Slashdot Mirror
Updated Schedule for U.S. Biometric Passports
SRain315 writes "The story from the Chicago Times via Yahoo! give more details about biometric information to be added to U.S. passports. Trial run this fall, full production next year. Slashdot covered this last year."
who will get first passport?
from article:
The goal is to prevent known terrorists from entering the country and to make the use of stolen passports virtually impossible.
this is useless, all it does is prevent existing known terrorists from trying to enter, not that they would be stupid enough to try anyways.
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
The goal is to prevent known terrorists from entering the country and to make the use of stolen passports virtually impossible.
I'm sure that works well when the first-timers are suicide bombers that are traveling one way one time only... after all, the high-ups like bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri fly back and forth out of Laguardia all the time, right?
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Questions of privacy also had to be addressed because the chips will use radio frequency identification technology to transmit data. Without protection, the technology theoretically might allow people--identity thieves, for example, or intelligence agents other than immigration officials--to electronically and surreptitiously determine the identity of a passport holder.
I hope that these passports will come with some kind of jacket of material that can stop the radio transmissions or whatever -- sorry, I'm not much of a geek to know the intricate details of that kind of thing. I really don't think that such protection should be limited to those "in the know" about such things -- all American citizens traveling abroad should be given an information packet about the dangers of leaving that sort of data exposed to anyone and everyone in the country you're visiting.
That americans aren't demanding bioimperial passports...
"I think everyone is an agnostic but just doesn't know" - Frazz
Do they really think this is going to be effective against terrorists? Or is this just another way of saying to the public, "Look, we're doing something! And it's intrusive to your privacy so it must really work!"
How many "known" terrorists enter the US? How many of those enter on stolen passports? As far as I know, all of the Sept. 11 terrorists were: a) unknown as terrorists and b) here on valid passports and visas. This kind of program would have had no effect on preventing them from entering.
On the other hand, many people do enter the US on forged documents, particularly people from poorer countries who come here illegally, looking for work. I could see how this kind of biometric ID could help identify such illegal immigrants, if that were the goal. But I just wish people would stop trying to tie everything in to the "war on terrorism" - it distracts from the real problems that this kind of technology might be useful for.
From the article:
"As the system is envisioned, Americans still will be able to mail their passport photographs to the State Department. The department will encode them into the passport chips and add them to a database."
So, you never even get personally face scanned. They put information into the chip that lets a face scanner automatically check if your face looks like the picture on the passport... which is exactly what the humans sitting at the desk do anyways under the current system. What is this adding to our security?
Besides buzzwords.
"TV is great! Every New Year's I make a resolution to watch more TV." - Ann Coulter
The UK government is trying to introduce ID Cards that sound similar to this. I'd be interested to know if the Americans have taken on board problems that the UK trial encountered early on. These included contact lenses, I believe, as well as long fringes disrupting measurements between significant facial features.
"I think everyone is an agnostic but just doesn't know" - Frazz
Will they scan everyone entering the US from Mexico (and Canada)? At some border places it all ready takes an hour to cross...
I don't like this idea. Last thing I need when I'm in some third world country is passport showing a blue screen of death. "Welcome to Congo, Mr. Thread Exception!"
I've been meaning to do this, and this is just the kick in the butt I needed... I'm going to get one of the last chip-free ones issued. I have no doubt that no matter how much reassurance the power-grubbing muckety-mucks give that this will be secure, it won't be. Remember the Diebold electronic voting machines?
Thankfully, passports are good for 10 years from their issuance, and hopefully by then they'll have the most serious bugs worked out.
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I personally don't mind extra scrutiny if it's in the name of keeping me and my family alive.
People in 1933 Germany were quite happy to put up with Hitler's new policies, and give up "some" of their civil rights, for a variety of perfectly valid reasons too...
Do you realize the government is taking the constitution apart slowly but surely?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
It's pity to watch all those protests against violating your privacy. And no, I don't disagree about them, they are perfectly valid and right. It's just sad that they are.
...or, maybe, are there so many wannabe criminals? ;)
Think of this utopia: The government is honest, never abuses info collected about the people, allows you to do mostly anything that doesn't mean serious harm to others, doesn't steal from you, that respects you and provides you with all basic necessities a good government should.
