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Registered Traveler Program Open For Business
storem writes "Enrollment into TSA's Registered Traveler program started yesterday at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Frequent flyers are given the opportunity to sign up for a fast-track system using biometrics to identify themselves. It seems this is pretty much the same system tested in Europe in the s-Travel program. There frequent flyers carried their biometric identifiers (fingerprint & iris) with them between airports on a smart card (privacy reasons)."
If they carried their information with them on a smartcard, couldn't someone edit the smartcard and fake their info?
You can mod your friends, you can mod your nose, but you can't mod your friend's nose.
Now planebombers need to practice their routes more than before, establishing their frequent flyer status. Their biometric IDs will ensure that only the suicidal dupe is making the runs. At least the final flight will be recoupable in earned mileage. Saudi oil billions will buy only so much air travel.
--
make install -not war
If your aim is to use the plane as a suicide bomb, will it matter to you if are fingerprinted? The people who were behiond 9/11 weren't known terrorists/criminals. They were quiet people, under the radar....
My Favourite Meme
how long until people end up being murded for their fingerprints & eyeballs?
I don't see how this solves a problem. A businessman of ethnic background working in the Middle East and flying regularly will not be possible to distinguish from a terrorist posing as a businessman.
Or perhaps the hidden subtext is "The biometrics signatures will enable white non-suspicious regular travelers to whizz through customs while suspiscious non-whites are filtered for more efective controls by customs".
Other than that possibility, I have nothin per-se against biometric controls - it's how they are used and who by that's the problem.
A little planning goes a long way...
There frequent flyers carried their biometric identifiers (fingerprint & iris) with them between airports on a smart card
Actually, we carried our biometric identifiers on our FINGERS and our EYES. That's the whole point, you see?
> There frequent flyers carried their biometric identifiers (fingerprint & iris) with them between airports on a smart card (privacy reasons).
Yeah, you definitely don't want to be carrying around your fingerprints and irises out in the open!
The only problem with an optional service that has an advantage over the standard service (ie, shorter lines...) is that it might become the defacto method over time. If enough people agree to the tracked biometrics, the entire system will inevitably switch over to biometrics.
And I'd probably defect to the "convenience" side myself if I were flying fairly often. Not really that different than the privacy invasion I tolerate for using a credit card. Boy do we pay for our conveniences in the long run...
No, the hidden subtext is "We really want to make this compulsory but cannot. So we'll give people the chance to opt in and over time make it really inconvenient for those who choose not to until eventually everyone opts in just to avoid the hassle."
Been through a fast-lane enabled toll booth recently? The cash lanes are getting fewer and slower all the time.
But they'll still know he is that businessman from the Middle East rather than a random dude who decided to pose as a business man. Establishing identity is a cruicial step in any security system and while it doesn't solve the problem directly, it will help reduce resources needed to establish identity. It also raises the bar for the terrorists a tad.
Or one might simply peruse a copy of Huxley's prophetic Brave New World...
And wonder how are the themes of Brave New World any different than the themes of the US government (or any government) of today?
The Themes of Brave New World
1. COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY- VERSUS INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM
Community, Identity, Stability is the motto of the World State. It lists the Utopia's prime goals. Community is in part a result of identity and stability. It is also achieved through a religion that satirizes Christianity- a religion that encourages people to reach solidarity through sexual orgy. And it is achieved by organizing life so that a person is almost never alone.
Identity is in large part the result of genetic engineering. Society is divided into five classes or castes, hereditary social groups. In the lower three classes, people are cloned in order to produce up to 96 identical "twins." Identity is also achieved by teaching everyone to conform, so that someone who has or feels more than a minimum of individuality is made to feel different, odd, almost an outcast.
Stability is the third of the three goals, but it is the one the characters mention most often- the reason for designing society this way. The desire for stability, for instance, requires the production of large numbers of genetically identical "individuals," because people who are exactly the same are less likely to come into conflict. Stability means minimizing conflict, risk, and change.
2. SCIENCE AS A MEANS OF CONTROL
Brave New World is not only a Utopian book, it is also a science-fiction novel. But it does not predict much about science in general. Its theme "is the advancement of science as it affects human individuals," Huxley said in the Foreword he wrote in 1946, 15 years after he wrote the book. He did not focus on physical sciences like nuclear physics, though even in 1931 he knew that the production of nuclear energy (and weapons) was probable. He was more worried about dangers that appeared more obvious at that time- the possible misuse of biology, physiology, and psychology to achieve community, identity, and stability. Ironically, it becomes clear at the end of the book that the World State's complete control over human activity destroys even the scientific progress that gained it such control.
3. THE THREAT OF GENETIC ENGINEERING Genetic engineering is a term that has come into use in recent years as scientists have learned to manipulate RNA and DNA, the proteins in every cell that determine the basic inherited characteristics of life. Huxley didn't use the phrase but he describes genetic engineering when he explains how his new world breeds prescribed numbers of humans artificially for specified qualities.
4. THE MISUSE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CONDITIONING Every human being in the new world is conditioned to fit society's needs- to like the work he will have to do. Human embryos do not grow inside their mothers' wombs but in bottles. Biological or physiological conditioning consists of adding chemicals or spinning the bottles to prepare the embryos for the levels of strength, intelligence, and aptitude required for given jobs. After they are "decanted" from the bottles, people are psychologically conditioned, mainly by hypnopaedia or sleep-teaching. You might say that at every stage the society brainwashes its citizens.
5. THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS CARRIED TO AN EXTREME A society can achieve stability only when everyone is happy, and the brave new world tries hard to ensure that every person is happy. It does its best to eliminate any painful emotion, which means every deep feeling, every passion. It uses genetic engineering and conditioning to ensure that everyone is happy with his or her work.
6. THE CHEAPENING OF
Singapore's had this feature for frequent travellers for a few years now.
http://app.ica.gov.sg/serv_pr/oth_serv/iacs.asp
It doesn't cover separate security checks, but does allow one to speed through the immigration lines at entry and exit.
on a card yes?
What happens if the card gets stolen? Do they test the card and the eyes/finger print to comfirm it's them? I can think of so many ways to abuse this if they don't..
I like muppets.
I suppose this is a consolation for having REALLY LONG security lineups in the US, but I can't help but wonder....
Rather than concentrating on doing things to secure planes from mad people, shouldn't we concentrate more on doing things to make mad people NOT want to blow us all up?
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
By statute, postal workers are not eligible. Thank god !!
This seems like it was designed by Microsoft -- let's make the system more secure by adding ways to bypass it in the name of convenience! I feel much better about flying now.
I'm blind and amputated, you Insensitive CLOD!
Now, what is the reasoning behind this? Why can people registered only use the designated checkpoints at their "home" airport? For folks who frequently travel across the country, will saving half an hour at one measly airport be worth giving a governmental organization their fingerprints and iris scans?
I don't get it. If the TSA obtains this data, it seems they should allow a person to use special checkpoints in Boston, Los Angeles, Houston and Washington (other cities testing the program) as well as in Minneapolis. For a lot of folks, not having to wait in line when they start their flights in Minnesota (but getting no special priviliges anywhere else) won't pay the cost of the government "knowing who they are".
With my luck, I will show up at the airport and then realize that I left my fingers and iris at home.
Within a few years this "innovation" will be mandatory, and nobody will be allowed to fly without it.
I think keeping the information closer to where it is used is much better. They could simply have a card with a persons ID#, and then when they go...they put the card in, give and iris and fingerprint scan. That way we don't have to worry about it being hacked.
I believe every programmer knows that giving variables to the client are less safe then keeping them on the server, even beginners such as myself.
Indeed - this businessman's smart card may well encode "Search me!" and he won't know it for sure.
I can see how insecure this will all wind up being.
Leeloo Dallas, Multipass.
I read in today's San Fransisco Examiner , page 3, PJ Corkery column 6-28-04:
Then I wish [visiting] Bill Clinton could roam the streets of SoMa, where he might spy the posters showing the hooded, bewired Iraqi prisoner, with the angry caption, "Got Democracy?" The posters are the work of Robert Mailer Anderson, the gifted and funny novelist of Northern California ("Boonville", Mr. President, is Anderson's terrific novel about growing up as the child of especially narcissistic and narcotized Baby Boomers). Those posters were prompted by Anderson's on going concern about civil liberties, a concern sharpened into dismay when, while trying to board a plane last month, he was told that his traveling companion was on the government's "No Fly List" and could not alight the plane. Who was this suspect traveling companion, this possible terrorist?... Anderson's two-year old daughter, that's who. This toddler was identified by name as one too dangerous to let on a plane."
These are the people you're paying billions in taxes to for Homeland Security?
Raise the bar high enough that everyone's equally suspect and no one stands out as a suspect either. We're right back where we started, except more repressive. In a sense this makes things easier on potential terrorists as the rules are more overt, rigid, and thus defined and gamable.
Raise the bar higher and everyone is treated like a criminal, but the criminals are the only ones that don't mind.
KFG
When everyone has these rediculous cards, there will be no lines, and no need to sign up. Easy.
It actually makes a lot of sense to use biometrics to automate immigration checks, because it's entirely a question of verifying the passengers' identity. Once the gonvernment has made the determination that a citizen/resident is eligible to enter the country, that person will be likewise eligible to enter every time henceforth (until the passport or residence permit expires).
On the other hand, in pre-boarding security checks, identity verification is not the question at hand. The objective there is screen passengers for weapons. A seemingly well behaved citizen could be weapon-free 99 times, then sneak a weapon through on his 100th flight. It might even be unintentional -- a terrorist would try to plant knives in the luggage of these trusted fast-track individuals.
The TSA's Registered Traveler program is analogous to automating the customs check instead of the immigration check. The fast-track passengers may be statistically more trustworthy, but I wouldn't bet my life on it. The TSA could get more or less the same results by adding express lanes requiring a minimum of 50000 miles on your frequent-flyer card.
You'd think that with the hundreds of thousands of people in government, one could have an idea that actually does what it is supposed to, without ulterior motives?
Why are we confiscating fingernail clippers? To protect against hijacking, or to touch everyone in some small way and remind them of exploding planes?
I fail to see how whitelisting white people is going to help anything, other than padding the info of CAPPS, and introducing biometrics to the public -wrapping it in a sense of convenience to help the spread of this insecure ID.
If I held my breath until our government did something *for* me, rather than to or against me, I'd be goddamn Suffocated Smurf.
I'm a little surprised that no one has mentioned that Israel has been offering a "trusted traveler" program since 1996.
