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Afghanistan Biometric Data Given To US
wisebabo writes "I just noticed that not only are all Afghans going to have their biometric data (fingerprints and iris scans) recorded but the government plans to share it with the U.S. From the article: 'Gathering the data does not stop at Afghanistan's borders, however, since the military shares all of the biometrics it collects with the United States Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security through interconnected databases.' Talk about 'know thine enemy' (or I guess, for now, friend). Does this foretell the near future when the U.S. govt. (and by extension, Chinese hackers) have the biometrics of almost everyone alive?"
There should be an investigation. With the DHS budget they should have this already.
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A reporter from The New York Times, an American of Norwegian rather than Afghan extraction, voluntarily submitted to a test screening with the B.A.T. system. After his fingerprints and iris scans were entered into the B.A.T.’s armored laptop, an unexpected “hit” popped up on the screen, along with the photograph of a heavily bearded Afghan.
The “hit” identified the reporter as “Haji Daro Shar Mohammed,” who is on terrorist Watch List 4, with this note: “Deny Access, Do Not Hire, Subject Poses a Threat.”
I'm sorry if I haven't offended anyone
j00 w1n 1 (one) internets!
Surrender your internets at the border control station, please.
Friends? Does that mean that the US shares biometric data on all US citizens with Afghanistan? Aw how adorable!
The US doesn't have friends. It has friendos.
" All your base are belong to us " !
* Carthago Delenda Est *
papers comrade is what we do in the USA as well, but we call it "credit cards affiliates" and "facebook".
Does this foretell the near future when the U.S. govt. (and by extension, Chinese hackers) have the biometrics of almost everyone alive?"
I hope so, this would be doubleplusgood. Otherwise, how else can be catch and punish Goldstein?
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
then Gattica
Orwell (a socialist) was wrong about who would institute this. Only socialists/communists want to be the government and they want the government to own everyone. On the opposite side libertarians want people to be free, meaning the only owner a person has is that person. The Democrats and the Republicans are both socialists, if you don't believe it, look at their fundamental policies of taking freedoms from the "non" political class and transferring personal ownership from the self to the state.
I can bet my sweet ass that chinese and russian hackers will screw this kind of thing so hard that it will be pointless.
Read radical news here
I am curious if the USA will share their biometric data if the Afgan government would ask for it.
>> (and by extension, Chinese hackers)
Once the Chinese get a hold of the TSA's PLDB information (Penis Length Data Base) on every American male, they'll just give up the New Cold War out of pure embarrassment.
I'm curious - people are worried about the government having their biometrics. What specifically are you concerned about? What is the nightmare scenario that bothers you if the USG has your fingerprints? In case you haven't noticed, you leave your fingerprints everywhere; if someone wanted your fingerprints, it would be pretty easy to obtain them without your consent. Similarly, someone can collect your face biometric by taking a picture of you at the mall, or from your driver's license. I don't think there is any way to stop the spread of biometric databases, the same way it is impossible to stop the spread of stolen credit card numbers. We have to look at legislation centered around what people are doing with that information.
For posting this story, I thought it got lost in the shuffle (I don't understand the "recent" ratings system at all).
I just wanted to mention, India is also in the process of obtaining biometric data for all of its 1.2 Billion(!) citizens.
Will the U.S. get access to that? With or without the Indian govt.'s permission? (and how long until hackers get ALL of the data?)
The EU hands over all our private bank transactions to the US, apparently we didn't have the technology to analyze these ourselves with our ZX81s. But it's OK, the USA promises not to misused the data, and a bloke is there to what them put the flash key into the computer so it's all perfectly OK.
Oh, and of course USA bank transactions won't be sent to EU, because, well, just because.
Ah, yes, the inevitable pile of 1984 analogies that comes up for every single fucking story that relates to privacy or government authority in any way. At least yours is a largely correct interpretation of the book, conveys the impression that you actually read it, and comes in response to a topic where the book has some applicability.
Now we just need some sacharine, hyperbolic "first they came for..." parodies, then a few posters to angrily dismiss any voices of moderation on grounds that the very first overstep of government authority on privacy matters that isn't met with outright caterwauling will lead to a full-fledged totalitarian state (just as surely as the sun will rise tomorrow morning), and we'll have the Slashdot Privacy Discussion Trifecta.
Again, not to pick on you in particular, Pharmboy. Yours isn't far off. It's just that as someone with thorough knowledge of 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, the Postman, etc. it's so fucking obnoxious and tiring for me to see people misquote, misunderstand, and exaggerate the dystopic classics so dramatically, day in and day out.
