Know of any other countries where leaders are not elected?
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/37021.stm
For anyone that is interested in taking a look..
wee! Replying to my own post! :)
"Exactly, it is mainly the French and Germans who are responsible for the weakening of the UN."
Actually, they sounded the note of caution in going in half-cocked and bombing the sh*t out of a country that didn't have anything like a decent water infrastructure.
"they just threw out more warnings"
Yep, and everyone ignored what Hans Blix was saying about the weapons of mass destruction because they had all this intelligence. Which turned out to be meaningless. How much of a threat was Iraq?
You may have noticed, if you'd bothered to check, that the UN resolution regarding weapons of mass destruction referred to the 'Middle East'...Isreal has two hundred nuclear weapons, and so far nobody has said a thing.
"US did not do enough (or anything really) to help those in Rwanda and other countries, that we are to blame."
Nope, that is the United Nations fault, generally for ignoring the entire African subcontinent south of the Sahara.
"And lets not even get into Serbia and Croatia... We're only one country... don't other countries have armies? I swore they did..."
Yep, and they were there as part of the UN. Any unilateral action on the part of the US was just that.
"If we made a mess, we should clean it up."
Nooo! Seriously, the best thing to do is simply honour the auspices of the UN and try to make it work, rather than view it as a forum of worriers that do nothing. Drag the CIA out of putting despots sympathetic to the US in the hotseats because they will turn bad in the end.
Stop selling these people the guns. Ratify the bloody treaty on landmines, reduce the 380 tonne stockpile of US Army VX gas because it's illegal to use and causes suspicion amongst other nations. Start to live up to the ideals of liberty and freedom for all without the caveat, 'as long as it suits the investors'.
The most obscene part of toppling Saddam Hussein from power has been the announcement of aid packages that are spent by the companies from G8 nations to rebuild a country they bombed in the first place, while employing foreign contractors in a country where poverty is absolute. Remove Iraq's foreign debt. Help them bootstrap an economy that they have a say in.
Oddly_Drac in drag
As the original poster. I tend to vote democrat and voted against Bush. I know that most of his crap is of the "Crap! Look busy!" variety. This one actually happens to be more or less positive on balance. (I also vote in EVERY election, even the tiny ones).
And moron. Since visas have been around how long now, and I still don't have to present documents on demand to anyone when I'm out and about, what about adding a digital checking for fingerprints makes it so much more likely at all, let alone in the near future.
Christ, you people are just beneath contempt. It's attitudes like yours that cause people to vote for Bush. You hate the people voting, and you hate Bush. The degree to which you hate Bush makes him seem more attractive, after all the enemy of my enemies must be doing something right. If they don't have the time or inclination to sort out the finger pointing, they'll trust in human nature, and you'll get four more years.
Take a look at the garbage in your own yard. Your corrupt and powerless leaders. They are the insturments of the wills of their peoples. See how they were out manuvered, so clumsily too, by someone who you consider a dolt. Why are they so weak? Is it the lack of resolve coming from those the represent? Are you just timid people? Is it a personal failing on the part of your leaders?
You can blame the US all day long. But They had the stronger hand, the US played it's horribly by all accounts, and still won the game. Where does the fault lay, not at the feet of the victor.
If you do come on holiday. Bring the attitude with you. I'm sure plenty of people would find it charming.
Do you really think that our current president is the root cause of terrorism? Granted he may not be helping the situation, but the issue is much more complicated than any single man or policy. I think it is important to understand that no matter what the US did or said, we would always be the target of hate by someone out there.
My point about racism is that trying to examine the root causes is a somewhat fruitless excercise. Ideology that is based on hate is self-propelling.
I find it odd that you would use Israel as an example, as Israel most definately has very tight security and has done plenty to build walls and fences in the name of protecting themselves from terrorism. I am a little fuzzy on the history, but I believe Israel has pushed into its neighbors several times in response to attacks (right after independence).
When you use the phrase 'bombing defenseless countries' you make it seem like Iraq was the poster child for world peace and fluffy bunnies. I am not saying that we were justified in invading, but the government of Iraq did a lot of terrible things. Do you think the Kuwatis think that Iraq is a harmless nice next door neighbor? How about Iran? Or those hundred thousand Kurds that were gassed?