:
Regardless of your politics or religion or whatever, you have to admit that there are few countries that have to deal with terrorism on a more daily basis than Israel.
And it appears that Israel's voluntary program has also been effective on a logistics level. I found this quote via Google, from the page of Sen. Hutchison (R-TX) referencing a report by the General Accounting Office
At Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport, security waiting time has been reduced from approximately one hour to 20 seconds through the use of biometric identifiers.
The biometric identifiers mentioned are part of the "trusted traveler" program.
As long as any program such as this is not compulsory, I view it as a useful option.
- Neil Wehneman
My legal education, in nifty podcast format
Until he notices this is the second and third time he's been hauled off to the side for a "random" exam on this trip. And come to think of it, last time he flew he got hauled off to the side for random searching. That's how I figured out I was in CAPPS.
At the bottom of the endless pile of paper work which characterizes all regulation lies a gun.
Alan Greenspan
The machines I saw in Minneapolis looked like this: click here
How does establishing identity help in the slightest when the stated aim is to prevent another plane-as-suicide-bomb attack. The answer is that it doesn't in the slightest, as many others have pointed out, and may in fact be detrimental. The only reason I can see is that it makes the travellers *feel* safer, and has side effects in reducing other types of crime such as smuggling. It does not raise any bar except that under which I must contort myself when visiting the US.
"The new wave is not value-added; it's garbage-subtracted" - Esther Dyson, Dec 1994
BUDDIE, it is THE GOVERNMENT'S JOB to EAT YOUR BALLS.
http://app.ica.gov.sg/serv_pr/oth_serv/iacs.asp
It doesn't cover separate security checks, but does allow one to speed through the immigration lines at entry and exit.
The above cut'n'pasted from the parent AC; I had moderator access, why couldn't I mod it up? The mod button was missing completely for that post alone...
Cheers,
-j.
People, would you please, please, please, I am begging you, please RTFA! The vast majority of posts that are up right now (not all) seem to think this program will be applied to everyone that gets on an airplane, that we soon must have our fingerprints taken and our eyes scanned before we fly.
In fact, this is a voluntary program that frequent fliers - not all frequent fliers, just those that sign up - can use, the primary benefit being the ability to bypass security checkpoints and rapidly get through the airport and onto the flight. Side benefits may include reducing the size of the proverbial "haystack" we are searching to find the "needle" of a terrorist - however, fighting terrorism does not seem to be the primary thrust of this program. The goal seems to be to try to bring back to frequent fliers the convenience level of flying to something similar (or better) than it was in pre-9/11 days.
I know this will likely be the cue for a bunch of replies to the effect "Sure it's voluntary frequent fliers now but in 10 years the government will want everybody's biometric data!" But, please, RTFA, there is no implication here of an increase in governmental powers - if you feel uncomfortable with the government having your iris image on record, then just don't sign up for the damn program! Continue to go through the security checkpoints in the exact way you are now, just like everyone else does - this will not affect you!
it has no place anymore in american society.
Nobody is liked by everyone... the diversity of ideas and viewpoints on a planet with multi-billions of people will absolutely ENSURE that someone, somewhere, hates you. Besides, does being unpopular justify violent action?
Just a couple of comments.
1. Fair point... I'll grant you this one.
2. In the right circumstances, I fully support preemptive war, just as I endorse police officers not waiting until they're shot at to shoot back (as a former SWAT officer, I've personal experience with this one). Giving your enemies the first punch is stupid; I can't see sacrificing lives on the basis of either indecision or moral cowardice.
3. Intelligence is often nothing more than a best guess. Occam's razor may be appropriate here... don't attribute to malice that which is explained by simple incompetence.
4. Avoid torturing? Good advice, and probably followed by the vast, overwhelming majority. But defining torture... and whether it's ever permissible is a great debate. Rhetorically, a case can be made for torture in some circumstances (if a terrorist knew where a nuke was, and refused to divulge that info, is torture justifiable? Does the tiny private moral victory of "I'm a good person... I don't torture others" drown out the screams of the millions you might be sacrificing by staying within your own moral comfort zone?) I honestly don't know the answer to that one. As technology progresses, and the technological bar to enter the nuclear-club gets lower and lower (and as nukes proliferate, ala AQ. Khan), that scenario becomes plausible... Seriously... what would you do?
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
" How does establishing identity help in the slightest when the stated aim is to prevent another plane-as-suicide-bomb attack."
It doesn't. Except maybe, if the authorities want to know who that was flying a plane into a building.
Also, why would a terrorist attack a harder target? Why would they target planes again when there are lots of other different and less watched targets?
It doesn't make sense to me to spend lots of money on a slim risk that someone malicious _could_ be on a plane and _could_ be planning a hijack. I should have thought the plane is more likely to crash for technical reasons.
Silly rabbit
I suspect that they are trying to improve their own image and be seen as "doing something", no matter the cost or effect. And that the airlines play along with this for improved profiling of their customers, for marketing purposes only.
** Proudly European, therefore UnAmerican
So far it seems no one has pointed out the flipside of this "solution" and the social problems that follow. I'm talking about the effect it will have on the people who sign up and use it, instead of worrying about the system's effectiveness at discouraging terrorism (which is an altogether very important risk) I'm talking about its effective on our nation's social structure.
