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Israel Moves Toward a National Biometric Database
An anonymous reader writes "Israeli's government has approved the creation of a biometric database which would contain fingerprints and facial photos of all Israeli citizens. If the bill becomes law — and it is at an early stage — the biometric information of each citizen would be embedded in their passport and national ID card. Israeli citizens would be required by law to submit to biometric testing upon request by government employees, soldiers, and policemen, so that their biometric info can be compared to the info embedded in their ID card / passport. The declared purpose of the bill is to combat forgery of passports and ID cards, and also to aid identification 'in cases of a mass disaster.' The bill was approved over objections from civil rights groups and the Israeli Bar. The article notes that no other democratic country has a comprehensive biometric database of all citizens."
And before all of you Ben Franklin quoters start yammering, the key word Ben Franklin used was "essential."
Actually, the way that reads, it doesn't sound like he's implying that liberty is essential, not that there are a select number of essential liberties, and all the rest are forfeit. Here's the quote:
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
And if there's really any doubt in your mind of what Franklin's intent was, here's a quote from Poor Richard's Almanac:
Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power.
Look, if you really have no problem giving up your liberty, go for it. I'm not stopping you. If you have no problem with the Israelis giving up their liberty, I'd love to hear your argument.
But picking apart the semantics of a historical quote, and then using that to imply that the man agrees with you -- that just makes you look stupid. Honestly, do you think any of the Founding Fathers would've consented to biometrics, when they literally got up in arms over a tea tax?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Many Reform jews are pro-Zionist (think the State of Israel is a good thing) but strongly disapprove of the way it treats Palestinians, the Lebanese and their other neighbours, and object to the hypocrisy of Israel having 200 nuclear warheads and then complaining about regional destabilisation (e.g. the letter from Gerald Kaufman MP in the Guardian this weekend). The result is often quite vicious attacks by Orthodox Jews.
Now look at this in the context of this biometric database. It is a wonderful opportunity for the Orthodox in Israel to identify Jews who they may regard as troublemakers. (They already routinely do things like refuse to recognise marriages of non-Orthodox Jews, or refuse to recognise conversions ratified by Reform rabbis). This database will give the police and the army more power to identify and harass, not only the Palestinians, but people who disagree with the settlers and the ultra-Zionists.
Many of the founders of Israel were secular; a lot of them were socialists. I think they would be horrified by this proposal and would even quote the Torah against it.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
And the Israeli tags are shaped like a little star because the government decided that it was a shape that conveyed their aspirations for a better, more peaceful society. And they're bright yellow to make them harder to misplace.
Of all the nations in the world you might hope would be wary of pervasive monitoring, you'd think one that bills itself as a "jewish state" would be it.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
The Israeli government and many of its citizens are always implying so. The Israeli governments continual pretense (or perhaps its a genuine delusion) that they represent the Jewish people is one of the most insidious pieces of political trickery in the modern era. Being Jewish does not imply a particular political viewpoint of national affiliation. But some people don't half push the idea that it does...
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
This is a very delicate subject, and as one Israeli to another, as we both know, if it wasn't in an anonymous internet forum I wouldn't dare raise such a question, how can you explain giving a twelfth of your life away to an organisation obsessed with harassing, repressing, dividing, locking in, shutting out, abusing and killing people for the sole reason that they lived in your country before your parents/grand-parents arrived and drove them off their land?
And don't give me this "the IDF is the most moral army in the world" line, we both know how wrong that is. I could give enough examples to make both of us blush, but I won't (it's my country too damn it!). Looking at the way the IDF operates, I see the sole purpose of its actions in the conquered territories as to make the inhabitants' lives as painful and difficult as possible. How can you collaborate to that?
Full disclosure: yes I did my full three years back when I didn't know what was actually going on. I couldn't keep doing it once I found out. How do you find it possible? Is the boogie-man of terrorism that intimidating?
Once upon a time "anti-semite" was a label for someone who hated Jews.
It has become a label for someone a Jewish person hates.