FBI Prepares Vast Database of Biometrics

MacRonin sends us to the Washington Post for a story about the FBI's plans for a large biometric identification database. The Post also has a chart detailing the characteristics of the different methods of identification. We discussed the ethics of a similar situation a few months ago. Quoting the Post: "Next month, the FBI intends to award a 10-year contract that would significantly expand the amount and kinds of biometric information it receives. And in the coming years, law enforcement authorities around the world will be able to rely on iris patterns, face-shape data, scars and perhaps even the unique ways people walk and talk, to solve crimes and identify criminals and terrorists. The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law."

Comments

Sigh

[Bayoudegradeable]

I can't get this ending line out of my head... "He loved Big Brother."

Re:Sigh

[jacquesm]

I think the FBI simply wants a bigger haystack :)

It really amazes me how everybody seems to think that more information is key, whereas I think that *better* information is key. Datamining really is an advanced way of searching for the needle in that haystack and if you throw tons of non-relevant data in there you've just made your job that much harder. The big trick is to try to increase the quality of the data without missing important bits. Trawling all the grandmothers credit card transactions is not going to increase the S/N ratio.

Re:Sigh

[fyngyrz]

From the story:

The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law.

Orwell was an optimist. The slide into complete loss of privacy, personal liberties, and any chance at atonement for making mistakes, intentional or otherwise, is far more insidious then he ever dreamed — and it is going to be far more complete than he imagined. Our country stands for nothing; we are powerless to change anything; the politicians and their lapdog agencies run rampant. I am ashamed.

From your post:

if you throw tons of non-relevant data in there you've just made your job that much harder.

The data is relevant, don't kid yourself. Your retina print, fingerprints, blood type, genetic details... what tracking these things in this way really means is a profound hardening of classes; felons will always be felons, that time you got caught throwing toilet paper on the courthouse will never, ever come off your record, your political affiliations in college will always, always constrain your future job opportunities and more.

A society that cannot forgive is a society that is lost, as far as I am concerned. A society that marks people specifically so that it can class them has reached the approximate social level of pond scum. There is little - if any - difference between the stars the Jews were forced to wear and a database that marks an individual for an infraction they have long ago atoned for. If the thesis is that one can never atone for an error, mis-step or intentional antisocial act, then it is flawed to begin with.

None of which will stop, or even slow down, this trend. When every liberty is up for trading in return for a claim of improved security, when every freedom is deemed too risky to the body politic, when every over-stated threat causes the public to whimper and keep their children locked inside, the Rubicon has well and truly been crossed. Felons! Terrorists! Pedophiles! Pornography! Drugs! None of these "threats" do a fraction of the damage as the "solutions" America has come to, and is working towards.

Orwell was indeed an optimist.

Re:Sigh

[fyngyrz]

Want change? Vote Ron Paul in the republican nomination.

Assuming he can be elected - which is a stretch - having gotten to the post, he'll be able to end the Iraq war. He'll be able to modify a fair amount of our foreign policy, this is an area that a president has a fair amount of autonomy in. However, with a comprised-as-usual congress and senate, most of the rest of the effect he will be able to have will consist of fireside chats with the public; even vetos will be easily defeated by politicians - on both sides of the aisle - he has little or nothing in common with.

Mind you, I'm voting for Paul, though there are significant planks in his platform I disagree with. This is because overall, he is the most honest and the closest to what I see as the original spirit of the country. However, because of the above, I have absolutely no fear that the area I disagree with him the most on - healthcare - will be in any way affected by his being president. The words "lame duck" don't even begin to describe what I think a Paul presidency would reflect. Good for healthcare; bad for everything else.

Re:Sigh

[sgt_doom]

Well said, Good Citizen fyngyrz, well said.

