Slashdot Mirror
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."
The article notes that no other democratic country has a comprehensive biometric database of all citizens.
But the UK is working on it.
If intelligent life is too complex to evolve on its own, who designed God?
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.
Sounds more insidious than some of the neighboring countries we decry as anti-freedom.
I wonder how many of my tax dollars are being used by their government to subjugate their people? I don't like this at all, not for any nation.
According to "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy"
Israel is "the largest total recipient since World War II" of U.S. aid. "Total direct U.S. aid to Israel for this period amounts to well over $140 billion since World War II. Israel receives about $3 billion in direct foreign assistance each year, which is about one-fifth of America's foreign aid budget." The authors claim that "This largesse is especially striking when one realizes that Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to South Korea or Spain."
"Israel is the only recipient of U.S. aid that does not have to account for how the aid is spent." According to the authors, this makes it "virtually impossible to prevent the money from being used for purposes the United States opposes."
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 =).
My Starcraft 2 Blog
Before you all get excited: the law stands at "kriaa tromit", which means it's just now readt to be voted on. Each law has to be voted three times after this stage... I'm sure it won't pass, since other draconic laws were blocked. This particular stage, is very easy to pass, for any law, even crazy ones....
But i don't think you appreciate the situation with Israeli documents: they are the most popular forged documents in the world right now: our passports are the easiest to mangle with, and because many countries trust Israeli passports, it's the most bought passport in the black market. Even the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs issued several rules to disencourage Israeli tourists from selling their passports... Our IDs are also quite popular, since we still have problems of women trafficking...
And about terrorism... well, i doubt anybody actually thinks this system will have anything to do with that. There are a very few actual cases, compared with the total, where Israeli citizens Arabs were involved in terrorist activity...
And the last comment i have on this issue, is that in the end, friends, it all comes down to money. Some CEO, with a security system, is related to some government official, and is going to rip off the treasury, when he accidentally of course, win the auction for creating the system. At least that was true for many other security related systems in Israel, the ones that did not go through the defense industry.
Hope I shed some light.
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.
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.