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Feds To Have Unified Biometric Federal ID System
An anonymous submitter writes "There have been rumors flying among the scientific community about a proposed standard for 'Personal Identity Verification' by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST). According to the standard, all federal employees and contractors would require a 'PIV "card" that is "personalized" with data needed by the PIV system to later grant access to the subscriber to Federal facilities and information systems.' Besides the likely efficacy questions, concerns in the scientific community concern what impact this will have on our foreign collaborations (or even grad students)."
How long untill they go, "We did a trial, it worked well. Lets use it to track terrorists!" and start to try and force it upon the people this way?
I like muppets.
I'm just a little bit curious about how pervasive this information will get. I can understand that if I worked for the FBI, I can expect a serious background check, and I don't know if I'd have an objection to having biometric information taken in addition to work in a security field. But I do research at a VA hospital - I can't imagine what information or materials that I'd have access to that would require that kind of clearance or identification process.
"What do you think?" "I think 'What, do you think?!'"
concerns in the scientific community concern what impact this will have on our foreign collaborations
Did I miss something when the US mandated all foreign-born visitors to the US to have coded passports this year? I think I must have, because my passport was issued by the UK embassy in Tokyo, I have to get another passport (at a cost of GBP80 or $100) before I can visit the US.
So I have two observations: Since when did the US ever give a rats arse about non-US citizens, and I think the hundreds of thousands of GB citizens decided that day that they won't be holidaying in Florida this year. Or next year for that matter.
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
As it currently stands, the concept of an ID "card" isn't too radically different from a photo ID--the human face is a fundamentally unique and wholly recognizable factor, and this would just be incorporating more data to form a more accurate and complete picture (don't get me wrong, I feel that this step is unnecessary and can lead to tremendous potential for abuse. It's the first step down a slippery slope towards ever less privacy). But what's especially worrying is the potential for wireless biometric ID systems. You have on the one hand Big Brother constantly able to keep tabs on you, anywhere (whereas with a card you can just refuse to patronize places requiring it's use and, again, it's not a huge departure from a driver's license), which will inevitably lead to tighter and tighter control just because the government can, though naturally hyped-up concerns like terrorism or sedition will be used as justification. Or perhaps even worse for joe average would be the potential for targeted advertising. Remember in "minority report" where Tom Cruise walks into a store only to have personalozed advertisements fly at him based on his biometric ID and past buying records? This currenttrial might actually as it stands have some legitimate applications (I certinaly, for instance, want access to nuclear facilities to be as secure as possible), but it's our responsibility not to let it become ubiquitous and especially not wireless, in which case privacy as we know it could essentially ceased to exist.
Having IDs that are hard to counterfeit and hard to be used by other unauthorized persons is the idea of having IDs. So, all bullet points about the goals of this PIV in the official project narrative (MS-Word doc) are actually wanted.
However, the danger to exploit such PIVs as big brother equipement is given. Especially scaring is that the PIV shall hold fingerprints; this is scaring because those fingerprints will be registered centrally in a database. The effects are that even if your fingerprints show up somewhere remotely to a crime (e.g. same place but completely different time -- and they stick), you are will become a suspect or, at least, a potential witness. And possibly you will then be on the observation list without knowing it even remotely. And all this has nothing to do with a federal agency, in which you might work (or have worked several years ago, for that matter).
Fingerprints are only one example. So, the problem is the data -- and where else (than on the PIV) it gets stored, and how it can be accessed.
For an excellent article on the impact of rejecting foreign students to American acadamia, see here. It ran in Newsweek just last week.
(Oh, and take the title with a grain of salt.)
- shadowmatter
Fallujah Residents Face Choice: Retina Scan and Take ID Card...Or Die
_ or _die.htm
http://infowars.com/articles/ps/falluja_idcards
A caller to the Alex Jones show played a segment from Tom Brokaw's last broadcast on NBC which featured a report from Iraq clearly stating that residents of Fallujah (civilians, NOT insurgents) would be forced to give fingerprints, retina scan and take an ID card or be killed.
Here is the transcript from the report
Reporter: "So far the plan is for most of the city's 250,000 residents to return in stages and first only a few thousand will be let in.
They'll be fingerprinted, given a retina scan and then an ID card, which will only allow them to travel around their homes or to nearby aid centers which are now being built.
The Marines will be authorized to use deadly force against those breaking the rules
Tom?"
Brokaw: "Richard, what's the latest on the election?"
Alex has been documenting for years in his acclaimed Police State videos the fact that this same system is being introduced in the US.
The so-called 'liberation' of Iraq is a test run for when the soldiers over there now become police in the US. From sound wave weapons to detention camps and torture, everything being inflicted on the Iraqis is being introduced in America.
Alex Jones comments....
In 1999 I traveled to Oakland California to cover the Marine Corps execution of Operation Urban Warrior. Thousands of Marines opnely trained to biometrically scan American citizens, seperate the men, women and children in a concentration camp environment, and conduct interrogations. Video in my film, Police State 2000 shows Marine Corps officers questioning role-players who were posing as American resistance fighters. Loudspeakers informed the population of the mock camp filled with hundreds of role-players, that if they tried to escape or resist they would be killed.
Now the public consciousness is so seared that an NBC reporter can just nonchalantly talk about an instant death penalty for anyone that doesn't have their biometric card in order or that strays off pre-determined paths on their way to authorized destinations. The Nazis did the same thing in the Polish ghettos. This is total seige, it is the highest expression of pure martial law. ID cards are now being issued across Iraq, the entire country and its 23 million inhabitants are simply being straight-jacketed so the Globalists can continue the oldest form of total war - seige - upon them.
From thousands of credible reports, from reporters on the ground, we know that Iraq is now descending into a black hole. And I want all of the soft, decadent, bloated, demon-possessed, Neo-Con followers to enjoy themselves. Sit in your easy chairs, cheer the slaughter of over a hundred thousand innocent people. Feel like you're part of this global iron fist. Look at it from your coddled position and know - you don't have to fear the CIA controlled Al-CIAda, you had better fear your Globalist masters because they don't give a damn about you. I've got the government documents, I've got the video. The government's been training to do this to you for a long time. So cheer like it's a football game. Cheer the death of all those innocent children. And know that through your weakness and your lack of historical understanding, you have allowed America to lose its soul. Now prepare to reap what you sow. And as your Globalist owners are raping the hell out of you financially, spiritually, mentally, I know you're so weak-minded you'll thank them for it and blame some imaginary turban-headed bogeyman.
Has anyone here actually tried to walk into the PTO's new campus. These things are in full effect. You cannot walk into or out of any place worth going to on the new campus without having you little blue, red or yellow card with the chip in it. All entrances and exits are under survaillance to make sure you don't "accidentally" jump the gates. If you don't have the card... or forget it... you need to be vouched for and thoroughly inspected, and I mean they take all your gear apart. They know the second you're in the building. They have a list and they check it twice...
Do we really need to go this far, or is this more empire building by security types who want to be more important? The Manhatten project was pretty secure without the benefit of biometric ID - but security was handled by people who were serious about it and not the sort of cretins that strip search grannies to meet a quota.