Slashdot Mirror
British Airport Will Require Fingerprints From Domestic Passengers
ProfBooty brings us a story about England's Heathrow airport, which will begin fingerprinting passengers on its domestic flights later this month. Airport executives claim that the data will be stored for no longer than 24 hours, and will not be shared with law enforcement. We've previously discussed airport fingerprinting measures in the United States and Japan. Quoting:
"All four million domestic passengers who will pass through Terminal 5 annually after it opens on March 27 will have four fingerprints taken, as well as being photographed, when they check in. To ensure the passenger boarding the aircraft is the same person, the fingerprinting process will be repeated just before they board the aircraft and the photograph will be compared with their face. Dr Gus Hosein, of the London School of Economics, an expert on the impact on technology on civil liberties, is one of the scheme's strongest critics. He said: 'There is no other country in the world that requires passengers travelling on internal flights to be fingerprinted. BAA says the fingerprint data will be destroyed, but the records of who has travelled within the country will not be, and it will provide a rich source of data for the police and intelligence agencies.'"
What the hell is going on these last few years?! Ever since some wackos killed less people than die from AIDS in a day the US, UK, and AU seem hell bent racing each other to see who can become China first! It's time to face the fact: the terrorists have won. Not flamebait, just a sober realization.
Shh.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Exactly, It's not like the terrorist didn't have leagal and valid id! They were exactly who they said they were! There is no point! I need more exclamation points!
These measures that are being taken to supposedly make things safer are just getting out of hand. I am getting pissed off, but I am also getting scared. I do not want to live in a police state. And it is getting where there is nowhere to go if my government finally gets too much like a police state. While I don't think that there will be a sudden shift to a police state, it is getting easier and easier for a government to become one. The technology is here and the first steps have been taken. It's just a matter of "Oh they won't mind a little more surveillance." All this "security" does not make me feel any safer: I am more likely to die from a car crash then from a hijacked plane. While it might reduce the risks involved in flying, my number 1 fear while flying is that the plane will crash, and that rarely happens so I am not that afraid of it. There are so many other things to say on this subject. It hasn't gotten to the level of stupidity, but its getting damn close.
The measures we go through to stop terrorism have reached such a point of insanity that I am simply blown away. The way to react to a tiny handful of deaths has been so out of proportion to the threat, that I wake up thankful every single day that US Constitution provides at least some (admittedly constantly weakening) safeguards against democracy.
This latest scheme in Britain is just one more example of the utter insanity of the masses and their complete and utter inability to make rational decisions. You are radically more likely to be killed by your pool or a car than you are to be struck down by a terrorist. Despite this, we go through insane, fanatical, and expensive measures to prevent one of the rarest ways to die in a western democracy. Death through airplane exploded by terrorist rates somewhere near the absolute bottom in terms of likely ways to die... well below being struck down by lightening.
Honestly, I think that we have seen why democracies don't work. If we continue down this utterly insane path spending more and more resources to defend utterly insignificant attacks with wildly out of proportion, expensive, AND a costly to civil liberties methods, we might actually succeed where terrorist always fail. Terrorist in the west always fail to cause any real significant or costly damage. Even 9/11 was a drop in the bucket next to auto accident, cancer, heart attacks, or hurricanes. Yet, we treat a tragedy that can normally be shrugged off without flinching in such a violent way that we cause incalculable harm to ourselves. The money and lives lost in the response to 9/11 or the London bombings make the actual attacks like like pock change.
It is like getting a pin prick on your finger tip and responding by chopping your own arm off. Uh, yeah, you can't get pin pricked again... but you chopped off your fucking arm.
As much as I want to blame the politicians/corporations/neo-cons/fill-in-evil-entity-of-choice-here, the real problem is democracy. A system that changes itself in response to the utterly stupid and irrational emotions of the masses dooms itself. What is the alternative? The hell of I know. I thought that the US constitution offers up a good alternative to democracy as it seems to be written in pretty clear and absolute language. Despite this, the US has reverted to democracy in its most vile of forms. It might not be as far gone as Britain, but it is desperately trying. I honestly don't know the answer You can't ignore the irrational masses as you will fall into the trap of tyranny. That said, if you listen to the stupid cows, you get this crap, which is tyranny in another form.
Take issue with whoever is representing you in parliament/government. If you can't do that (get in touch with elected authority), and if a large number of people can't do that either, democracy has failed.