As all the cop shows prove, biometrics can just as easily rule you out as rule you in. An iris scan in an airport sounds a lot better to me than the crap the TSA uses these days, or a couple of years in Gitmo while they try to sort out their !@#$.
The tech's innocent and benign. We ought to be watching what's being done with it.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
I really pity the American intelligence community. They're expected to catch every single credible threat, not just to America but to any nation or political figure on the planet, without going so much as a micron past the ever-shifting 'too far' and 'possibly not far enough' marks at risk of being flat-out pilloried in venues far more hysterical and influential than this.
Between the conservatives who claim we've still not gone far enough in fighting terror and the liberals who scream at any infinitesimal possibility of privacy violations but still want a potent intelligence apparatus - and the general public's simultaneous sympathy for both sides - it's impossible to win. The safe operating widths of the intelligence community (on some hypothetical number line ranging from "knows everything about everybody in real time" to "won't so much as question a guy carrying dynamite up the Capitol steps without first consulting the Human Rights Commission and the ACLU") are almost always measured in negative numbers, and large ones at that.
I mean seriously. Many liberals and libertarians are demanding surveillance policies so dense and cautious that no intelligence organization could reasonably decide on manpower and human judgment alone whether to stop a possibly dangerous person from entering the country until well after he's either blown up a building or completed his perfectly innocuous two-week business trip, whichever comes later. And, as in the reaction to this story, God help them if they use computers, networking, and/or any persistent databases to speed up that decision!
And if it's not the liberals and libertarians bitching about even the slightest possibility of privacy violations, it's the conservatives who say we might as well erect a thirty foot electrified fence around the entire nation and fire mortars at everyone who approaches wearing more than a see-through jockstrap and an implanted, US-made chip containing their passport, complete encrypted biometric profile, and HD-video of their entire life up to the moment they walked into view of the mortar teams.
I'm just glad they gave it to US and not THEM.
Why can't we ditch the US inside a black hole ?
That would solve 90% of the world's problems.
This reminds me that we may be soon as welcome as the Soviets after WWII. Your papers, please.
The US doesn't have "friends", it has "client states" and "potential enemies". When a state switches from one to the other depends on the current economic state in the US. Look at Iraq, at one point Saddam Hussein was a great friend of the US, then he threatened the US oil supply and all that was out the window :P
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
"...Does this foretell the near future when the U.S. govt. (and by extension, Chinese hackers) have the biometrics of almost everyone alive?"
Well, for starters, I find it hilarious that you think this doesn't go on already, sanctioned or not.
And the "by extension" comment regarding hackers? C'mon now, you're talking to Slashdot, not CNN here. Hacking (or cracking) has been and always will be the fallacy of ANY online or offline electronic resource, no matter who owns it or what it contains. That's not exactly "by extension" but more like by inherent design, and it's certainly not limited to "Chinese hackers".
The US started doing this ages ago with US equipment for inclusion in US databases. What's an Afghan gonna do when a goon armed with a biometric scanner and an M16 (or whatever) takes his biometrics - ask whether the data will be handled with appropriate sensitivity and concerns for privacy? Yeah, right.
The Afghan government(aka Karzai, the mayor of Kabul) will do whatever the US government pays him to do.
www.ipeepo,com
Right, all that oil coming from the Middle East, especially Iraq, is crucial to the US. Perhaps you should check your numbers and your understanding of IR theory before writing--lots of info out there on this. Suggest starting with "neo-con" and "Bush." Education is the key to freedom and will save you from idiot posts.
Word!
Look at Iraq, at one point Saddam Hussein was a great friend of the US, then he threatened the US oil supply and all that was out the window :P
To roughly paraphrase a quote I heard on Slashdot:
"Saddam once threatened to trade oil in Euros instead of US dollars. 6 months later, he was hiding in a hole in the ground while his country burned down around him."
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
exactly. Even UK and most of other NATO countries were kindly requested to submit the fingerprints of their citizens; of course without getting such a data on US citizens.
Viva Brazil, who dared to have symmetry in treating US citizens just as US treats theirs
OF course since no country is going to act against its own best interests. So no country has friends. It merely has allies whose interests coincide with its interests or enemies whose interests are at odds.
Anyone who tells you anything else is either trying to sell you snake oil or are so out of tough with the real world that they should be ignored anyway.