Without a doubt, some of the earliest users of this system will be the political class. Right now we are suppossed to be subject to random searches (as well as an apparently random no-fly list, but that's another topic). This condition means that potentially anyone, all the way up to the speaker of the house and the senate majority/minority leaders must entertain the possibility of being subjected to random search and all the inconvenience and embarrasment that goes with it.
There have been countless stories in the news of big famous celebrities and big important rich white politicians being subject to "pointless searches" since everybody knows they aren't terrorists. Well, besides the fact that some of these people are clearly off their rocker to begin with, at least being subjected to a search is equalitarian or in other words, it's "keeping it real," for those who make the rules too.
Once all the big fat important people effectively opt out of the hassle of searches, only the occasional flyer, the average joe and his poorer cousin, who still make up the majority of passengers, will be subject to the hassle of searches. The people in power will no longer have to live with the consequences of their (assinine and useless) "security" while the rest of us will still bear the brunt of it.
The next logical step is for "security" measures to be stepped up one little bit at a time because, after all, what politician wants to be seen as "soft on terrorism?" More thorough and invasive searches adding, say, 20 minutes to your wait time -- not a problem on paper since we are all expected to get to the airport 4 hours before departure, so there is plenty of time for extended and more frequent searches (yeah right). Since the very people who will inevitably be tightening the screws on the thumbs of general public will never feel the pressure themselves, it makes it that much easier for them to fuck with us with impunity.
On the plus side, the database of people in this program is certain to be a high-value target for identity theft. If security on the data is handled by the same people responsible for airport (in)security, then we can look forward to a successful break-in and theft of the database and all the personal information contained therein. Maybe the fallout from such a theft will be enough to get some effective data privacy laws passed in this country. But I'm not holding my breath.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I love a good preemptive flamewar.
2. "Innocent until the situation is fully ascertained" can't really exist on the street... things happen too quickly (unless you want to sacrifice a lot more police officers than already die each year). When a cop sees a guy coming with a knife or a gun, he has to choose in a split second. Maybe the person was simply bringing the gun to the police officer, (or it was a toy gun, or they were just joking, or, or, or...) but that's just the way it goes. Innocent until proven guilty is great... but there's no time for a jury when you see somebody raising the muzzle of a weapon. Incidently, by the time SWAT gets called, we're pretty sure who we're after (but even so, 99% of all SWAT call-outs are ended with no shots fired by SWAT).
3. Heh...I feel your pain... but to be argumentative in return, Hanlon's razor could be considered a derivative or corollary of Occam's razor
4. I wouldn't say torture was the rule rather than the exception... though I'm not sure that's even reliably measurable. Torture for its own sake is simple sadism, and those who got their rocks off torturing prisoners will get their due, as well they should. It was particularly nice of them to take pictures for posterity's sake. Sick and stupid is quite a combo...
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Either legally or practically (with the wait being unbearably long otherwise)?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Let me tell you something about torture.
It's only good for one thing: getting some innocent bugger to "confes" anything you want to hear, so you can then hold a fake trial and execute them. That's why it's been used so much for the last 10 millenia or so, and is still loved by dictators.
Think just of the _millions_ (literally, and we even have the records) who confessed to flying on broomsticks, having sex with the devil, summoning vile demons and plagues, signing pacts in blood with Satan, etc, at the hands of the Inquisition. Stuff that isn't even physically _possible_, but enough torture got that crap "confessed" anyway. That's the kind of bullshit that torture produces.
You get a fellow snug on a rack and torture them enough, they'll tell you any _lie_ you want to hear, just to make it stop. You just have to bring them to the point where even death looks like a nicer alternative.
But for actually obtaining _intelligence_ it's fucking useless. What you get is whatever _you_ had already decided you want to hear, not trze information you didn't know. I.e., you could just as well just act on your mis-conceptions and prejudice, and spare the torture part, since you'll get exactly there anyway.
So you know what will actually happen in your "terrorist with a nuke" scenario? You'll torture some innocent arab who probably didn't even like the fundamentalists at all in the first place. And you'll keep torturing him until he tells you whatever false "confession" you wanted to hear, just to make the pain stop.
Will you find your nuke? No fucking way. But now you have a "confession" so you can execute or deport an innocent.
Well gee... if that's what the "land of the free" is supposed to mean...
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
And as I walk through the express lane I will turn and show them
"Fuck all y'all bitch ass niggas!"
The problem with the whole airline security mess is that they are trying to secure a very large area with the goal being to keep out less than 1/1000 of 1% of the people - and that group of people is not known. It simply doesn't make any sense. Military bases and other secure areas work by keep out 99% of the population and those who are allowed in are reasonably well checked. Trying to keep out an unknown .001% is impossible.
The old system worked reasonably well. During the 9/11 hijackings no guns, bombs, chemical mace, swords, stun guns or other major weapons were used. The security system worked. The failure wasn't in the security system - it was in how the flying populace was trained to react to a hijacking. Five guys with box cutters will not be able to take over an airplane again.
This new measure will make it easier for frequent flyers to put up with the current nonsense, allowing the TSA to perpetuate itself while offering no real security. There is no way you can keep hijackers off an airplane because YOU DON'T KNOW WHO THEY ARE. We have been successful in keeping them from having any major weapons. That, combined with the new attitude passengers will take towards hijackers are sufficient.
The next terrorist act in the U.S. will not involve airplanes. That barn door doesn't need any more shutting.
