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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."
I wonder how many of my tax dollars are being used
Many. The Israeli security industry benefits enormously from Western spending ; they are respected and renowned as the people with the most experience of dealing with terrorism.
Someone with thicker tinfoil on their hat might suspect that this was a prototype project, pushed through by rich Israeli security industry lobbyists keen to prove their ability for the contracts for Western nations. Someone with double-layered tinfoil might even believe that they already have a contract and this is just the testing phase...
It is not just them. I just run a gallup on a forum where "normal" people in my country like to hang out (mostly female parents). 7/8 of them think that collecting fingerprints from everyone is not just acceptable, but actually a good idea (to catch criminals). They also fail to believe how things could get worse if we accept that. I'm fairly certain that we are doomed.
In fact all Israeli identity cards till recently had to mention the ethnic/religious group. I shouldn't say "since the beginning" but at least it has been like that for a long time.
It is not possible to be "just an israeli".
This thing probably won't pass. I know that for Americans it's very hard to understand, but being a liberal and serving in an elite combat unit goes hand in hand here.
If you don't believe me, just read the news stories, and the bios of the kidnapped soldiers. The front lines are CEOs, lawyers, scientists, mathematicians, accountants and what not. The middle+ class are the people that go to war. The most leftist and liberal leaders were always the best generals - Rabin (Oslo) , Barak (pulled out of Lebanon), and in his last years, Ariel Sharon who pulled out of Gaza. And most importantly, there is not a single religious general, and Israel never had a religious leader.
I design complex real-time control systems (Mostly based on PIC/NEC/Toshiba ), and like any Israeli, for 28 days a year, I become a soldier. Despite what you may or may not understand about our society, chances are that there is plenty of holes in your understanding how this microscopic 5 million people country works.
But point is, nobody here trusts the government, the current government is extremely weak, and on the verge of being replaced. This thing will not pass. Most people here read 1984 =).
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Dude, it's not the Israeli Jews who will suffer here. It's the indigenous population. The Palestinians.
They are the ones who will suffer.
I'll be kind of gutted if you think I'm being anti-semitic, because I kinda pride myself on being 'right on' about shit in general. No- this is nothing to do with Israel being a Jewish state, and everything to do with it being a colony. Every colony that ever existed bullied the aborigines to a greater or lesser extent.
Not to get too pop-psychological, but there's also an element of 'the abused becoming the abuser' about Israel.
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
Since this database is used for collecting data on Israeli citizens it is useless against Palestinians, since they are not citizens of Israel, nor of any other country.
This is useful only against criminals, Israeli Arabs (who seldom serve in the army, and therfore didn't get their photo and finger-prints taken already), and as you mentioned, most useful against political resistance. Keeping the Israeli populace ignorant of the atrocities Israel performs takes huge amounts of propaganda, censureship and such tactics. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if this is designed to track political ("extreme-left", "bleeding hearts", "arab-lovers") dissidents as well as other threats.
Full disclosure - I am Israeli.
Oh fuck. I just shot myself in the foot, didn't I?
I, as an Israeli, for one, would like to welcome our finger-printing, photo-taking, data-basing overlords. Really, I would have liked to, but it's two late to welcome them now, they've been in power since I was born.
Do you have to be an antisemite to disagree with the politics of Israel?
Unfortunately, that's what it comes down to: as the excuse is it's some "hate crime" to disagree with Zionism, as Zionism "is the state of Israel" (or whatever excuse to keep this 1000 year war alive).
So if you post something about how Zionists even treat fellow Jews - http://web.israelinsider.com/views/3998.htm -- that's a crime against their identity and State, and = anti-semite to them.
Frankly, I don't care about the label, because it's crazier to justify wanton killing for killing sake.
I think the reason is because the people there went directly from being oppressed to doing the opressing. They should know better.