It is interesting to note that Total Information Awareness (TIA) components were well underway long before the events of 9/11/01 in America. Whether the FBI renames Carnivore to something else, the way the TIA was stealthily renamed and distributed (the illegal wiretapping of the nation within the first month of the Bush administration, the privatization of intel operations [now spread beyond 70 private contractors with online inputs to the Bushies], the privatization of Comsat leading to the National Applications Office, the final dot in the array - the use of satellites to spy overall on the American citizenry) among a variety of components, with inputs from NSA, NGA, etc., everything is now assembled and in place for TOTAL CONTROL. The Corporate Fascist State has won, end of story.....

Re:Sigh

[BornAgainSlakr]

Please stop with the Ron Paul crap. The only thing I can figure about the Ron Paul fascination is that he is different and that is how far the bar has been lowered. He is not John Jackson or Jack Johnson (to quote Futurama), so people are flocking to him. The problem is, he is a die hard libertarian and naive to boot. Someone who believes that the government should be sold off in a fire sale because corporations with a profit-motive can provide those services cheaper and better is naive at best. Not that there are not instances where that is true, but just saying, as he as said on national TV, that profit-motive fixes everything is ridiculous. Now, surely he would not be able to enact even a mere fraction of his beliefs, but just having another four years with someone as naive as Bush scares me.

Besides, I am not sure why anyone believes that there is a candidate that can bring about real change. Real change needs to start with things like amending the Constitution to put term limits on Congress, or all elected officials for that matter. Power corrupts always, and those people have to be rotated out before we will see change. The problem there is: good luck getting Congress to start the ball rolling on that one.

Re:Sigh

[jacquesm]

I disagree, I think real change will start with something very simple, no more campaign financing by corporations. Not a cent. Government for the PEOPLE.

Re:Sigh

[sgt_doom]

The funny thing is, the person who recommended Ron Paul actually believes that there is something called "democracy" operating in America today. Seriously, all elections, at least going back to Eisenhower, have been bought (probably even earlier, for all I know).

Now Joe Kennedy obviously purchased his son's presidential election utilizing the help of Mafia elements, Texas oilmen, etc., but John either didn't get the memo or ignored his father and worked primarily on behalf of the citizenry.

Which is why he was wacked......similary as was Martin Luther King (coming out against the Vietnam War) and presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy (running on an anti-war platform).

The election has already been purchased - the dems nominee will be Clinton/Richardson - and although I haven't been paying any attention to the Repuke side, it will probably be Guiliani/Thompson.

Re:Sigh

[Colin Smith]

Real change needs to start with things like amending the Constitution to put term limits on Congress It's The Money, Stupid.

Re:Sigh

[fyngyrz]

How can you be so sure that one's political affiliations "will always, always" have an impact on their life? To use such strong words one needs facts, and I am really sorry, but you don't have any.

Because they're looking to collect, and unify, all the information about each citizen. Fact: they're trying to use national ID cards to pin your identity down; Fact: they're trying to use databases to track your biometrics and link them to the cards; Fact: Our affiliations (political and otherwise) are being tracked by both government agencies and by commercial enterprises - and have been for years, just ask those poor bastards in 1950's Hollywood who got hauled up before McCarthy; this is nothing new. Fact: Watching these elections, what do we see but people's college behaviors and affiliations dragged up out of the blue? Hillary roomed with lesbians. Oooo! What about people who are trying to pursue normal lives and suddenly "wikipedia has a FELON as a CFO!", where the hell did that come from, and why is it even relevant? Did she screw up her work? No. Was she even accused of doing anything wrong? No. It's just past behavior being brought up to haunt current life and lock someone into a role they may very well have no part in. You can't be rehabilitated, you're low class and you will STAY low class. You don't think tracking is going on? Called Experian or one of its brethren lately? Seen your FBI file? Are you aware of the no-fly, no-buy, no-bank-account lists, all sans anything even remotely resembling due process? Think your email is private? When's the last time you transacted more than 10 grand at the bank? Do you realize that each of those transactions gets reported to the feds, and yes indeed, TRACKED? Talked to anyone overseas? Think that call wasn't monitored for keywords? Carnivore ring a bell? How about Echelon? Are you one of those clueless folk who think your SSN was used only for your retirement, as promised?

