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France May Require Biometric ID Cards
Will Affleck-Asch writes "According to an article on Infoworld today, France may require her citizens pay for new identity cards that hold their biometric information in electronic format. The French government outlined its plan last month to replace the identity cards and passports offered to French citizens with new ones that carry a microchip containing digitized photographs and fingerprints. The plan is to introduce the passports in 2006, and the identity cards a year later. Citizens haven't been forced to carry ID cards since 1955."
Um..... I hate to point it out to you, but if the government gave those cards out "free" the people would be PAYING for them in taxes.
Aint nothing from the government that doesnt come out of someones pocket, except hot air.
Forgive me if I am missing the point, but is not the purpouse of biometrics to REMOVE potentially compromised security keys, like ID cards? Biometrics, as I understand the science, allows an individual to use their body as a form of ID. Trust beaurrocrats to get the complete wrong idea about technologies.
I don't believe such strategies help. Using extreme means to eradicate extremism, spawns extremism. When people are humiliated, they tend to react. I'm not saying that the average citizen will feal humiliated, but a few will take it as a sign of a corrupt and bad government. Freedom can't be guarded with a gun! Freedom can only be guarded by true freedom, where the people has seen the freedom, and wants it. And is ready to defend it. Not with guns, but with pacifistic methods, like Mahatma Gandhi did. He was inferior to the british commonwealth, yet he managed to free his people from slavery. This is the opposite. The trend now is to use violence for everything.
Ah, I'll be modded down for that one, but it is a important point I think!Assembling etherkillers for fun an profit
Exactly how would a National ID Card make people safer?
it's a much different world now.
Yes it is. Unfortunately *people* haven't changed a bit.
We need proper, verifiable identification so that, after a bunch of bad guys come try to kill us, we'll know exactly who to attack. If they turn out to be Saudi Arabians working in conjunction with associates of the Afghan government, we'll know that we need to bomb Iraq...
You see?
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I was thinking "he's got a point" until I read:
it's a much different world now.
I'm always amazed that people feel so confident that things like nazism are gone forever. Freedom requires daily care and devotion.
Because God knows the 3 million illegal immigrants from Mexico we now have living in the US wouldn't be here if we all had national ID cards! 1) Suicide bombers probably prefer it if you know their identity after the fact. What magic method were you planning on using that only gives ID cards to law-abiding citizens, and makes sure no persons with criminal intent get one? 2) As mentioned again, millions of people enter the country without authorization of any kind. Unless you're going to post armed guards on every corner to demand passerby show thier papers, I don't think mandatory ID will help at all with the problem of 5000 miles of porous borders.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Interesting how you phrase deporting criminals (they are ILLEGAL aliens) with, "harass minorities".
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Such systems do not help with security. Many of the 9-11 terrorists had valid ids. When you enforce such restrictions, you do nothing but limit the law abiding. Carrying an ID will not prevent you from committing any crime, but it will make some poor soul who forgets their ID once out of a hundred times a criminal. A biometric ID will not jump out of your pocket to stop you from shooting a gun, cannot stop you from robbing someone, cannot do anything. All it can do is inconvience the law abiding. In the end, people get more fed up with the government, leading to MORE violence, not less.
SAILING MISHAP
Should you ever become a dissident, "all your biometrics are belong to us."
With the global media a nation isn't going to get away with the atrocities that Hitler could.
China seems to get away with some pretty nasty stuff. So do parts of Africa.
If the US started to commit genocide against a certain race, who would stop them? It was only the threat of invasion that rallied people against them.
But that wasn't the only atrocity the Nazis committed. They arrested and imprisoned people who spoke against the government - much like many nations still manage to do today. They censered the news, rewrote history, and tried to make sure that everyone saw the future of the Nazi philosophy.
And this doesn't explain how ID cards would protect anyone from anything.
deport illegal Muslim immigrants from the Maghreb
if its going to be used to harass minorities.