Personally I would love to see direct elections in this country, I am pretty tired of the electoral college which waters down the power of yours and my votes. Whether or not you feel like Bush was elected fairly, he was elected. Our system is not perfect but it is vastly superior to what most people have.
As far as national conscience goes, if the opinion polls were to be believed his decision to invade Iraq (at least at the beginning) was supported by a majority of Americans. Granted the information most people had was based on falsified WMD information, but that is a whole 'nother post!
Fixing the Middle East will not be clean. Fixing the root causes requires structural changes there, changes which will not happen peacefully, and which will not be possible without toppling governments, either with force or other means of intense and disruptive pressure. If we are not willing to use force or other pressures which will cause possible death and suffering, then we will never succeed.
The Muslim civilization used to be the most advanced on the planet, more so than China, and far more so than the Europeans. If things had gone a little better for them, they would have eliminated the Christian societies of Europe, and we'd all be Muslim. Something they once considered inevitable, as the most recent coming of God and the youngest major religion is, in their minds, the truest and superior representation of God's will.
Now look at them. While I've never been in a Muslim Middle Eastern school, I'd be surprised if they weren't taught about their grand history. And those kids grow up and see what has happened to their society, as a result not of evil Americans or Europeans, but because their expansionist society, which they felt was superior to all others, became stagnant, fell behind, and was finally conquered by those they considered the illiterate barbarians. The world has passed them by. Now they are a backwater, a place the world uses to get oil, and would rather not hear much about otherwise. Except maybe to visit as a nice tourism spot, see the ruins of their past glory, buy some cheap goods, let some kid give you a tour for change.
Then look at Israel! Here are some Jews, kicked out thousands of years ago, who came back, bought up undesirable land... and formed a new nation right in their midst, after being driven from Europe and nearly exterminated. What has happened there, despite decades of Muslim armies trying to wipe them out, blockades, refusals to recognize them, so on? Israel became, in fifty years, a modern nation, technologically advanced, politically stable, capable of handily defeating the Muslim nations around them (even before the US started giving them all that aid), armed with nuclear weapons, economically successful. In fifty years.
No wonder they are pissed. Who to focus anger on? On themselves? Their failed society? Their tinpot dicators and oligarchs? Probably lots do. But the ones we notice the most, they focus it on the West. Who is the biggest, baddest, most successful nation of the West? The United States, of course.
Want to cure the ills of the Middle East? How exactly would you lift an arguably failed society up, without first ridding it of the dictatorships, theocratic plutocracies, and other horrid forms of government and oppression? And will those go willingly? Pretty words, policies of accomodation, and putting money through commerce and aid into lining the pockets of the current scumbags and their families and successors will not help. You can't have fundamental changes without some pretty messy methods. Sometimes those work, sometimes they don't. That's the cost of trying.
I think going to Iraq is one of the best things we have done there in a long, long time. It has gotten the ball rolling. Hell, maybe even 9/11 may be a "good" thing in the long run, as bad as that may sound in the short term. The fact that so many people are pissed off means something at least is being done at long last, the Middle East may wind up a better place sooner rather than later. Yes, people got killed, babies smashed beneath concrete, bombs blew off the arms of little kids, so on. People die. Better they die in the midst of some upheaval that has a better than decent chance to make the lives of the people better in the long term, than at the hands of some power-hungry madmen, for no reason.
Larry
Of course, US military assistance to these nations is totally altruistic and has nothing to do with economic and geo-political interests. After all, nothing could happen to the US economy and the living standards of its citizens if Wal Mart could not import cheap crap from China anymore or if Taiwan and South Korea stopped producing cheap computer parts. I'm sure Michael Dell would be very pleased if he had to buy his hard drives and mother boards at four times the price in another country. I'm also sure Steve Job would like selling his new mini iPod 1000$ because he cannot have them manufactured in East Asia. Really, war in this part of the World would be fun to watch on CNN. And you're on the other side of the Pacific, so if would not affect you in any way...
Two words: Nuclear Fuckin' Weapons
That's three words.
And any attack on the US proper results in the SPF 1 trillion treatment to the home nation of the offenders
Then what are you waiting to nuke the crap out of Saudi Arabia? Ohhh...wait...I see...This is where your oil comes from...So your doctrine does not apply there... It's funny you want to bring peace to the Mid East by invanding Iraq but tolerate an autocratic islamo-facist backwards regime (where much of the funding for terrorism comes from, not to mention the terrorists themselves). How should we describe this? Double standards? Hypocracy ? You tell me.