Buddy, the only reason you're "really sorry" is because you've got your head deep in the sand. But I agree, you are one sorry excuse for an informed person. You can fix it, though.

What's even worse, you base your argument upon speculation, which most of the time includes gross oversimplifications of societal matters.

No, I base my arguments upon facts in the record. Current and recent behaviors and data; basically ince3 the early 1900s until today, you can see all manner of problems that are government related. Everything I talked about there is objective fact. There's plenty more where that came from, too.

It is absurd to think that there is one unified entity which works toward a certain goal, and that entity includes everyone that is in charge of anything important for a society.

Yes. Why would you think that? Are you paranoid? It is a very large collection of traitors, bent upon sundering the constitution either knowingly or otherwise. They aren't an "organization", they are an unaffiliated collection of people with similar goals and similar methods. This doesn't make them any easier to deal with, in fact, it makes it considerably more difficult.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot one thing. "Orwell was indeed an optimist." I mean, come on.

You didn't "forget it", you just aren't together enough to see it. With your head as far in the sand as it is, this comes as no surprise. You should read 1984. Carefully. Then look around you and note the low level preparations going on. The camps built by the administration's bully-boys, Haliburton. The executive orders that revoke posse comitatus, you know about that, right? You know how the commerce clause has been mangled to mean "anything that COULD be be interstate comm

Re:Sigh

[jayp00001]

We already have term limits in the constitution. The problem is that dopey Americans continue to vote for the same losers and expect that "this time" it'll be different. Case in point was the last election where republicans got hit with their term limits and democrats were elected in to replace them, mostly by saying they would end the conflict in Iraq. Last time I checked , we're still in Iraq and most democratic voters think they are still getting good service from their representatives.

Re:Sigh

[ScentCone]

Would you tell people giving you millions of dollars to stop it? ... as long as I'm rich and my kids are rich, the country doesn't matter.

You realize, right, that the bookeeping of large, publicly traded corporations is (thanks to measures like SarbOx) under incredible public scrutiny? And that a public official doesn't just take a check from a company and deposit it in his personal account. Donations go to their campaigns - and those are in very small amounts (Exxon can't write a million-dollar check directly to "Ted Kennedy" no matter how much they'd like him to get his brother Joe to stop shilling for Hugo Chavez's Citgo in his ongoing monument to irony as he cites the evils of large oil operations). Rather, politicians' parties can accept larger donations, but can't assign such funds to specific campaigns. Any politician that is actually personally pocketing the millions you seem to suggest would be outed in a second by his campaign opponents. You're confusing expensive campaigns with expensive personal lifestyles. Most legislators don't make much, net-net, and aren't worth much. The rich ones were generally rich before going into politics. Of course you know all of this, and you just like the drama of painting a different picture.

Re:Sigh

[fyngyrz]

So you know he's not electable, so what's the point of voting for him? Especially when you end with the line "Good for healthcare; bad for everything else."

The point of voting for him is to get the Iraq war over; to have a president that will engage the public in four years of constitutionally grounded dialog; to have a president that will act with honor and integrity; to have a president that will act to undo the executive orders that the previous ones have inflicted upon us; to have a president that actually acts - presidential. Someone who understands what state's rights are; someone who understands what the commerce clause was for. Someone who will not rubber-stamp continuous federal budget growth. Someone who will replace those currently in the supreme court with constitutionally strong, honorable and hopefully at least a little bit younger people if the opportunity arises.

When I said good for healthcare, bad for everything else, that is pendant upon acts of congress and the senate, not acts of the president. So it would not reflect on the president, it will reflect upon the senate and the congress - only instead of dead silence in the media, as we have now, we'll have a president speaking out as to what is wrong, and who is doing the wrong.

The system is broken. I expect that to be strongly highlighted by the juxtaposition of an honorable president and a dishonorable congress and senate. I don't have to agree with every plank Paul stands for (or any other politician) in order to see that he alone out of the field of current candidates stands for those things that — in the past — actually made the United States a great country.

