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Israeli Knesset Approves Biometric Database Law
Lord Duran writes "The Israeli Knesset approved a bill that will require every Israeli citizen to submit a visual scan of their face and a biometric scan of their fingerprints to a national database. I, for one, fail to see how this is anything but evil. TFA mentions the Israeli census was breached — I'd like to point out, for comparison, that it's still freely available on your peer-to-peer file sharing network of choice."
FTA: "...that the system would be kept as confidential as any banking website"
Why does that not make me feel better about this?
Same problem with all biometrics.
What happens when the system is compromised? How do I change my password?
I find being offended by me offensive.
What is a "biometric visual scan of their face"? A photograph?
Every country does that. It's called an ID card. As far as fingerprints, I've had to submit my fingerprints like 10 times for various services, clearances, not to mention immigration documents.
This isn't really news. Even if it's a 3D laser-scan, that's really not different from a photograph nowadays.
As much as it bothers me to have centralized databases of ANYTHING, if there is anything that needs a centralized database, it's identification. I'm a privacy freak and I am not sure that this bothers me, especially in the context of a country that can claim the dubious honor of being the most likely terrorist target in the industrialized world.
While their actions and policies towards the Palestinians are pretty heinous, you can't just paint the whole society as evil. They have developed a verymodern society in the midst of their enemies and excel at many fields of science and literature.
You can blame the Jews for persecuting the Palestinians, but you can't say that everything they do is evil.
There's a bit of irony here because a little man in Germany fifty years ago did something very similar in categorizing and identifying Jews. It was not benign.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
You call them terrorists, they call them freedom fighters. It's a matter of perspective. Get some.
I think you're a bit confused. There is nothing stopping a person from being a freedom fighter and a terrorist at the same time. The first term refers to why they're doing what they're doing. The second refers to how they do it. So while Hamas may (it's rather questionable. but so are many other things) be fighting for freedom, how they do it (purposefully targeting, attacking and executing unarmed civilians) makes them terrorists.
If only one could get that wonderful feeling of accomplishment without having to accomplish anything.
I thought about him a while back in my Jewish studies class (online gen-eds, gotta love 'em). There was a part dealing with antisemitism, about how it has evolved to into anti-Israeli sentiment to cover it's ass, so to speak, by taking the guise of a reasonable argument against a nation's policies, not pure racist hatred, because clearly there are two types of anti-Israel sentiment: reasonable and racist. Imagine if black people only made up a small enough percent of the population that 40% could live in one small area. Do you think the KKK and the neo-nazi skinheads would criticize that nation's policies, regardless? You know they would, and publicly, they'd do it under the guise of 'criticizing policy' but really, it would be racism. We all know it would be. Israel is the same way. Take a race that has historically been hated and but them in their own little country, guess what the racists say about it? Only now, they have a mask for their racism, they can claim that they're anti-Israel, not the antisemitic Jew hating racists that they really are.
I don't think criticism of Israel is all without merit. Yes, some of it is insane, like when people say the Israelis are monsters for defending themselves from terrorists who want to kill as many Israeli citizens as possible, but Israeli policy has, at times, not helped things, and that is worth criticizing. Israel has done, and does do, bad things. One of my Arabic professors presented very reasonable criticisms of Israel. Problem is, there's enough blame to go around when Israel's neighbors are supporting a group that launches rockets at Israeli civilians while hiding behind other civilians and using them as shields, so it is hardly unreasonable when Israel takes the precautionary principle, and a degree of overreaction on their part is sadly justified.
But I agree with you all the way, you're wasting your time if you argue with douchebag. I saw a bumper sticker the other day that read 'Hate is the ONLY enemy.' People like him, they hate. They are part of the problem. Israelis are not the enemy, Palestinians are not the enemy, Arabs are not the enemy, Iranians are not the enemy. People who hate are the enemy. There is so much antisemitism and islamophobia in that region and around the world trying to make itself look reasonable, it's disgusting. There's plenty about Israel you can debate, but not with an antisemite who thinks the Israeli people are evil and that a country were people are born and die and make their homes and lives shouldn't even have the right to exist.
Not everyone wants peace. They are the problem. They are the evil ones.
War is just terrorism with a bigger budget. (And better political spin.)
You call them unarmed civilians, we call them "collateral damage."