Great post!
Reminds me of the Seinfeld rant. He said: Why do you only have a picture of the criminal? Why dont they just arrest him when they are taking the picture? Thats why they have the front and the side shot. The front is him taking a picture, and the side is of him leaving.
Vote for new mod!!! Score:-2,Imbecile
I agree with the Anonymousy on top of me. And also scaring people is a great way for him to get himself re-elected. His insentive in keeping the American people afraid of Muslims is pretty good. Seems to me he is scaring people to look away from the shitty economy. We need to give him a standing ovation for putting more Americans out of work then Hoover during the great depression. The GDP and the rising Stock Market dont mean much if there are more people losing jobs every day. I agree with the guy whose sig is "All I know is that I had a job when Clinton was president"(or however he worded it).
Vote for new mod!!! Score:-2,Imbecile
Dear Sir,
Please turn off your Interweb.
Thank you.
Hey, I'm all about service with a smile. Let's just sit on the sidelines while asia implodes, and Japan starts putting some of its 50k kg of Pu to use in nuclear arms because they need someone to protect them.
Why not give the world what they say they want. I can take it if they can.
And if you're Denis Leary, it's two words, any form of fuck counts as punctuation.
The reason I haven't nuked Saudi Arabia is because I don't have the button. Be very happy about that. While Mecca would have been the first, it would not, in all likelyhood have been the last crater I would have wished to see. I'm all for a new generation of radiation badge wearing frequently rotating workers. Most of our oil comes from the americas. A significant fraction does come from the middle east of course. And if all of it came from there, I'd still be for giving everyone there a neutron tan, extra crispy, and dealing with the consequences.
I'm aware certainly enconomic and logistical realities make it impractical in the extreme, but it's a happy thought all the same.
I'd explain US foreigne policy towards totalitarian regimes, but its pretty straight foreward, and it's not pithy, which all *this* right here is about.
If you'd like a frank intelligent political discussion, I might observe slashdot isn't the place, and that what you really want is your ego stroked (again slashdot isn't the place).
Statements from dubya dont mean much. Its the actions that count. Like the Grandparent said, he lied to the international community and US citizens. And he is still doing it, notice how the conservative news stations are failing to call him on it.
Vote for new mod!!! Score:-2,Imbecile
No interaction? I would have thought you would at least need to put your finger on it.
But the matter is well-settled by the Supreme Court, i.e., that the Bill of Rights does not attach to non-citizens outside of the territory of the United States.
Don't you think there is a reason that the (non-American) war on terror detainees are in a camp in a leased base in Cuba? Clearly, the Bush Administration did its legal research on the issue.
Trust me, IAAL.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Its the actions that count.
So has he taken action to prevent Saddam Hussein from going to trial?
Like the Grandparent said, he lied to the international community and US citizens.
How is this relevant to my point? I'm just pointing out that it's a bit dishonest on the part of his critics to say that he'll never permit Hussein to go to trial and then attack him over it, when in fact he's not (at least that we've seen/heard) trying to stop Hussein from going to trial.
Criticism is not only good, it's critical to the correct functioning of a democracy, but attacking strawmen just makes the attacker look like a fool and a zealot.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
To get your German license, you will need official proof-of-address (Anmeldbecheinigung) and your passport. No fingerprints, but they have a good lock on who you are and where you live.
... we just thought it was cool that we got to be fingerprinted.
Exactly. When I first lived in Germany (1987) and had to get an Anmeldbescheinigung I was shocked. The idea of having to check in with the local constablary every time I moved (I worked a summer job in one city outside of Cologne, and went to school in Darmstadt, so I had to do this twice) of course invited me to compare that with my relative anonymouty in the United States. (Registering my boom box and paying a radio tax struck me as big brotherish and weird, too. Actually, that still strikes me as an unfortunate approach to funding of the public broadcasters, but compared to what is done by industry to our private sphere in the US, it is nevertheless quite benign).