I think the issue of federal healthcare is both obvious and inevitable. Obvious in that the constitution says that the specific charter of the federal government is to provide for the welfare and tranquility of the citizens. That's part of the first sentence of the constitution. Inevitable in that when a population that cannot afford to obtain healthcare must stand by and watch others receive it and live, longer, healthier lives, you're going to have a continuous, difficult to ignore pressure to reform the tort, insurance, care-giving and drug industries. Paul's position is wrong here, and when you're actually wrong, people can provide the rational and logical arguments why you're wrong. In this case, you can add extremely high pressure emotional and moral arguments as well. Because Paul actually is an honorable man, even though he is a doctor, I remain hopeful that he will eventually see the error of his ways. If not, as I mentioned earlier, the fact remains that a president cannot prevail using legal means against a determined congress and senate in domestic matters. And unlike Bush, Clinton and the rest of the candidates, I have every reason to believe that Paul will behave with honor, according to the law, and without subterfuge. We have his congressional record to examine, and it is that of a man who is precisely who he says he is.

The only other candidate I would even remotely consider voting for is Kucinich. But I think Paul is considerably more electable and would serve the country better by attempting to make us face the fact that what the federal government has become is unconstitutional, consequently illegal, and wholly un-American in nature.

I think the media is doing all it can to hold the man down by ignoring the fact that of the people who know about him, basically some chunks of young people who are active in social networking on the Internet, Paul has roused a degree of support rarely seen in politics. Odds are that if he can get his positions out to the general public, at least the people on the right side of the IQ Gaussian will realize the man actually talks sense. About half of the eligible public doesn't vote in the first place, so winning takes about 25% of the voting population. I think that's possible, although very difficult. It may be m

Somehwat scary

[proudfoot]

This is definitely something scary. Many employers might require you to hand over your prints to the FBI - but at the same time, you don't exactly want government to have everything on you if haven't committed a crime. Wasn't their a bill which was designed to prohibit enforceable gathering of biometric data by employers?

This is disturbing

[HangingChad]

The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law.

You can get arrested for anything these days and now the FBI is going to become your employers watchdog? I've seen some dickish, big brother behavior since 9-11 but this tops the suck pyramid.

Re:This is disturbing

[iknownuttin]

Yeah, and if you're arrested by mistake or acquitted after trial, no one will care. They'll just see some entry in the FBIs database and assume the worst. I think there should be some way that someone who's been falsely accused to get some compensation for not being able to work ever again. Let's face it, if you have any sort of criminal record - true or false - you can never get a job, loan, etc... your life is in effect ruined. And this database will make that much easier for it to be done.

Re:This is disturbing

[ScrewMaster]

The thing is, this is less about national security than it is about risk avoidance.

Companies that do business with people, and organizations that hire people, wish to avoid risk. In principle, this is just an extension of the way the American credit system works. There, your entire financial history is available to anyone that wants to decide if you can be trusted. It used to be, the deadbeat customer was a normal cost of doing business. In today's world, companies large and small have the credit bureaus to track us for them. However, at least there if you keep your nose clean and wait enough years, your past misdeeds will no longer haunt you. Expect that limit to be removed at some point, because obviously people that can't handle money well are threats to national security.

Make no mistake, the underlying sponsors of this unConstitutional boloney are corporate. From the extension of copyrights to longer credit histories to biometric tracking, this is all about the corporate world wanting to minimize its exposure to risk. The fact that it plays right into the hands of certain power hungry politicians and their appointed/unelected officials is just unfortunate for us.

Re:This is disturbing

[Foobar of Borg]

You don't have to work for an employer who decides to use these new services offered by the FBI. That still meets your "survivability" criteria that you think I somehow neglected to take into account.

Sigh. Another "rugged individualist" who doesn't understand how careers work in the real world economy. For any kind of professional career, people have to train for years to get into it. Most industries are designed and regulated so that it is nearly impossible to break into them as an entrepeneur. If you weren't in the industry when it was new or being newly regulated (for example, you weren't alive then), you don't have much of a choice but to work for someone.