The internet is a good (or perhaps a bad) way to bring together "large numbers" of unsatisfied people. Market niche: web portal that simplifies concerted efforts to reach government officials in both free and not-so-free nations, divided by locale. You heard it here first.
There is only no point if you still believe that all this new "security" is actually about terrorists. If you view it from the idea of making people used to the idea of being bullied and controlled then it makes perfect sense. "A society will remain as free or as enslaved as the conscious dispositions of individuals determine it shall be. Just as the roots of oppression are found in passivity, the foundations of our liberty reside in highly energized and focused minds that insist upon their independence. There are no shortcuts, no structures or doctrines that can be erected, no hallowed documents to be revered, to save us the effort of continually challenging those who would presume to exercise authority over our lives." -- Butler Shaffer
We are all just people.
Actually, it probably would have. If the 19 terrorists had gone to the next level, and started killing passengers and stews, one a minute until the cockpit door was opened...how long do you think the pilots would have held out? About 2 mins.
Not if I was the pilot.
Your larger point stands, and the fact is, of course, that the threat of 9/11 ended in a field in PA.
But that message doesn't help anyone in office, does it?
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
>"Then why are you doing it?"
It's a way of gently easing the metaphorical butt-cheeks of the British public apart. It's what they did with Traffic cameras. First it was just about license plate data for the congestion charge, and we were all assured that it wouldn't capture images of faces or be used by the police ... Fast Forward a year or two, and faces are captured and the police have full unfettered access - to fight terrorism and organised crime ... and petty crime ... and political dissenters ...
They want to have their own way with you, so they open you up with a finger, apply a little lurication and allow you to fully relax before they bring out the truncheon.
Give it a year or so and our collective sphincters will have unclenched and our glorious overlords will tell us they need the data to protect us (coz they really love us) and it'll all be added into our permanent files.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
End the dependence of the western world on mid-east oil.
Once the Saudi's have only the Chinese as customers, anything
that happens in the middle east becomes irrelavent to the western world.
When middle-eastern economies degrade to the point that they have to depend
on sand as an export product, all this nonsense will stop.
However, as long as American presidents like Bush hold hands with
Saudi princes, we will never be rid of the 'terrorists' and we will have to put
up with this, and worse, until the oil runs out.
Sig this!
Except why do they need to fingerprint international travellers leaving the country?
Atheism is a religion to the same extent that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Same problem here in the States. I wonder if the various parties stopped offering real differences in policies around the same time the most powerful political action committees started contributing to both candidates of a single election? I wonder how long nearly meaningless elections will continue to make people believe that they actually have some kind of voice in their government?
We are all just people.
Suppose that this is really just a way to make it such a PITA to fly, that people won't bother unless they really need to. With oil over $100/barrel, there needs to be some conservation somewhere. You could jack the price up (and carbon credits are basically equivelent to that, if they can be traded for money) or you could just make obvious waste (like flying anywhere that a train and/or ferry could take you in day) a PITA. So fingerprints and partial strip-searches for domestic passengers.
Either that, or it's a straw-man, which they float out, watch get struck down, and then nobody will mind as much when they come out with their real idea, because it only requires some people to be fingerprinted, and only once. (Or whatever.) Or, it's subtle diplomatic back-pressure against a certain country that fingerprints all visitors.
Freedom has always been worth dying for. Many citizen soldiers have died on the field of battle to establish and defend freedom, and now the struggle has been brought to our doorstep. But we are not soldiers; we have no weapons to wield.
Our instinct is to take away the weapons of our enemy. But we are horrified to find that they are using freedom against us. We recoil and draw back our trust. No longer can we take the good will of our neighbors for granted. So with the best intentions we seek to contain anyone who throws an ominous shadow.
But the young men who carried explosives onto trains and buses in London did nothing to draw our special attention. The morning of the bombings, they were seen conferring together by surveillance cameras. But human eyes cannot be everywhere. They could have written their intentions directly on the lens of that camera and no one would have noticed until it was all over. The men who boarded those planes more than seven years ago did not trigger any alarms or overwhelm any security systems, they simply bought some tickets.
So we are left with a sobering choice. Do we continue to retract our trust in one another; throwing up human and technological defenses against ourselves? Voluntarily retracting one another's personal freedoms in the hope of leveling the playing field? Or do we make something old, new again?