Flash forward seventeen years (2004): I've been fingerprinted five (5) times (!!!) for my job: twice at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, twice at the Chicago Board of Options Exchange, and once at the Chicago Board of Trade. Then there was that interesting opportunity in grade school, when a local law enforcement officer came and taught us a little about the police and the FBI, then offered to let anyone who wanted to be fingerprinted. At 10 years of age (IIRC) none of us were too aware of the privacy implications
By my second stay in Germany (working a summer job in Leverkusen) I'd come to appreciate the greater degree of freedom and privacy afforded my in Germany vs. that of the United States. No selling my phone number to telemarketers, no fingerprinting, nothing obvious or Big Brotherish as we've come to expect in the states.
Most Americans, upon finding to their surprise that they are more free in many places abroad than they are in their own land, find it to be truly ironic. I merely find it sand, to have seen a country slip so far toward authoritarianism in so short a time. Alas, I haven't worked in Germany since the mid-nineteen nineties, so emigration there is nigh unto impossible.
I do miss the privacy though, and the freedom.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
So has he taken action to prevent Saddam Hussein from going to trial?
I agree he has done nothing toward that cause. But I have yet to see any real steps toward actually putting him in a court house with cameras in his face with the entire world to see. The question is not whether he will be on trial, but who will get to see the trial. The point is that the current administration would not want him telling Americans on camera how he met with Rumsfeld, and how he received money from the CIA.
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Just because it doesn't explicitly say privacy doesn't mean the idea isn't in there. I've heard this a lot, but just how, exactly, are you going to be "secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures" WITHOUT some measure of privacy?
But the matter is well-settled by the Supreme Court, i.e., that the Bill of Rights does not attach to non-citizens outside of the territory of the United States.
SCOTUS can also be wrong. If you really are a lawyer: Hepburn v. Griswold. Nuf said. As the Consitution does not say that the government is exempt from it outside our borders, I don't see how you can make an argument that the government is exempt from it's restrictions outside of the U.S. If it is, why don't we just make the Iraqi's into slaves to rebuild the infrastructure?
Clearly, the Bush Administration did its legal research on the issue.
And I'm sure mp3.com did lots of legal research on Beam It, too.
You say "The purpose of the Consitution, undeniably, is to protect the American people". I say, you still don't get it. The purpose of the Constitution is to define what the people have said the various branches of the US Government are allowed to do, what they are required to do, and what they are forbidden to do. The Bill of Rights does not GRANT PROTECTION to the people so much as it DENIES POWER to the government. You, like many other people, are confusing cause and effect. Power flows from the people to the government, not the other way around. Read the Virginia Declaration of Rights if you are still confused as to the concepts on which the US Constitution is based.
The stated purpose of the Constitution is to "form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity". Madison, Mason, and company rightfully felt that the biggest threat to Liberty was an out-of-control government, and that the best way to be secured against the danger of maladministration was by STRICTLY LIMITING WHAT THE GOVERNMENT IS ALLOWED TO DO.
The Fifth Amendment says "No person shall be [...] deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" It dosen't say "except if they're just visiting". The Sixth Amendment says "the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial". It doesn't say, "unless they're accused of being an 'unlawful combatant' or a 'terrorist'". Nowhere in the Bill of Rights does it say "the Citizens", or "the Taxpayers", or even "the Residents". It says "the People". As in each and every man, woman, and child, period, end of freaking story. You know, the same people who were all "created equal, [...] endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights."
The Constitution does not grant the President or Congress the power to pick and chose whose rights are protected and whose are not, nor does it give Congress the authority to pass legislation granting itself or the President any additional powers beyond those enumerated within the Constitution. Additional powers may only be granted via a duly ratified Constitutional amendment. The fact that we the people have allowed Congress and the President to usurp power they are not entitled to just shows how ignorant and apathetic most Americans have become. We need to wake up and put our government back into it's rightful place.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
I came back from christmas break in Belgium yesterday. I got printed in Atlanta. I was pleasantly surprised that the process went pretty smooth. Smoother than I had expected...
;-)
;-)
but they had to carry in the vaseline in my case. Apparently, my fingers don't leave good fingerprints.. a good (?) thing to know if you don't want to bother with gloves when killing someone
Anyway, it took about 2 minutes in my case, instead of the normal 20 seconds. The positive side is though, because the customs officer was distracted by the malfunctioning, he forgot to ask me about stuff I was importing. I successfully smuggled in 5 bottles of wine and about 3 kilo's of Belgian chocolate
-- debian linux - vim powered
The point is that the current administration would not want him telling Americans on camera how he met with Rumsfeld, and how he received money from the CIA.