Also, real people, no matter who they are, are only good at a limited number of things. A person who is a whiz in chemistry may stink at things like real estate or home repair. You could start a home improvement company or become a real estate agent, but that's not really an option for most people. Plus, you would basically be asking someone like Einstein to drive a truck for a living (although people like you would probably get their jollies off of such a possibility).

The point you are missing is that a decent society does not make the options:
1. Work for FBI-shilling, oppressive company
2. Throw away years of education and expertise, and go work in some field that you are not very good at and that you hate
3. Starve

Chemistry is a good example of what I am talking about. It takes years and a ton of work to get a masters degree in chemistry. You don't have much choice but to work for one of the big companies. Even if you want to start up a small business in one of the chemical areas, you still need some years of experience in the field. Otherwise, you won't know how the real business works, you won't have any contacts to get your business going, and so on. This is true in most professional and technical fields.

Also, in cases like this in actual reality (as opposed to this bizarre one you have concocted from your imbecilic ideologies), there will be no employer that doesn't use and contribute to the FBI database. It will become an "industry standard" practice and there no company will see enough profit in not complying to justify abandoning (or never beginning) this practice. This sort of thing is common and only a drooling idealist would believe otherwise.

How the...

[Unlikely_Hero]

How am I supposed to try and keep my irises private if they can be read without my knowledge?!
What am I supposed to do? Get tin-foil-sunglasses?

where's my troll mod?

[circletimessquare]

you will find that the majority of americans won't be disturbed by this. there are some who will use this as proof that most americans are morons. as if insulting the average citizen is supposed to win you any points in the battle against big/ intrusive government, oh great genius?

no, the average american won't care, because the average american, when given news like this, doesn't see a big downside to this. when told the downside to this as displayed here in some posts, they will think the average slashdot poster has been watching too many paranoid hollywood movies

now give my troll mod for not toeing the party line here

yawn

Re:Haven't you guys...

[hack slash]

"Haven't you guys read 1984 or Brave New World? Be thankful that is not the world we live in today!"

It's tomorrow that people are more concerned about.

Re:U.S.And them

[DamonHD]

It's the major reason that I won't travel to the US these days.

I don't want to be treated as a criminal before I've even left airside.

Rgds

Damon

Re:Fingerprint retention

[fyngyrz]

The FBI already retains fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks, at least for companies registered with the SEC.

That doesn't make it right.

Re:He Loved Big Brother

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully you're trolling, but sadly a lot of people actually believe that.

What they fail to comprehend is that the "criminal" element is just as evenly dispersed among government jobs as among the rest of society. When you create a huge power differential between those holding certain government jobs and the rest of us, you are empowering the criminals on that side as well as the good people on that side.

This is what happens when you try to pre-assign people "goodness" ratings based on what job they hold. You end up with a subset of vastly overpowered criminals (granted power by the laws themselves) and no net decrease in what we commonly regard as criminal behavior (killing, theft, fraud, etc.).

The only sane way to assign arbitrary power to law enforcers is to maintain constant oversight of them, in a circular fashion -- the police watch the citizens, the citizens watch a police oversight body, and the police oversight body watches the police. That we neglect to do this is a serious mistake, and it results in a police force that behaves like it can get away with anything ethical or unethical (and often does).

Re:U.S.And them

[snl2587]

And this is exactly what bothers me so much about the U.S. government these days. I'm an American, and even though I don't know you I wish you could visit the country without be treated like a dangerous felon.

We (Americans) are really not all bad. As it turns out most of us dislike the current government, too. It's just that, well, we have a fairly large population of over-religious farmers who tend to vote for all the wrong people. And thus sh*t like this is allowed to happen.

Re:I'm going to sell the FBI Phrenology Biometrics

[KDR_11k]

and perhaps even the unique ways people walk

So we're going to see the Ministry of Silly Walks?