Skynet has officially become self-aware.
I hate sigs.
That's why we've had 10 more 9/11 attacks, as you know.
Terrorists are all-knowing, unstoppable geeks, who can game any system, and GPG their messages in their heads without computer help. ;)
Um, no. Obviously, any measure can be theoretically defeated, but that doesn't mean not taking measures is a good idea.
was called "VISA Express". With it,
...
the Dept. of State allowed proported
Saudi nationals to phone in to the
embassy for their US visas. This
program was very helpful in speeding
up the entry of young Moslem males
into the USA.
The Saudi's that were not on the four
hijacked planes on 9-11-2001 were picked
up by chartered Saudi flights in the USA
at a time when all domestic US flights
were grounded.
Without secure borders AND universal
secure biometric ID's, the next 9-11
will still happen: -- it just will not
be done with hijacked planes
Because if terrorists ever do set a nuke or chemical weapon off, the rules of international relations will suffer their most drastic change ever. If you think Bush's policies of preemptive war are incorrect, just wait until you see the policies of a post-nuked-NY United States.
But since the most likely target right now of an Islamic-whacko WMD is Europe (for a lot of reasons - split them from the US, probably easier access, and more...) such policy changes won't be limited to the US - nuke Berlin and what comes to power would probably really resemble the Nazis - and not just in the minds of MoveOn.org.
Do you think if Paris gets nuked there won't be a bunch of mosques burned and some form of "ethnic cleansing" happening in France?
A post-terrorist-nuke world would be an ugly world. I've got no qualms about doing anything necessary to avoid such a world.
I hope these people realize they're selling out to the mandatory national ID pilot. Of course, they probably don't give a shit about their or anyone else's freedom.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
That's not Occam's razor- although it is commonly misunderstood as such.
a zor.ht ml
Occam's razor is:
"plurality should not be posited without necessity." OR simply "Don't do something with more if you can do it with less".
Your quote, "don't attribute to malice that which is explained by simple incompetence." is a misquote of Hanlon's Razor and is actually probably borrowed from the sci-fi Robert Heinlein (both men say "stupidity", not incompetence). See:
http://www.jargon.net/jargonfile/h/HanlonsR
I fully believe in Occam's Razor, I think Hanlon's Razor is crap. I think Hanlon's razor is very popular with management types who like to encourage a sort of moral laziness in the workplace that reduces the need for actual maintenance of good-will, competence, and personal responsibility. Walking around and assuming everyone else does bad things because they are incompetent is unbelievably arrogant and is usually wrong.
I don't get it, if they can't store your biometric data what good is it? Do you scan your real fingerprint and verify that it matches the one one the smart card? Then anyone who holds a card and matches it is cleared? This seems odd.
Sorry, but your scare tactics won't work, seeing as how Pax America is the only rogue nation with WMDs around here. Go back to your cave and fantasize about forcibly converting millions of people to your hate-filled Xtain religion while masterbating with a crucifix.
European countries already have to deal with terrorist attacks every year. E.g., see the bombing in Spain. I'm sure I've seen mentions of it even on tech sites.
But you know what? We still didn't devolve into a scared mob led by aggressive retards. We also didn't use it an excuse to either torture people or invade muslim countries for oil. We didn't burn mosques down, nor deport random arab-looking people each time someone detonated a bomb.
So get over it. The whole "oooh, scary terrorists, let's let the government fuck us 7 ways to sunday" scare in the USA just make me laugh. And the funny coloured alert level codes each time someone thought the neighbour's cat acts funny, really give me the fits of laughter.
You haven't even seen a fraction of the terror attacks the rest of the world has seen. You know how many terror attacks you've had in the USA last year? Exactly _zero_. Nil. Nada. Zilch. Nix.
And you still use that piss-poor excuse to justify torture or giving totalitarian powers to an illiterate retard. (Bush Jr.) You want to torture innocents for what? For a terror threat you _don't_ _even_ _have_? Geeze...
Here's an idea: those constitutional rights are there to protect _you_. If you let a retard take that away from you, in the name of a bogus terrorist scare, it is _you_ who'll have a problem, not the terrorists.
Here's another idea: How about taking a hint from the rest of the world already? You're the mightiest nation on Earth, for fuck's sake. Might as well finally start acting that way, instead of screaming in terror each time Bush Jr scared himself by thinking about the bogeyman under his bed.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
So, we've got two options: tear down Islam, or kill the militant Muslims. What's your choice?
How about fix this problem:
Ultimately, the problem is that Islam never had a reformation.
I agree with your post's spirit; that is, it's a religious issue and no amount of talking/bombing will change fanatics' minds. But the answer is not an eradication of Islam; rather, it should be a re-evaluation of Islam by its leaders.
It's really a testament to the solidity of its faith-system that Islam has lasted as long as it has without having to change; or it could be something within that faith-system that resists change and questioning of beliefs. Being ex-Catholic myself, I can't lay claim to being an expert on the Koran (or, for that matter, having read any of it).
