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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.
Big Brother is watching you (using standard protocols!).
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
I suppose it's understandable that the government would want to keep better track of the people working for it, to help prevent spying and other such things. However, I can also see how one could make the argument that it'll be a slippery slope type situation, and that it won't be long until ALL of us have cards with biometric info and the government watching everything we do. It's a hard call.
Personally, I'd rather take the chance that a few spies might infiltrate the government and not risk a 1984 Big Brother scenario.
Here is a demo of PIV in operation http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/OptInstr/piv/pivdemo.h tm
It shows a group of people walking past the PIV system and getting blasted with lasers. I assume it thought they were all bad guys (or gals)....
USA is about to turn into a police-state, big brother-style. For a few years I have thought about going to MIT (I'm form Norway), but as of todays survailence-policies I no longer want to. You are becoming paranoid, your government is fooling and scaring you all into submission.
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?!'"
Requiring clear identification of all federal employees is acceptable at this juncture in time. Banning Islamic foreign students and Chinese students (including those from Taiwan province and Hong Kong) from federally funded projects at American universities is also acceptable.
This is a fantastic idea --- for Canada and Europe. The USA built its strength by taking the best and brightest students from around the world. If you ban them from all federally funded projects, they'll go elsewhere, for our gain and your loss. We're already seeing this as your increased paranoia makes Canada a more attractive place to study.
Keep up the good work! We really appreciate it!
Not for national ID's, in any way, in any form. It'll be just for federal workers-for right now.
When the Social Security Act was put into place, those who were concerned that the Social Security number would become some type of nationalized tracking system were ridiculed and called paranoid. They even wrote it into the Social Security Act that the number couldn't be used for any tracking purpose other than to determine who gets SS benefits.
Nothing to worry about here, it's easy to see just how well THAT worked. I mean, there were even people who said that you wouldn't even be able to get a job or a driver's license without a social security #. What a bunch of paranoid freaks! That certainly never did happen.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
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.
Most people in the U.S. it seems will accept most anything the government tells them to.
... and in a few years they plan to do full-body scans of all passengers ... and yet most folks, while some bitch at first, don't really fight back - instead rationalize such actions as being worth it in the name of security.
Been to an airport lately? They now do patdown searches on folks
In a nutshell, my bet is that national ID card is coming - in a sense it already has with driver licenses / state IDs that slowly being standardized across all states; database sharing.
Ron Bennett
There are some (even though not very many) sites that you can't use without MS Passport (hotmail). It'd suck if someday you couldn't enter a supermarket without a BioID.
Welcome to 1984... i mean 2004.
Electrons are free; it is moving them that becomes expensive.
We're just going to have to accept the fact that the Large Set Of Disparate, Often Unrelated Bush Administration Sponsored Policies Which Are For Whatever Reason Addressed With The Label "War On Terrorism" is going to end the U.S.'s former status as intellectual capital of the world. The brain drain that the world outside the U.S. has suffered as a result of their best and brightest going to the U.S. for grad school and trying to stay there is going to stop as those best and brightest are made increasingly unwelcome, and we're going to start seeing Poland and India rivaling silicon valley within 20 years. This trend (the trend within government, the reverse brain drain hasn't noticeably started yet) has been getting steadily worse since September 11, 2001, it's going to continue getting steadily worse with or without the biometrics thing, and it's kind of too late to do anything about this; The Bush administration will some day end, but the Republicans and Democrats will stay, and they've both been equally behind these policies 100%.
What I'd worry about at the moment is the Americans, because, well, since they'll be actually still be in the country in 10 years they have to live with the consequences of policies like this, as well as policies still yet to come. Weekly polygraph tests if you want to work in Fedland, anyone?
"privacy verses security" ... it's not quite that simple...
... how does that make one more secure? Say the person is a murderer - does that mean they will murder someone on the plane ... perhaps the quiet lone guy back in 14C is who one should worry about, but because they don't have a criminal record, one is left with a false sense of security - sound familiar ... yep, some of the 911 hijackers had "clean" criminal records.
... there are always tradeoffs ... giving up all privacy for *perceived* security isn't the answer.
Say for a moment, anyone can quickly determine the identity of anyone else in their sight
More to the point, if anyone can exactly determine who anyone else is, including their occupation, etc, then that would present a big problem to folks in the witness protection program (already increasingly having problems being "outed"), undercover security, etc.
Some privacy/obscurity is a good thing (you must tend to agree being that you posted as an AC)
Ron Bennett
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.
Actually you don't ... know much about history.
...) were taken from their homelands and kept in internment camps for years. Reparations have been paid; lessons have been learned (don't believe me? well, you don't see Muslims being interned now; in fact Middle Eastern folks aren't even allowed to be profiled in airport baggage check lines).
Why is there this almost pervasive belief that changes made (during extreme times) cannot be unmade? That is that a worsening condition must asymptotically get worse?
History does not bear this out.
During the American Revolution, citizens had to quarter troops in their homes. This doesn't strike you as quite a bit more invasive than a trumped-up ID card?
During the Civil War, Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus. He sicced the militia on dissenters. He instituted a blockade. He expended funds for the purchase of weapons. And he did all these things without congressional approval. The precious Union still stands!
During WWII, some US citizens (most notably Japanese, also Italians,
And for those cynical few who will scoff at the notion that we here in the US are experiencing extreme times, I ask you to name me another time the US mainland was attacked to such effect by a foreign entity?
We are in extreme times; this is a fact. What precisely those times warrant is up for discussion.