What ARE the Alternatives?

[Tablizer]

And this is exactly what bothers me so much about the U.S. government these days. I'm an American, and even though I don't know you I wish you could visit the country without be treated like a dangerous felon.

Well, there is a philosophical conflict raging here. There's obviously people who want to get into the US to perform terrorist acts. This leaves us with 3 choices:

1. Screen every visitor carefully

2. Screen only "suspicious" people (profiling based on religion, etc. and is often considered "racist".)

3. Don't screen anybody, risking attacks

4. Don't allow visitors

I don't see any 5th option, only compromises between these 4. Thus, what are the alternatives and/or ratios of these 4 that you think are the best?

Other countries don't have terrorist problems (yet), and so they don't have to perform intrusive procedures.

Re:What ARE the Alternatives?

[snl2587]

Other countries don't have terrorist problems (yet), and so they don't have to perform intrusive procedures.

Under what rock have you been living?

I am not convinced that we are any less safe now then we were a decade or so ago, just much more paranoid. It really says something when a nation of immigrants is deceived into thinking they need to bar foreigners.

Re:What ARE the Alternatives?

[garry_g]

Quote: Other countries don't have terrorist problems (yet), and so they don't have to perform intrusive procedures.

Well, there's a gap between reality and politicians' view of this issue ... Take for example Germany - our minister of internal affairs keeps insisting in the terrorist threat, calling for impressive plans of data retention, which is NOT directed against any foreign travelers, but the WHOLE of German inhabitants ...

How afraid do you have to be???

Re:What ARE the Alternatives?

[fyngyrz]

A philosophical conflict? How about a conflict of overdramatized, highly unlikely fearmongering juxtaposed against the loss of civil liberties? The latter seems to be the specific problem.

Living freely includes risk. The problem here is that many people have little or no understanding of the freedoms they had, how hard they were fought for and how unusual it is that they had them in the first place. Most troubling is the fact that they had no clue how easy it was to lose them, and now that they have been lost, recovery is much, much more difficult.

As far as I am concerned, when a criminal - be they terrorist, mugger or politician disobeying the constitution - commits an antisocial act, that criminal should be held accountable for that crime. If the crime is large, the accounting should be large. If society can accept that the crime has been atoned for, then the criminal should get a fresh start. If society cannot accept this, then the criminal should be either put to death or imprisoned permanently. In no case should bystanders or citizens not even involved on any level be inconvenienced by actions nominally taken to ameliorate the criminal act. Sure, this approach involves risk. I prefer the risk. We are a better people when we accept risk in exchange for liberty than when we trade liberty for any illusion of safety gained by treating everyone as if they were a potential criminal.

Your option three is the only honorable option.

Re:Haven't you guys...

[ColdWetDog]

(... the story of our world under the cold and emotionless eye of the almighty computers ...(not brilliant, but rather anticipatory and fits in here))

Bah, I am comforted by Bradley's Bromide:

If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee. That will do them in.

The same FBI.....

[budword]

The same FBI that couldn't put together an email system in 2 years with a few hundred million bucks. The good news is BIG BROTHER isn't competent, the bad news is that he has no idea he isn't competent. The big problem with that is that he carries a gun, and because the people he deals with on a regular basis are the only people in the world even more brutally stupid than he is, he never figures out he's a little slow. If it can be abused it will be. I bet the false positive ratio will be greater than 1000 to 1 with this baby. It won't catch many, if any, bad guys, but it will result in countless innocent people being "interviewed" by Bubba the $9 an hour security guard at the airport. Good luck with that. Time to leave the USA. The fascists have won.

Re:U.S.And them

[cooley]

It's just that, well, we have a fairly large population of over-religious farmers who tend to vote for all the wrong people. That's funny, every demographic I've ever seen says that between 1 and 2 percent of the US population either lives on a farm or considers farming their occupation. One to two percent of the population has very little sway over the outcome of our national elections.