So, a re-analysis of the Koran and a way to integrate it with today's society, while still retaining fundamental concepts such as peace and justice, is probably just what the religion needs to regain acceptance. The main problem with this is that while Islam may never have had a reformation, it's had plenty of schisms. To the best of my knowledge-- I certainly could be wrong, here, and I hope I am-- there is no centralized leadership or seat of learning for the Islam religion. Without a universally accepted (by Muslims, anyway) authority on "What the Koran Says", you are going to have a tough time convincing any Muslims that they're not supposed to blow up people who don't agree with them. (OK, maybe that's just my old catechism showing through-- Catholics have the Pope, and eventually he caught on to the whole "Thou shalt not kill means THOU SHALT NOT KILL" thing. It took a few Crusades, though...)
OK, and I realize that Judaism doesn't have a centralized leadership either-- there's no Jewish equivalent of the Pope. But, last I checked, the Jews also knew that there are ways to convince people of their religion besides blowing them up, and figured that out a long time ago. The fact that there was at one point a hierarchy to the Jewish religion-- the high priests et al-- allowed the faith to evolve and adapt to temporal changes while retaining the core philosophies of the faith.
The bottom line is that just as a monoculture can kill a species, so can having too much diversity. Islam is too splintered, too disparate in its parts to institute any widespread changes. Rather than a call to unify in the name of killing those different, I would hope that some Muslims might call their brothers and sisters together to turn the eye on themselves, and bring all of Islam together before it is too late.
This is, of course, all my opinion and conjecture based on my extremely limited experience with Islam. I mean no disrespect, please don't kill me. I'd actually love to hear a Muslim come and tell me what he or she thinks of my idea, whether I'm an idiot or not.
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
Guess I'm just missing something; I've not felt like security was too big a pain in the ass anyway.
The Democratic Party: We've been pussies since 1968!
Think of the things to come from this wonderous technology. I *really* can't wait until I can pay for things by fingering a nearby cash register... er, biometric validation register...
Sheesh... how long until we start seeing information from this system used against *us* (the NON-terrorists) in court? It's already being done with EZ-Pass and the like. ("Yes, your honor, it was my finger that purchased those condoms...")
This only makes it worse...
I think it's time for a one way ticket to Antartica!
And you're right - you don't devolve into a scared mob led by aggressive retards, you devolve into a scared mob led by passive, appeasing retards.
And I love this:
You know how many terror attacks you've had in the USA last year? Exactly _zero_. Nil. Nada. Zilch. Nix.
Especially when in the context of this:
European countries already have to deal with terrorist attacks every year. E.g., see the bombing in Spain. I'm sure I've seen mentions of it even on tech sites.
Sooo, we should adopt European attitudes so we can have more terrorists attacks happen against us? I thought if we were nice to terrorists they wouldn't attack us?
Aside from separate lines for rich people, what does this get us? Now terrorists will only be able to commit one act of suicide airline hijacking before they can be identified and kept off other planes???
It should be obvious that the quick check in is temporary at best. The long lines at airports have little to do with making sure you are who you say you are and everything to do with government interference. Long lines at airports are the result of a federally imposed lack of airline competition, bag checking and other fall out from 9/11. Those things will still be there after everyone's fingerprints, retinas, DNA sample and sperm motility factors are in some kind of federal potential criminal database.
Say "mooooooooo" all you chattel. Uncle Sam wants to record it for a voice analysis program.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Europeans don't go to war every time there's a terrorist attack. Americans (apparently) do.
Europe has to suffer terror attacks "every year" --according to you-- and the USA --again, according to you-- had exactly _zero_ attacks over the last year.
We, as Americans decided to send soldiers to the Middle East to remove a despot who threatened our security. Europeans decide to bend over every time a terrorist attacks, thereby making the decision (consciously or not) to sacrifice innocent civilians to avoid sacrificing innocent soldiers.
And whose system is better?
Yes, we are "the mightiest nation on Earth, for fuck's sake". And, for that reason, we choose not to give in to terrorists, but to fight. Perhaps if you grew a spine you wouldn't have to deal with terrorist attacks every year.
Someone already made a comment about acting like Clinton... but we can't really have a debate without defining terms... so what do you define as torture? Don't regurgitate some UN definition... I'm talking about you, yourself.
Yes... if you inflict enough pain, someone will tell you anything they think you want to hear, just to stop the agony. If you want to emulate the North Vietnamese, and get US POWs to sign bogus "confessions" (even John McCain signed a statement saying he was an "air pirate", IIRC), that kind of torture works quite nicely. Anyone who's been through SERE school in the US military will tell you: everyone breaks eventually... it's what you give up when you break that counts.
If you're a dimwitted thug who's simply after bogus confessions to wave around on your state-run television propaganda channel, fine... ask all the leading questions you want. Eventually, you'll get what you're looking for... but that's not what I'm talking about. (Echos of the "The Prisoner." We want information... information... information...)
How about questioning a person under conscious sedation, which disinhibits them, but causes them no physical harm? How about simple isolation? How about the chinese "water torture" (a psychological stressor that's physically harmless)?
I don't mean to single you out, but you've been so vehement in your posts... would you be willing to sacrifice to save the life of an innocent? Nobody's asking you to give your life... just do an unpleasant task. We're not talking about scooping out eyeballs... it doesn't even have to physically harm the terrorist. Could you do it? Now instead of saving one life, how about an entire platoon of young soldiers? How about a third-grade class? One-hundred innocents? A thousand? You can see what I'm getting at here... I'm always fascinated with where the sliding scale of competing harms balances out for people.