You're still making unsubstantiated claims about Bush's wishes. They may even be *reasonable* claims, likely to be true, but claiming factual knowledge of someone else's unrevealed thoughts makes you a psychic or a liar.
Try this sed script on the quoted sentence, and see if it doesn't read like a more rational statement.
s/The point is that/In my opinion/
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Security... What Security. It's Public hype! Nothing
more. I live in Iran. Here, Anyone can get into the US for about 10- 20 thousand USD. Do you think that that is too much for a student to pay? Most likely so... but a trained terrorist organization would pay. My point: The security that needs to be done is in foriegn inteligence NOT billions in computer systems at home.
This new fingerprinting will only allow the government keep track of us even more.
True. Expect the fingerprinting to be extended to US citizens who even travel to one of the countries on the fingerprint list - AFTER the elections of course. A national ID card - one of the wet dreams of the Bush administration.
Considering all the terrorists of 9/11 came into this country legally(as far as I know, dont quote me and tell me if Im wrong) this would not have stopped them from getting on the plane.
Correct. The program will have to be expanded to fingerprint screening BEFORE passengers get on the planes, so expect US Customs and Immigration to begin screening in foreign airports and in transit airports. Of course if they can get the foreign governments to do it then US citizens will not be exempted. I suspect the plan is to share the fingerprint information the same way as Echelon data is shared. The Brits spy on American communications and the Americans spy on British communications and then they simply pool the data - circumventing domestic spying laws very effectively in both countries.
Can you tell I trust this admnistration to protect the Constitution about as far as I can throw the lot of them?
So your qualm is with how I delivered my message, not the message itself? The only problem you have with it is that I did not say it was my opinion?
Vote for new mod!!! Score:-2,Imbecile
My "qualm", as I stated several messages up, is that I keep seeing opponents of the administration claiming as a fact that the administration does not want Hussein to come to trial, and then attacking the administration for what it did *not* say/do!
It's reasonable to speculate about what someone may or may not do, and it's reasonable to talk about the effects of that hypothetical actions. It is not reasonable to state speculation as fact and then to criticize as though the speculation were fact.
Is that clear enough?
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
What the US truly found is that it had 1 ally at the time of 9/11. Not because Britain was willing to go to war; I agree it was ill-advised. Rather, because France and Germany used the time before the war as an opportunity for their own domestic political gains rather than actually working diplomatically for a solution.
It's disheartening, but I'd say that the fall of the CCCP marked the end of the western alliance, as petty bullshit all around began the moment we didn't have an enemy to unite us. And since terrorist groups in the middle east isn't attacking Europe, France and Germany don't give a damn, which is very unfortunate and selfish.
As for making attacks more likely, well, there haven't been any, and I'd say they would if they could. Indeed, I'd say we pissed them off lately. However, if we are attacked as on 9/11 simply for existing, it's hard to say our risk was low previously.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Oh yes...Very usefull...
So, when you learn they overstayed their visas, I mean it happens when they are trying to leave, no ?
So, you expell them before they leave by themselves, or do you keep them in confinement on US territory because they don't have the right to be on US territory ?
Advanced Philo Major required, please post analysis in answer 8p
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
You're a terrorist trying to get him to take the coin out of his pocket
"We have got to make Stan understand the importance of voting, because he'll definitely vote for our guy." - South Park
I don't know about trotsky doctrine I just know they build roads to strategic places in order to get to finnish border and THAT was build long before, they prepared for major offensive support structure in karelia long before WWII... The baltic states was long part of russians defensive plans, peter the great had its eyes on norther norway to get good atlantic harbors, and THAT strategy was part OF stalins doctrine too. Belorussia and Ukraine was NON willingly joined to USSR it was just because red army was there, when USSR joined, and Ukraine was violently resisting the becoming part of USSR, actually they where in rebellion against russia couple of times BEFORE! . ;)
And this I talk about ENDING of WWI when USSR was formed, at that point they where expansionist. Leaving baltic states in WWI when they separated from russia. They got them back by threats in WWII
BTW: I know this thing because its as important part of our history as declaration of independence and independence war is for those Americans. [JollyFinn] Finn= A Finnish person
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
I don't know about trotsky doctrine I just know they build roads to strategic places in order to get to finnish border and THAT was build long before, they prepared for major offensive support structure in karelia long before WWII... The baltic states was long part of russians defensive plans, peter the great had its eyes on norther norway to get good atlantic harbors, and THAT strategy was part OF stalins doctrine too.