Though there is certainly a political element to the battle we fight, but the root of the conflict is ideological. Our enemy is not enamored with freedom the way we are. It calls our defense of liberty for all ways of life foolish and self-destructive. There is, after-all, a natural law revealed for all to see, and the failure to recognize and enforce it is the seed of our downfall. Those who threaten our souls should be singled out and punished. It is ultimately our single minded defense of freedom that allows the devil in us to find safe harbor. Perhaps they are right; but only partly so.
Freedom allows the unfettered expression of the best in us as well as the worst. A natural law revealed in the hearts of people around the world is only served by the freedom to express it. What better way to talk truth to power than to do it freely and openly? What better way to aid your fellow man's soul than to do it without fear of reprisal?
But reminding those who would strike down this offering with violence or repression is not enough. We must live the ideal if we are to demonstrate its full potential. Thus we are brought back to our choice.
Continue to limit freedom in the hope of protecting ourselves, or risk our lives by maintaining and expanding it? We have a proud history of defending freedom on the battlefield. Now we must show reactionaries around the world that there is no profit in punishing those who might do harm by limiting the freedom of everyone. We must risk our lives once again by offering freedom to those who would use it to destroy us. We do not have to offer our lives, but we must protect the freedom that might be used by others to take it. What happened in London and New York will happen again, and we must be willing to let it. We cannot search everyone all the time. We cannot watch everyone everywhere. So we must become as selfless as the soldier. We must be willing to die riding on a subway, flying on an airplane or sitting in our homes. We must be willing to sacrifice ourselves to protect that which we hold most dear. We must live free or die.
The UK government has a long and rich history of allowing the police and secret service to get away with pretty much anything they like. What you get if it leaks is some blip in the press, that takes a few days and then things will progress as before.
:-).
You make take it as significant that since New Labour came to power there has been a sharp decline in people being ejected from their posts for abject failure, even the guy responsible for the process failures that led to the loss of 2 CDs with the details of several million people on did not actually lose his job after he "resigned", he now works in a much cushier position at Cabinet Office. Yes, that's right, in principle a promotion. That's a subtle hint of how New Labour thinks about privacy.
It follows thus that what Heathrow management says and what really will happen is VERY likely to be different, or it will be a weasel argument as "WE only keep it 24h, but it's not our fault the police takes a copy at 12h and we don't know what they do with it". I hope they have at least the intelligence to store the fingerprints as a hash, but given the predicted leak I am willing to bet that it's full imagery.
And in that case, imagine what may be on the next CDs (sorry DVDs - fingerprints need space) that will be lost? Exactly, the one bit of data you normally control because you have it physically on you, and the one aspect you can't change other than with judicious use of a sharp knife or strong acid (apparently, never felt the need for it myself
I will avoid any route going through terminal 5. What's more, as that is a BA terminal it's a good argument to avoid flying BA altogether - from what I've heard (since the luggage debacle) that's not a bad idea anyway.
Or investigate fake fingers..
Insert
As a Brit, I envy the differences in policies you're likely to be offered if Obama wins the nomination: on healthcare alone he offers a clear break with the past. Here, nobody with any chance of gaining power ever suggests such a dramatic change, it's always incremental - usually for the worse. This is how we were able to have a report into copyright which essentially said: "everything's fine, but we need tougher penalties for filesharers."
Civil disobedience doesn't work any more.
If you get arrested, and they charge you some for some piddling small offense, then you've just gone and screwed your freedom to travel permanently.
Any trip this Briton would make to the USA or another country will now not be eligible under Visa Waiver Programs as a criminal record (when not a driving offence) requires that you obtain a visa to travel. The US embassy visa process takes 31 weeks from end to end (starting to gather pre-requisites through to obtaining a B1/B2 visa in your passport).
And to go through that process I'd have to give a foreign government far more information than that which I would have had to give the people at Terminal 5.
Civil disobedience in this day and age just marks you negatively for the rest of your life. Unless the action is large and total, it just wouldn't work. And most people don't want to fight, they want to get on their plane and reach their destination.
I personally think we've long ago crossed the line into being a surveillance world. All countries, not just the UK.
When I go to the US my details are taken, my fingerprints, photos, credit card numbers that were used to book the flight, which hotel I'm staying at, departure date, hire car details.