I honestly don't know myself, and I'm thankful that I don't have to make that decision. But I try to be mindful of the fact that even if I am not making that decision, somebody, somewhere, probably has to... Think about that. I don't envy that person. I can only hope they've considered all the options, and whether they'll be able to live with the results. I try to never underestimate the power of human rationalization... but would it be strong enough? I don't know.
I sometimes wonder how well Tomas de Torquemada slept.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
The main purpose of any terror group is not to spread terror, but to accomplish otherwise impossible tasks.
Like -- scare Spaniards at the voting booths? And *that* is where the terrorists have succeeded.
I don't know what these frequent fliers have packed in their carry on bags that causes them to waste so much time at security. I've been to the nations busiest airports at the worst times (holidays) and have never spent more than 10-15 minutes or so getting through security. I never set off the metal detector therefore I never have to get searched. Its extremely simple:
1. Empty out your pockets into your carry on bag. Everything! Keys, changes, everything! I usually keep my wallet on me just because only thing in there is paper and plastic.
2. Stick your boarding pass in your back pocket so nothing is in your hands.
3. Wear sneakers. If you can't wear sneakers then take your shoes off ahead of time and send them through the machine.
4. No big metal belt buckles. I see this so often, people are idiots.
5. Walk through normally, not folding your arms or hands in pockets.
6. Be polite! This is a biggie! I've seen so many rude frequent fliers and businessmen at security.
Using these simple steps avoids any metal on you and gets you through security without getting stopped. It takes no time at all to put things in your carry on bag before you leave your home or car. But people are so freaking lazy then they act like the security is singling them out when the real truth is they set off the detector because they are a freaking moron.
Sun-Tzu was wise... his works are still required reading for various three-letter agencies, and the US Army War College, among others.
For my own part, I agree: never give the enemy the initiative... action always beats reaction. Keep your enemy reacting to you; it allows you to choose the time, place, and tempo of the battle.
2. Point granted on the street situation... but I still maintain that preemptive strikes are justifiable in some circumstances (though the benefits may not be seen for decades). Israel's strike on Saddam's nuclear reactor is an excellent example... without it, we'd be facing a nuclear-armed Iraq, and a MUCH different middle east today. If Iran develops nukes, it gets nastier still.
3. Heheh... again, point granted, though stupidity being more common than evil, I would defend my reference. However, your corollary is equally valid, and has the additional benefit of being more specific (as a bonus, it incorporates my unstated assumption).
4. Jury is still out on this one... "preparing" prisoners for interrogation could cover a lot of territory. Not to be legalistic, but that's where this will be debated, and lawyers live for details.
I must confess, I've enjoyed this exchange.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Sure it is: just change the laws! For reference, see the US Patriot act, or "Great Leader" Kim Chong Il.
If you're talking about your morals prohibiting torture, then you are right. Other people think torture is okay, and they're right, too.
Yeah, right.
But all a crafty Osamite would need to do is become one of these business travelers. They don't think this system is foolproof, do they?
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
The cash lanes are getting fewer and slower all the time.
They can never dissappear. On public roads run by city and county governments, I don't see how the government can discriminate based on method of payment. If I am a person without much money, but I at least have a car and a few dollars in my pocket, then I should have every right to use the toll road, if I choose. It is still a public road, right?
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
Actually recent events in Israel showed that by not listening to the whiny US and Europe that they know how to solve their problems.
Kill the leaders of the terrorist organization.
Separate them from you.
Neither option is politically correct, yet no politically correct acitivity will ever save lives. You cannot protect something if you make exceptions right and left.
The TSA doesn't work simply because it is bound by PC issues. Profiling is what would work, what works in Israel, and what will reduce the burden imposed on the rest of the public. No security system is worth its cost if it does not attempt to select those who can be a threat.
People joke about stopping little old white ladies don't get it, that is a real problem. It occurs EVERY DAY because we are so wrapped up in not offending someone that we are willing to allow someone the opportunity to kill the very same people we claim to protect.
Flat out, any non-US citizen, and specifically those from a threat nation, should not be excepted from extra security precautions just because they may be offended.
If biometrics helps get people on planes faster and safe then more power to it, however it doesn't solve anything unless we are willing to do what is required.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Ha!
He couldn't believe what he'd just found.
He slowly drew out from the wallet a single and insanely exciting piece of plastic that was nestling amongst a bunch of receipts.
It wasn't insanely exciting to look at. It was rather dull in fact. It was smaller and a little thicker than a credit card and semi-transparent. If you held it up to the light you could see a lot of holographically encoded information and images buried pseudo-inches deep beneath its surface .
It was an Ident-i-Eeze, and was a very naughty and silly thing for Harl to have lying around in his wallet, though it was perfectly understandable. There were so many different ways in which you were required to provide absolute proof of your identity these days that life could easily become extremely tiresome just from that factor alone, never mind the deeper existential problems of trying to function as a coherent consciousness in an epistemologically ambiguous physical universe. Just look at cash point machines, for instance. Queues of people standing around waiting to have their fingerprints read, their retinas scanned, bits of skin scraped from the nape of the neck and undergoing instant (or nearly instant -- a good six or seven seconds in tedious reality) genetic analysis, then having to answer trick questions about members of their family they didn't even remember they had, and about their recorded preferences for tablecloth colours. And that was just to get a bit of spare cash for the weekend. If you were trying to raise a loan for a jetcar, sign a missile treaty or pay an entire restaurant bill things could get really trying.