You go ahead and keep telling yourself that "it's some farmer in the midwest" screwing it all up, though; especially the next time you drive through Florida.

Right now on the US National political scene, it would seem that the default "heir" to the Bush/Cheney ideology of fear is Rudolph Giuliani. What city was he mayor of, again? Are there a lot of farmers living in Manhattan?

Oh wait, I must have been confused; it's Illinois where a lot of farmers live, and their state has given us Senator Obama in the Presidential contender line-up.

Please, if you're going to generalize about the American population, try to generalize in a way that makes sense. Here you're telling our foreign friend "hey look, we Americans are cooler than we might appear", yet then you generalize about "farmers". Nice.

Sad but true

[Nursie]

The average person will simply think the government is doing more to look out for *them*.

A few false arrests and multi-year imprisonments because of a software bug or flaw in the biometric database? Just the price to be paid for security.

That particular way of thinking sickens me, but it's quite prevalent. Many people (my mother included) would far rather see 10 innocents imprisoned than one guilty man go free. Because they're terrorists or something.

I try to explain that I know have Iranian family on my father's side and next time it could be me that's falsely accused of associating with and aiding people (incorrectly) thought to be terrorists. But that doesn't seem to get through, that there could ever be a mistake. Somewhere in the back of a lot of folks minds there's this strong conviction that mistakes like that just don't happen, despite multiple high profile examples to the contrary, and even if they do, it doesn't matter because they don't think it can happen to them. Because why would it? I'm a good person, why would the government arrest me?

At that point I usually give up trying to argue and go back to mourning the state of the world. No, it doesn't win me any points, realising that the average person is about as questioning of authority as a faithful puppy, it is unfortunately the true state of the world though.

Fascism ? Or not ?

[aepervius]

Isn't this a classic definition of fascism ? I mean the government being a puppet of firm & corporation ? Because if I read that right, this more or less means the FBI suddenly become a special police specifically helping policing employee of corporation... I could be wrong on the definition, though...

This will breed a new class of crimes

[prime_61997851]

Using biometric data is a dangerous road IMHO. If biometric authentication is performed under very tightly controlled conditions then it may be difficult to spoof but the more widespread it becomes the less controlled the conditions will be (the more people involved the higher the chance of stupid people overseeing the process). You can tighten up a server. even Windows (-; so that it is very difficult to penetrate, but when you have billions of I.T. admins running servers you're going to have some loosening of security. See, Dr. Evil was right when he said "Why make billions when we can make ... millions". His stupid son just didn't see the big picture which is why he'll always just be Dr. Evils son.

It may become an arms race between the bio-crackers and the security vendors, just like software viruses. I'm pretty sure people will get retinal transplants if they think it will make them a million dollars USD. You'll have people sitting around in a cubicle talking about how stupid an idea it was for a guy to have a retinal transplant but one will pipe up and say "The guy made a million dollars". Then the guy will "jump to the conclusion" that he should do it, have it botched, go blind, and sue the surgeon for millions. Then he'll have a BBQ in which he'll tell his former co-workers if they just hang in there long enough "good things can happen to them too". But I digress.

The scariest thing I can think of when it comes to biometric security is that it will just lead to an escalation of violent crime. Before cars had security systems the guy would just steal your car when you weren't there. Now he'll pull you out of the car, pistol whip you, shoot your hysterical wife and drive off with your children in the back seat. Maybe it's a flawed correlation but it seems like car jacking took off at the same time as car security systems. Now, instead of stealing your password, he'll cut out your eyes. True story here Malaysia car thieves steal finger

This database the FBI is building is so large and so open to corruption through GIGO, that it may make for a very scary country indeed.

Maybe the FBI could just hire attractive 21 year old blonde unemployed models and assign one per household to watch over us. Criminals may never want to leave their house.

Re:He Loved Big Brother

[Anonymous Coward]

What they fail to comprehend is that the "criminal" element is just as evenly dispersed among government jobs as among the rest of society.