Huh? Before Peter Russia had no ports with any access to Atlantic Ocean at all, so taking the northwest and founding St.Petersburg provided such an access through Baltic Sea, for the first time in many centuries of being for all practical purposes a landlocked country. One may question if such a goal would be "legal" in modern times, however in the 17th century a country with no access to the sea could just as well be located in the middle of a desert, and St. Petersburg was vital to the development of Russia. Sweden, Holland and Norway were at that point way too strong to even think attacking them, and Swedes went as far south as Ukraine (then part of the Russian Empire) when they had a war with Russia. But Russian expansion to the northwest ended quickly ather the goal of getting and securing the sea access was achieved. What would Russians gain by attacking anything in Scandinavia, I have no idea, and I guess, neither did Peter the Great (and all Czars after him) nor Stalin (and all USSR leaders after him).
Belorussia and Ukraine was NON willingly joined to USSR it was just because red army was there, when USSR joined, and Ukraine was violently resisting the becoming part of USSR, actually they where in rebellion against russia couple of times BEFORE!
Yeah, right. Every piece of every country gets its share of nationalists and separatists when any kind of war hits it, and there is an opportunity to snatch a piece of land while the big guys are too busy fighting. This does not change the fact that both countries were a part of Russian Empire before USSR was formed, and the full Czar's title for many centuries read "...of Great, Small and White Russia..." (what meant Russia, Ukraine and Belarus). Civil war of 1918-22 was a great opportunity for local rebels and gangs to fight for "independence" of their stomping grounds under nationalistic slogans, however their claim to power was orders of magnitude less than one of Communists. When this kind of nationalists succeed, we see shining examples of democracy in action such as Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Chechnya, Georgia (one that is not a US state), 70% of Africa, and other world-famous shitholes, filled with either violent gangs, or hopelessly corrupt oppressive regimes depending on the local traditions and amounts of resources available. And the worst happens when the real aggressor (such as Nazi or US) comes -- nationalists suddenly become humble and obedient servants of the new rulers, fighting against their own people, whose "independence" was their proclaimed goal.
And this I talk about ENDING of WWI when USSR was formed, at that point they where expansionist.
Parse error. If you mean that USSR did not keep its obligations to Germany that it taken in the pre-WWII peace pact, then duh -- it's rather hard to keep the peace pact when other participant attacked you. The Baltic states' claim for independence at that point was very thin, considering that when they weren't Russian/USSR they were occupied by Germany. And Finland at that time still had nothing to do with USSR.
Leaving baltic states in WWI when they separated from russia. They got them back by threats in WWII.
Do you mean Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, or Finland (that actually separated, and later fought a war, before WWII)? As for threats, there never was a time in or between WWI and WWII when any small country in Eastern Europe was not subject to threats, either from USSR or from Germany. Of course, it was Germany that actually attacked and conquered all of them shortly after that, and hardly Russia or USS
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Huh? Before Peter Russia had no ports with any access to Atlantic Ocean at all, so taking the northwest and founding St.Petersburg provided such an access through Baltic Sea, for the first time in many centuries of being for all practical purposes a landlocked country. One may question if such a goal would be "legal" in modern times, however in the 17th century a country with no access to the sea could just as well be located in the middle of a desert, and St. Petersburg was vital to the development of Russia. Sweden, Holland and Norway were at that point way too strong to even think attacking them, and Swedes went as far south as Ukraine (then part of the Russian Empire) when they had a war with Russia. But Russian expansion to the northwest ended quickly ather the goal of getting and securing the sea access was achieved. What would Russians gain by attacking anything in Scandinavia, I have no idea, and I guess, neither did Peter the Great (and all Czars after him) nor Stalin (and all USSR leaders after him).
So finnish history books lie, as well as books in our museums? The advantage was a suport ports to atlantic sea, in Peters time, the denmarks straights could be blocked easily.