Hence the Ident-i-Eeze. This encoded every single piece of information about you, your body and your life into one all-purpose machine-readable card that you could then carry around in your wallet, and therefore represented technology's greatest triumph to date over both itself and plain common sense.
The subtext isn't hidden at all. It's right there in the article:
I'm guessing that an individual being "suspicious" might be one of the flags they're checking for.
As for filtering on whiteness, if this program is a means of allowing us to more closely scrutinize travelers of Arabic descent without raising the hackles of the politically correct, then I'm all for it.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
Those who opposed toppling Saddam for their own financial gain - French oil contracts, UN's corrupt Oil-for-Food, etc. - weren't our allies in the first place.
I'll take passive and appeasing over that any day.
And I'm sure you'll also get "Peace in our time". Again.
This is but a step removed from requiring all persons to fully id with biometrics in order to travel anywhere and eventually to do much of anything. Notice the progression. Something scary and awful happens. Airlines practice indiscriminate and largely meaningless hugely harrassing and disruptive "security measures". People complain. Airlines allow bypassing largely meaningless levels of hassle if you go through special screening and provide precise identification when you travel. The message is that everyone is a suspect until proven likely innocent, everyone is assumed guilty unless suitably examined, branded and stamped. Freedom? Surveillance is freedom. Mandatory id is freedom. Restriction of travel on arbitrary and unquestionable say-so of unreachable committees is freedom. Go to sleep little sheep. Here, have some more HDTV.
History will be the judge of this.. but if Iraq had no weapons to deliver payload onto us or our allies, and there was no credible threat that Iraq was planning to attack us, then we have violated the 'right intention' principle in the just war philosophy.
A preemptive war is always just, if it is actually preemptive (under the just war philosophy.)
Invading because a country might someday attack us is called "preventative war", and this is not permissible. (This is what the Bush Administration repeatedly alleged, that we wanted to stop "having this football to throw around." (Rice).)
Why do we debate the just war philosophy in a democracy? Because war is anti-democratic.
I don't like this...why is the govt. getting away with 'fingerprinting' me, so to say....like a common criminal. I don't want them taking private information about me, and I consider this to be private information about me if I'm not accused of anything.
Think you can claim some kind of 'religious' thing about the # of the beast and force them to give you a non-biometric ID passport? I know exceptions to the 'rule' are made here and there for this reason on other 'govt. marking/tracking' issues....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Well, if you don't have much money you sure don't count for much. And a "right" to use a public road? Dream on. You have a "right" to pay for it, then get out of the way.
Sounds a lot like the argument for gun control. Air travel is not constitutionally protected, however.
I travel weekly. My main gripe is having to remove my shoes. My shoes are airport friendly, but my orthotics (for my flat feet) are not. It is not apparent from this article whether that annoying procedure will go away or not. If not, I see no reason to participate (unless the lines are really short). As several other readers have posted, I empty my pockets of everything and remove my shoes. I don't set off the detectors, am polite, and am allowed to go on my way without any fanfare. It would be so nice to not have to remove my shoes.
Air travel is not constitutionally protected, however.
No, but you are.
KFG
There frequent flyers carried their biometric identifiers (fingerprint & iris) with them between airports on a smart card"
Did anyone else read this thinking, "oww, oww, oww..."
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
Your post is a bit too pessimistic. We're talking about city government, here, not a 3rd world dictatorship. Fighting the city needs only a lawyer and a good case.
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
I note that the parent post was first modded "-1, Flamebait", and is (at the time of the current post's submission) now "5, Insightful".
--
make install -not war
I'll give you US$5 if you post your SSN here. You win, we win. Getting your SSN is already pretty possible, so why not make your life easier with a fivver?
Yeah, right.
You almost sound like an NRA member (that's not an insult... I have no problem with the NRA, but your slippery slope arugment is a common one for that organization). And it's not an invalid argument... creative prosecutors have already tried to use sections of the Patriot Act against non-terror crimes (though I'm only aware of one case).
What I'm interested in is not tying the hands of the people whose job it is to do the dirty work. Like you, I have a problem with brutal torture... but what about creative interrogation (harkening back to my original question)? Also, I have a problem with advertising our capabilities and limitations to the terrorists we might capture. The more you know about your enemy, including his strengths and weaknesses, interrogation methods, procedures, etc, the better you can train against them. The US military SERE school used to run soldiers through several types of interrogation camps, based on intel we've gathered from our enemies. There were Russians camps, Central-American camps... we are able to train our soldiers effectively against capture by those folks partially because we know their methods. I would deny that advantage to the terrorists by leaving a bit of ambiguity... publishing lengthy legal brief on exactly what we can and cannot do gives the terrorists too much info.
I understand your point about the government becoming a threat... but fixing that is only one election away. Don't believe it? Look at the changes in the last four years; those could be mostly undone with a single swing in an election.
And even if it came to violence... the US is one of the most-heavily armed nations in the world (in terms of the general populace). Think the US is having problems in Iraq? What army is going to occupy a country the size of the US? Certainly not the US Army, totally drawn from the regular US populace, and not at all interested in imposing martial law on its own citizens. Again, look at Iraq, and the problems the US is having getting iraqis to fight their own... that would be even more magnified in the US.
Thanks for the interesting discussion... I appreciate you being vigilant about freedom.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.