Now would you really mind having a lot of data about yourself collected, then analysed for potential abuses of the system, then discarded when none, or some not important enough are found? While knowing that whoever actually tries to ruin your life will be caught and stopped just the same you would be if you actually meant some serious harm?
Collecting personal data by itself is harmless. It's how it may be abused is bad. And it's sad people have strong reasons not to trust the government enough to willingly provide it with their personal data.
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There are cryptographic protocols that are well known and widely implemented to make sure that your smart card won't even talk to anything but an authorized system. There is no way that somebody can just go out and buy an ISO 14443 reader and war drive your pocket. They need the proper keys to talk to the card and if they don't have them they are out of luck.
Lasers Controlled Games!
Name a single Constitutional right which has been curtailed since September 11
The 1st Amendment
The 4th Amendment
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Your name, age, address, and photograph is going to be stored in the EU passport database the instant you cross an EU border if the US Biometric passport is issued.
Americans will have no control over what is done with this data. It will be retained forever, and shared within the EU as the EU sees fit.
Eventually, everyone everywhere that has a passport will be stored in every country's passport database, as the billions of international travellers criss cross the globe.
This will not happen if the Biometric passport effort fails. In the article, the spokesperson from one of the companies set to make billions out of shearing the western population talks about there not being "showstoppers". There are showstoppers. Ask any Australian about their sucessful fight against ID cards.
We can have a more secure passport without a centralized database. The problem is that the governments WANT centralized passport databases for the purposes of control. This biometric push has nothing to do with making passports that cannot be forged.
But you know this!
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Yes, constitutional rights were violated before 9/11. However, now everytime someone wants to pass a law curtailing the public's rights, they proclaim that it is a "security measure" designed to "fight terror." It isn't like it was impossible to get obviously unconstitutional laws into place before 9/11, but now it is easy. Before, patriots said "Give me liberty, or give me death!", but now our government (I wouldn't call these people, as a group, patriots) says "Give up liberty for fear of death!"
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Crudely Drawn Games
So once these are issued, a little while later they're cracked and people make fakes relying on the notion that the passport will be checked with less scrutiny because it checks out on the computer. This is like how digital licenses are swiped to validate age when buying alcohol, but they look less at the photo. Technology like this can have the effect of making people less careful when checking someone's identity.
All these draconian 'security' measures are not needed because barbarians are at America's gates, but that American policies around the world are creating tensions that are easist to address via terrorism.
"Extra scrutiny" has never been shown to add true security. And the US government has been taking apart the US Constitution since the US Civil War. Consider the War Powers Act for one. The printing of a fiat currency for another. Censorship. Affirmative Action (aka 'reverse discrimination') which is strictly against the principles of the Constitution -- social engineering is ineffective and people, especially when considering generations: time and societies are not algebraic equations; you can't take away from Jim in 1850 and give Joe a handout in 2004 and make up for it. All it does is create a class of people who feel as though society owes them something, which it most surely does not. Clearly the Constitution never allowed for this; if it did, it would have included "inequalty" as its key premise. This does exist because the US government does indeed pervert the US Constituion.
Bastiat wrote of 'legal plunder' which is how the State works. In fact he wrote that the State was 'that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.' Whenever the State gives itself authority that the indiviuals making up that State do not have, it begins to live above the power that created it and by definition must oppress the creating power. That is the mechanism through which principles of civil rights are lost, which is quite different than judging such by contravening current laws. Laws flow from principles, not the other way.
How better to desensitize herds into accepting it... Think of the stormtroopers in 5th Element...ubiquitous A/V mapping in Demolition Man(not to mention Arnie as pres.)...eyescanners in Minority Report...going back a ways, total identity check in Gattaca... The question isn't what affect this has on the now...What's the long term goal here? I can't fathom... Imagine Columbus, Magellan, Polo, any of them being asked for biometric ID! It's as ridiculous as the concept that any of us really own anything!
Don't forget the 6th Admendment, both the right to a speedy trial and the right to council, are null and void if you're a suspected terrorist.
Learn something new.