<I> Yeah, right. Every piece of every country gets its share of nationalists and separatists when any kind of war hits it, and there is an opportunity to snatch a piece of land while the big guys are too busy fighting. This does not change the fact that both countries were a part of Russian Empire before USSR was formed, and the full Czar's title for many centuries read "...of Great, Small and White Russia..." (what meant Russia, Ukraine and Belarus). Civil war of 1918-22 was a great opportunity for local rebels and gangs to fight for "independence" of their stomping grounds under nationalistic slogans, however their claim to power was orders of magnitude less than one of Communists. When this kind of nationalists succeed, we see shining examples of democracy in action such as Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Chechnya, Georgia (one that is not a US state), 70% of Africa, and other world-famous shitholes, filled with either violent gangs, or hopelessly corrupt oppressive regimes depending on the local traditions and amounts of resources available. And the worst happens when the real aggressor (such as Nazi or US) comes -- nationalists suddenly become humble and obedient servants of the new rulers, fighting against their own people, whose "independence" was their proclaimed goal. </I>
Well a country so well presecuting its minorities is not to be reckoned with.(to put in to perspective russian speakers where minority even in european side of current russia y1k, they expanded at relative speed and killed or forcefully converted most of the people to russian. For instance Finnish was given certain rights in Wien congress, when it was given to russia. In 1902-1905 they started persecution of Fins in finnish like banning Finnish education and forcing Russian education, prosecuting finnish news papers... During war time same again. In poland 1800's the rebellion was major, it was majority of people there who was in rebellion same was ukraine in 1800's. Think living under russian rule where your own language is under pressure and and people are forced to russian language. Its the prosecution tha creates the rebellions it was never a small group, since small groups wouldn't have any chance against military. It was LARGE part of non-russian population which was in most of the rebellion provinces. I think the more proper way of calling it would of been slave revolt since thats what non russian where. [Unless tzar wanted to give example to other european nations how good he was... (Finland was in 1800's the tzars show area to other nations while rest of russia was in worser for non russian natives...)
I mean that in 1918 or somewhere around that (I was terrible at dates, dates where not interesting but ideas who things happened.) Germany and russian signed peace deal with gave indence to certain russias aread who where
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
You have to do more than read the article. You have to get past the mistaken assumption (made by "officials" quoted in the article, and not questioned by the article's authors) that a chance of a false positive for a group is the same as the chance of a false positive for each individual group member. Alas, most people don't know that much probablity theory.
So finnish history books lie, as well as books in our museums?
All history books lie -- or they would not drastically differ between all countries that ever had wars with each other. It's just people should be aware that a lot of stuff in the history courses can be propaganda, and see a difference between documented facts and some rather creative interpretations, omissions, etc. I have seen more than enough of those in USSR, post-USSR Russia, Belarus, US, etc. So every time one sees "We, the proud people of Southeast Lower Yellowshirtia, were for the whole our history oppressed by being a part of Great Turbania, and the great leader Twohole Button founded his national liberation movement, liberated out land, given us freedom, and started glorious days of the Button Republic history", he should take with a grain of salt -- especially if Turbanian history books mention that Twohole Button happened to work for Imperial Security Department (the example is fictional, I have nothing against people wearing the mentioned articles of clothes).
Think living under russian rule where your own language is under pressure and and people are forced to russian language.
I am Jewish by origin, was born in Belarus (then part of USSR), and my native language is Russian, so cry me a river.
Well Germans where loved in baltic states because USSR conquered them first, and CURRENT generation of people where told by their parents and grand parents those stories in their time. And they remeber Germans as the GOOD people. So you can guess if they remember Germans as good people in WWII how bad the USSR was!
I was there, and I know precisely how USSR was. The Nazi could be remembered as "good people" only by someone who is blinded by hatred toward Russians -- what some people in Baltic countries were at the time. And one has to remember that Nazi considered everything Northern European to be far above other nations on their pyramid of nations that they wanted to build.
If you are interested why Finnish is not relative to Common languages its just that russians practicly wiped out all the other languages in our language group, and they where MAJORITY in their areas before russians did. [In the 1800's Finnish scientist mapped the their relative languages during period where russians where trying to show their tolerance to minorities AFTER the slaughter in Warsaw.]
Again, cry me a river. Languages get pushed aside and disappear when any massive move of the population happens, however it rarely means people actually being killed, or even forced to use other languages. I lived in Belarus, and the first thing local nationalist nuts did after getting power was attempts to switch to then-barely-used Belarus language, including schools. Schools almost halted because teachers didn't know the language, people got pissed enough that soon Communists got back in power, what remains until now -- and one of the reason was that nationalists were the only organized opposition to them, and nationalists happened to be worse.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.