I can understand foreigners lacking an appreciation about the meaning freedom has to us US citizens and how deeply ingrained it is in our beings. But for Americans do get all squeamish that our entire national fabric will be oblitherated if we take any privacy invading measures during these extreme times does not speak well for those individuals' characters (perhaps they thrive on chaos? or are just Chicken Littles).
We aren't talking about a national ID card, people. It's like having a badge for work, except it works in multiple physical locations.
It's absolutely ridiculous that access is controlled at each facility by a completely separate system. Contractors that have to go between contracts, or have a client spread across multiple buildings, currently have to carry a valid ID for each building they access. It's a major pain.
People always complain about government inefficiencies. This is a good way to limit one aspect of that problem.
akad0nric0
This sentence no verb.
Now, just to do an ordinary civilian job, you'll be tracked so heavily 5 guys in CIA headquarters are thinking about your breathing.
Oh please.
In order for your fantasy to be realized, we need to have this many CIA employees (who are not, BTW, legally allowed to spy on US citizens):
((# of gov't employees) + (# of civilian employees working on gov't contract)) * 5
Does this seem likely to you? GMAB. Before this could be realized there'd have to be a bill allocating funds to pay all those spooks and that would never pass Congress because... Congressional reps are elected by their constituents who would have to approve this (or else the reps would lose their jobs... and show me a gov't teat sucker eager to lose his job and I'll show you a solution for x^3 + y^3 = z^3 where x != y != z != 0).
You people are fanatics. And your ranting is actually counter productive because it's so hyperbolic and seems to reject *any* form of IDing apparently without offering solutions to our quite impressive problems.
And while I was initially very against a national ID system, given the tremendous loopholes our current ID system appears to have, I am becoming more open to the possibility (but only if it were coupled with more vigorous attempts to boot those who are here illegally from this country (many of the 19 hijackers were NOT here legally) as well as more concentrated attempts to control our borders).
What bullshit. Been to a European airport? Don't want the same level of security here? Why?
The military has moved to using Common Access Cards as our IDs, and in a lot of places are required to use it for network access, medical facilities, etc and can act as a PKI smartcard. It was only a matter of time before Biometrics were rolled into it.
"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
Now, let me repeat that . Let me get this straight. You really want to ID university students in a university environment. Hmm. Some chance that'll work. Point 1): they will break it in 5 minutes. This is the nature of universities - we ask the students to be imaginative and creative and they do this on steroids...
Point 2): Universities are inherently slightly subversive and anarchistic. We value them precisely for this (it's how good new ideas get spawned). You want to check badges? Get a life.
No. If you really want to waste your money in a rational way you should listen to how a lot of students play red vs. blue in their spare time.
We did it even in Bristol UK c.a. 1980 (and I predicted something like the japanese nerve gas thing on the basis of the limited info we had 15 years early). (To be honest I was scared that the IRA would do it, and thankfully they didn't).
So, all of you spooks out there wake up and listen. Universities are your best friends, not your worst enemies... So, teacher (always wanted to say this) leave those kids alone...
The USA has already suffered a significant drop in the number of foreign grad students enrolling. The number one reason given for this drop is intrusive and over-bearing background checks, a long waiting period and capricious immigration officials.
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Don't care about foreigners? You should, as many institutions are now struggling to maintain student numbers. This has implications for funding, which in turn has implications for future research, which in turn has implications for the USA's future prosperity. The November issue of IEEE Spectrum has a short article on this.
Think the foreign grad students can be replaced by domestic students? Nope, the US education system is falling further behind in science education. See this article:
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/DyeHard/story?
The Bush regime is rapidly pushing the USA towards facism, and the American people are too wrapped up in their own jingoism to see or care about it.
For your information, I never in my life experienced such raw and open racial hatred as when I contracted in the New York area. Not in the South, Midwest, or West.
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.
So I don't think the new anticipated cards will eliminate the threat. I'm just more concerned about the ways it will be abused!
"Evil thrives when good men do nothing"
Actually, it's probably the NSA who'd be doing most of the spying on us. It's their primary job. Plus, they have a larger budget than the FBI and CIA combined, IIRC.
I don't see anything effective being done in the next decade - the current administration will just react and try to use overwhelming force, and anything that succeeds that is going to follow similar policies.
The most disturbing thing I see is the policy that terrorists deserve no justice. At the least that validates their cause - a very bad thing to do, and at worst you get a wide variety of things redefined as terrorism. The French probably lost Algeria as a result of such a policy. Their policy of picking up suspected terrorists, interrogating them, and then executing them at the end of interogation is thought to have got rid of nearly every terrorist in Algeria at one point - but plenty of people that would not have otherwise fought back revolted. Britan probably lost India due to misapplication of the anti-terror laws in the 1920s to apply to virtually anyone that pissed off the government. To sum up - heavy handed approaches kill a lot of people, piss everyone off, and are entirely counterproductive. In the USA, MacCarthy was only stopped in his heavy handed shotgun approach after he starting going after General Marshall, who had been busy running the war for the USA while MacCarthy was busy being an insignificant idiot instead of the significant idiot he later became.
Why not fix the national ID system you already have if it doesn't work? What is the social security number for if it isn't an ID number. High tech snake oil just gives you lie detectors in courts but doesn't help justice or law enforcement. You are not looking for a technological solution here but an organisational one - the administration just has to have it pointed out to it that after four years people expect it to be able to do it's job, instead of keeping up appearances and creating distractions.
When I see so much vehemence arguing an issue, I'm sure that a lot of thought has gone into considering the alternatives.
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
The US had roughly 200,000 people looking for OBL, Al Qaeda and links between them & Iraq. What have they found?
For all those people locked up forever in Guantanamo - what evidence has been presented for their guilt?