Make your mind buddy, if it's used to deport illegal immigrants, it's not for harassing minorities that are legally in France. Sure racisme has increased over the years here, but I fail to hear other French agreeing to this new ID card, and I even more fail to hear them thinking it's good for harassing Arabs.
I think it's more a new way to take our money, since many people (myself included) tend to not renew any ID card or passport, since driver licence is enough and doesn't need to be renewed.
We have one of the most bloated and inefficient bureaucracy in Europe, and they tend to always look for new ways to get even bigger.
I really don't think racism has anything to do with that, just plain old stupid bureaucracy wanting to be even bigger, even stupidier, and even more efficient. Just like it always has.
And it has the added bonus of justifying recent government employes wages increase.
To quote Clemenceau : "In France we plant taxes and we grow fonctionnaires (state employes)".
Every major french citizen (i'm one i should know) is forced to carry an ID card since the Vichy regim during the second world war.
And when a cop ask you for it, you have to show it or be arrested.
In fact like in any "latin law" country this law is not really enforced but is here for the convenience of the cops.
I don't know any french against this state of fact.
It's true it can be abused by racist cops on minorities, but which law could'nt be abused by the authorities.
Choose good authorities, or no at all but don't try to make people believe there are perfect laws.
I would hazzard a guess and say that one reason they are doing this is to subsidize french IT.
-The French got behind smart cards from their inception.
-Sagem is one of the leaders in AFIS. (automatic fingerprint identification system) They provide a whole lot of biometric hardware and software technology to countries that can afford to install it.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Yeah, I have to agree with you there. There are certainly strong arguments for the national ID card, biometric or otherwise. BUT, the notion that the card would somehow prevent terrorism is bunk, and I think that EVERY person, Rep or Dem, in Washington (DC) knows this full well. There is a common notion that we have got to nail down the borders if we're going to take security seriously. I suspect that this will never happen and that the borders will remain wide open. Rather, is the important thing actually just to make us all FEEL safer? I think it may be so. The real terrorists will always find a way to try, which is why the FBI/CIA has to work harder to get to them before they get to us. Oh, it goes on and on...
Anyhow, I'm a geek and I want my Orwellian biometric card so I can use it to go shopping or turn the lights on in the house remotely or whatever. SOUNDS COOL! Liberties be damned.
"The Borba"
Now if anyone tries to require such a card in the US we can simply accuse them of being France-like and it'll never get approved. I knew 'freedom fries' would come in handy one day.
I strongly object against calling people without valid papers criminals. They haven't done anything to harm you or anyone else.
In all probability the western society has a large part in keeping the countries poor as well, yet when these people knock on the door for (economic) support they are called and treated as being criminals by utter bastards like you.
You can't let everyone share our well earned riches (*kuch*), so you might want to try to keep a large proportion out for economic reasions, but just don't come knocking on my door about them being criminals.
You don't leave country, friends and family lightly. I would like to see you in the position they are in, and see how *you* would fare.
ID cards are not about the police being able to stop you in the street; they are for control of everything else you do.
Try and buy a SIM card in Paris without an ID. You cannot do it. You also cannot do many other things that a free person is entitled to without the interference of a government issued document, like borrow money, open a bank account, buy medicine etc etc. Astonishingly it is the ordinary citizen that enforces ID controls on his fellow man, and not a direct employee of the state that is in your face every day demanding your ID. Rather like the legions of STASI spies reporting on their fellow East Germans.
This is what unique identifying numbers and ID compulsion are for; automatic fine grained control and observation of all your financial and social interactions and movements, executed by the citizens themselvs against other citizens.
Of course, the whole think is impossible to roll out if there is mass refusal to cooperate, but there are always the mentally retarded who say things like "I dont see a problem with it"..."I dont want my identity stolen"..."It makes me feel safer"...and even..."How can you control identity without it?" (said to me by a French man). These imbeciles are the perpetual stumbling blocks to the continuation and longevity of any sort of freedom in the west.
How can we be rid of them?!