As a member of the general public, I take umbrage with that statement. I'm convinced that there is a far greater representation of the criminal element in modern government (at least, in "elected" and appointed office) than in the rest of society. The same can be said of the business executive level.

When you create a huge power differential between those holding certain government jobs and the rest of us, you are empowering the criminals on that side

Exactly. And that is what I think attracts people with criminal tendencies to government office and to business executive. The power and potential rewards are so great as to act like a magnet to people with criminal tendencies.

equal right to see your bosses' records?

[petes_PoV]

Would this mean you can also see when your boss gets hauled up - even if no charges are brought, or he/she is acquitted?

First of all, it'll allow you to see, at the interview stage, if you'll be working for a bunch of crooks.
Second, if companies do start to take "brushes with the law" into account for career advancement, it sounds like a relative in law-enforcement could be the fast track to promotion.

Re:Brushes with the law?

[RAMMS EIN]

``I'm not sure who's worse, the employers or the gov't.''

The gov't, of course. The employers at least pay you money. The gov't _takes_ your money, and then uses it against you!

CheapID- A Secure, Open Src, Private, Biometric ID

[vkg]

There is an open alternative to this kind of biometric snooping: CheapID. It's a digital identity standard, and a protocol for having a court order be required before the police, or other government agencies, could run a biometric search on the Big Database. It enforces that standard by moving the Big Database to an international level, but encrypting the metadata attached to each record - including fields like name - in a way which means the people with access to the database can't *do* anything with it, because there is no information about *people* in the database (like names,) only information about their physical bodies. Data stripped of metadata is largely worthless, and to unstrip an item needs a court decrypt from a national government.

From http://guptaoption.com/4.SIAB-ISA.php

This paper shows how we can manage large scale biometrics databases and increase the amount of privacy we have from government snooping while still having a secure society.

The basic crux of this paper is that you can separate the biometrics database, which simply identifies your physical body, and isn't necessarily any more intrusive than Flickr or any other online photo sharing site, and the reputation database, which stores things like your credit rating, any criminal record, and the suspicions of various government agencies about your intentions.

So when you do something like rent a car, you give them a token which has your face on it. They match your face to the token, and say "ok, this token is valid." But the token doesn't have your name, or your SSN, or anything else on it: it's totally sterile. But if you steal the car, they take the token to court, as well as the proof you gave it to them, and the court uses the token to get your name, SSN and other details.

If all that FBI or other government biometrics database stored was tokens, and it required a court order to go from a match in the biometrics database to a name and street address, I think we'd have a fair balance between civil liberties and security. A database of pictures of faces or fingerprints is not the intrusive part: it's the connecting of your face or your fingerprint to your background that is the intrusion, and we can separate the two databases and require a court order (and a crypto key) to reconnect them.

Cheap DNA scanners are coming. We've have to fix how we handle biometric data as a society before they arrive.

Re:voteronpaul Tag

[Leftist Troll]

Don't worry, the Ron Paul internet zombies have all kinds of talking point rebuttals to that. Some crap about how taking their money is the ultimate insult - maybe someone should tell that to all those industry groups and lobbyists in DC.

I wonder how well it would go over if he took money from radical Islamic fundamentalists.

Re:U.S.And them

[Heian-794]

The Japanese government is even worse. They now fingerprint, photograph, and question visitors and returning residents not only when they first enter the country, but again during all subsequent re-entries . And this is in addition to the mandatory re-entry permits (3000 yen fee!), mandatory registration of non-citizens at their local city hall, and mandatory carrying of Alien Registration Cards on one's person at all times. Don't think you're free to wander about the country after your ordeal with immigration inspectors!

It's not just the US government that does this. Great Britain has its ubiquitous video cameras. Other countries (Belgium?) force even citizens to carry around ID cards. Each country learns of more ways to control people from other countries, and then implements them without regard for the checks those places have on government power. In this way, civil liberties are steadily ratcheted downward. I can't imagine this ever flowing the other way and fear that it will eventually end in violent confrontation.