It already is the case that every move I make I consider the possible future ramifications of that move and how any action now might affect me in 15 years time.
This all reminds me of the Stasi. We're all spying on each other now, and all of that data business and government hold and will use against use. Be it credit refusal, travel restrictions, political control. We're already there.
And the scary part is the word "all". There seems to be no exception, all civilised countries are following the same trend. So you cannot even vote with your feet.
Britain went through so many terrorist attacks via the IRA. Why do a couple of idiot doctors setting their cars on fire provoke this sort of response? Insane. Bring back thatcher!
Whatever her faults she didn't push this kind of nonsense even after surviving a (real) terrorist attack.
Yep. Since there is no place to go anyway, they don't even have to resort to building a Berlin Wall / Iron Curtain around the planet.
Uh huh. And if you refuse, are they going to keep you, a citizen, from re-entering your own country? Arrest you? I wonder what the charges would be.
...
No, sir, here's the proper chain of dialog in this situation:
Them: Passport please.
You: Here you are.
Them: Fingers on the reader, please.
You: No.
Them: I can't let you into the country without fingerprints.
You: I'm a British citizen. The passport and photo prove it. Are you going to keep me out of my own country?
Them:
You: I'm a citizen, and I'm suspected of no crime. You have no right to take my fingerprints. I refuse to give them.
Do it calmly and nonviolently.
I suppose they'd arrest you then and get your fingerprints anyway. But if you did it, it would cause a row. If you and 4 other people did it, you might make the news. If you and 19 other people did it, it would certainly make the news. If you got a hundred people together to do it, it would make international headlines. And then things might have a chance at being changed. How much does a flight to Paris and back cost?
If I had absolute certainty that the data collected would be secure then I'd have far fewer issues about it.
The truth is, it wouldn't be secure. Even if (and it's unlikely) the Heathrow systems were secure, it wouldn't be long before the police gain access to that data. Then HMRC. Then every other public sector agency, criminal and person receiving misdirected random post containing CDs.
So no, I can't get enough security when it comes to the precious data. Since the security benefits at the people level are marginal in the extreme I don't perceive any real benefit either.
None of which even matters: I'd rather risk dying in a terror attack than live in fear of one. I'd rather several thousand people a year die in terror attacks than reduce civil liberties to prevent one.
We are fairly far into the rabbit hole at this point.
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
So how do you propose I travel for work then? Losing my job is not a 'small amount of personal sacrifice'. It means losing my house, my car and probably my wife.
Hell no. The sooner the welfare state is reformed the better. I'm sick of people I know that genuinely need support (Downs, CGD, dementure, chronic arthritis, etc) not getting it and all of the little 14 year old shits from the neighbouring estates getting council properties - or better still, NEW built housing association flats.
My father works in a particularly bad secondary school in the area and the career aspiration of many of the teenage girls is to get pregnant as soon as they can - and they are OPEN about this with everyone. We are now on a second generation of people that haven't had to work as a result of entering welfare support because of the economy and reforms in the 70s and 80s, and its not doing us any good. The majority of people don't want to learn, nobody has any respect for other people or property, and everything is just getting a mess.
Looking back at documentaries or sitcoms/soaps that demonstrated social issues from 1950-1980 is really quite interesting. How I'd love to experience some those problems over the current situation.
Freedom has always been worth *other people* dying for.
Think it through. If you're dead, are you free? More to the point, do you care? Not much.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Because the third biggest party is a schizophrenic mess. If it was just the Liberal Party and followed the policy ideas laid out in the Orange Book, I would vote for them at every opportunity. As it stands the Liberal Democrats can't decide if they are truly Liberal or are actually Social Democrats (i.e. socialists). Depending on who's in charge and what's in the papers, the party seems to be trying to occupy the entire political spectrum. How can one be expected to vote for a party that's probably performed a policy volte-face during the walk to the polling station?
Frankly, all the major (and most of the minor) parties in the UK occupy the same ground. Those that don't tend to be extremists (e.g. the BNP) or one issue parties (e.g. UKIP). Some combination of the Tories and the Lib Dems would be the ideal solution: the low taxes and minimal market interference of the post-ERM Tories, combined with the social liberalism and non-parochial attitudes of the Liberals. A true alternative to the ultra-centralising, outright authoritarian "Labour" Party.
Zombie Lloyd George for PM!