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Assuming you refer to the murder of Dutch filmmaker/publicist Theo van Gogh: I can remember a pre-9/11 era where mr.van Gogh wasn't very loved by many either, but 'tolerated'.
Then, 9/11 came. I remember seeing the images on CNN, with people amazed that some terrorists were willing to steer full passenger planes into scyscrapers. My thoughts were something like: "whatever happens next, the world won't be the same after this". A super-manhunt for the brains behind it could have followed.
Then, Mr. Bush came up with his anti-terrorist propaganda, and in Afghanistan waaaayyyyy more people died than in the NYC events, most victims being plain citizens, and soldiers defending their home soil against the US-led 'invaders'. Sure some terrorists were killed, but a minority of the casualties.
And before you knew it, every muslim became a terrorist suspect, and muslims/non-muslims worldwide were looking at each other with fear. IMHO this divide is what led to mr. van Gogh getting murdered. After all, he'd been living here for ages, and no problem earlier.
Oh yeah, and let's not forget Guantanamo Bay, shall we?
Sure us Dutch people may have permissive laws (and believe me, it's not much different from countries around us), but at least we prefer to deal with things in a practical manner, instead of blindly acting, and asking questions later. Thanks again mr. Bush, for confusing the minds of our leaders.
hmmmm..require the french to carry biometric cards in America.....
Register French,not guns!
lol, dammit,I'm in pain,quit making me laugh
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
This will make it easy for the Nazi's to round them up next time. There WILL be a next time, there's ALWAYS a next time.
If you forget about the future, the future will forget about you.
Yeah, I know that a concept of "rights" is becoming a pretty strange notion in the USA nowadays. Or that thinking for oneself is a baaad thing.
But basically all you're saying there is that France does still treat people as humans, not like a bunch of terrorists until proven innocent. E.g., yes, there was a demonstration. It may be surprising to you, but demonstrations _are_ a legal thing in a democracy.
Was _everyone_ in the demonstration an illegal immigrant? No, seriously? How do you know that there aren't also a bunch of french citizens in there?
(Believe it or not every single country has the current USA-style "immigrant = terrorist" scare, or even the same kind of nationalism. The french kind of nationalism for example is more about language and culture, than about being born there. So there could have been quite a bunch of people born in france who are sympathetic, or at least not hostile, to people whose only fault is not being born there.)
So what do you propose that the police should do? Arrest everyone and keep them in custody several days until they can check them all? Break a legal protest on the excuse that some people in that protest might be illegal immigrants?
Yeah, that excuse will soo come in handy next time when people protest something. Give that idea to Bush while you're at it: I'm sure he'll love doing that to the next anti-war demonstration. Hey, there _could_ be illegal Mexican immigrants or some wanted terrorists in that demonstration. Must make sure.
If you really believe that burying democracy alive is the right way to gain some vague promise of safety, you're so mistaken it's not even funny.
Or how about the common sense of being tactful there? You propose, what? That the police clashes with an already agitated group of demonstrators, to show them who's boss? Yeah, way to go to turn a peaceful demonstration into a riot.
So you're telling me, what? That unlike you, someone in the French police actually had a brain?
Briefly: put down the crack pipe, join a 12 step program, or see a competent surgeon about having your head removed from your ass.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
You all DO realize, the EU members are doing this because YOU MADE US do this?
Frigging hell, -my- governement (Dutch) has now mandatory ID, biometrics is planned for the next Passport version.
It is all done in name of "traveling to the US otherwise requires VISA and thats a bummer" and "Terrorism, you know", but in the meantimne it has been used against me for having my dog walk on grass without a leach, and to snap me up crossing the border INTO The Netherlands for a passport check, we supposedly do not have (Schengen Accord).
We increasingly live in a very controlled state.
Actually they don't (yet). What that telegram shows is that you need a machine readable passport (MRP) and they'll take some biometric data from you at the port of entry (i.e. compulsory fingerprinting).
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.