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Biometric Database Plans Hidden In Immigration Bill

Posted by Soulskill on from the you-can-trust-us dept.

Doug Otto writes "Buried deep in the bowels of a bi-partisan immigration reform bill is a 'photo tool.' The goal is to create a photo database consisting of every citizen. Wired calls it 'a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID.' Of course the database would be used only for good, and never evil. 'This piece of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act is aimed at curbing employment of undocumented immigrants. But privacy advocates fear the inevitable mission creep, ending with the proof of self being required at polling places, to rent a house, buy a gun, open a bank account, acquire credit, board a plane or even attend a sporting event or log on the internet.'"

34 of 365 comments (clear)

  1. Counter strike by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Create a distributed database of all politicians with current (hours old) photos, locations, sound captures, etc. Give them hell. Film them in their homes. I don't care if it's illegal.

    1. Re:Counter strike by pixelpusher220 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Version Control. We should know WHICH politician(s) added this clause. If no one owns up to it, it gets stripped from the Bill. We need names on this type of crap.

      --
      People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
    2. Re:Counter strike by h4rr4r · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If we are going to version control, then lets do it correctly and rewrite laws with some sort of pseudocode. That way there can be no argument about what a law means or could allow someone to do.

    3. Re:Counter strike by dmbasso · · Score: 5, Interesting

      They're already written in a 'sort of pseudo-code', legalese. Problem is it is very hard to debug and really easy to insert malicious code. But if what you really meant was a language without ambiguity, that seems to be impractical.

      --
      `echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
    4. Re:Counter strike by pixelpusher220 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Laws have to be somewhat abstract because if you try to to make it cover everything possible, you get the US Tax Code spaghetti crap.

      --
      People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
    5. Re:Counter strike by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I disagree. The US Tax Code was specifically written the way that it was written to enable some people to capitalize on loopholes while leaving others to pay for them.

    6. Re:Counter strike by h4rr4r · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Law is political. I don't think at this point the two can be separated.

      I think there could be a lot of uses for this. Before that though a national ID should be considered. My preference for that would be to issue everyone passports. It would give everyone ID to vote, buy guns, etc and maybe get some folks to travel a little outside their little world.

    7. Re:Counter strike by dmbasso · · Score: 3, Informative

      From the wikipedia:

      [...] self-defense allows a person to use reasonable force in his or her own defense or the defense of others [...]

      Please, enumerate the situations where this would be allowed, and the reasonable uses of force as well.

      --
      `echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
  2. Rand Paul? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hey, buddy... are you up for another filibuster?

    1. Re:Rand Paul? by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The social security database in use for many years already has names, dates of birth, etc.

      Worse: The medicare I.D. is the social security number followed by one letter as a "check digit".

      That means every medical provider (Including places like Costco if you get a flu shot there) have your name, address, birth date, and SS# in their database and the hands of the clerks. A genealogy site profvides the mother's maiden name and identity theft is a snap. Talk about a target-rich (and predator-rich) environment.

      Oldsters are observed to have a substantially higher rate of identity theft. Researchers noticing that, of course, have blamed the oldsters for allegedly being less competent at guarding their identities.

      Getting Medicare to assign you qa non-SS$ I.D. is not an option. Turning down Medicare coverage is an option only for the very rich: Private insurance deducts the amount Medicare WOULD have paid from their benefits for anyone eligible for Medicare, whether they have registered for Medicare or not.

      Whitehouse online petition, anyone?

      --
      Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  3. so... by bobaferret · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What's wrong with this? I know it's all George Orwell and stuff, but really. We've moved so far past having any real privacy anymore, who cares? I like the idea of people not being able to pretend to be me, not that anyone would really want to.

    1. Re:so... by khallow · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What's wrong with this? I know it's all George Orwell and stuff

      You answered your own question.

    2. Re:so... by Joce640k · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Facebook can just give them the data if they ask.

      --
      No sig today...
    3. Re:so... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      I have no social media accounts and never have.

      Yes you do. Facebook has a 'shadow' account for you (which you have no access to of course).

    4. Re:so... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That's really kind of an emotional reaction. There's a lot of value in having a way to undeniably prove your identity in the eyes of the law. It could help a lot with identity theft and identification wipe-out(like your house burning down). I don't think the benefits outweigh the costs in this case, but not everything that represents more information is bad.

    5. Re:so... by Sarten-X · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The surveillance isn't the scary part of 1984. The surveillance is just a tool being used by an oppressive government. The warning of the story is that we must ensure our government exists to serve the people, and not the other way around. Sure, that might mean the government must serve the paranoid folks clamoring for theatrical security, but it's still trying to serve the people. In 1984, every aspect of life was controlled and manipulated by the Inner Party to serve the Inner Party.

      Giant facial recognition databases are a powerful tool. That technological power can be used for good or evil, but the risk of evil is no reason to fear the technology itself.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    6. Re:so... by pixelpusher220 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Any concerns of Big Brother database-tampering to frame you for a crime are equally weighted with the benefits of fewer fake IDs

      No they aren't. Our founding principles are that we let some guilty people go free precisely because that's preferable than to possibly imprison innocent people. People using Fake IDs are an acceptable condition of not doing 'Papers please' checks on every law abiding citizen on every street corner.

      --
      People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
    7. Re:so... by RabidReindeer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Alright, maybe I'm grasping, but I will say this - if government officials think it's necessary and proper to put citizens on constant surveillance and place our information into a monolithic database, then would it not stand to reason that they should be subject to the same? After all, they are public officials, and if a person has done nothing wrong, they should have nothing to hide, correct?

      Problem is, Orwellian also includes doublethink. As in "Innocent people have nothing to hide", but "we cannot do our job effectively if people can watch what we are doing".

    8. Re:so... by jamstar7 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That's really kind of an emotional reaction. There's a lot of value in having a way to undeniably prove your identity in the eyes of the law. It could help a lot with identity theft and identification wipe-out(like your house burning down). I don't think the benefits outweigh the costs in this case, but not everything that represents more information is bad.

      Agreed, there are circumstances you may need an indeniable way to prove your identity. What happens, though, if your driver's license gets old and worn and the scanner can't pick up the proper reference points on the picture and the mag strip on back is worn out to an unreadable state? You can't prove your identity then. An RFID chip implanted on you someplace? It'd have to be reprogrammable, and being reprogrammable without it being removed means it's vulnerable to, shall we say, 'unauthorised reprogramming by non-State entities', as well as being capable of being read by said unauthorised non-State entities for purposes of their own.

      Reason I bring this up is, my Arizona driver's license was issued over 10 years ago when I moved back home, and isn't due for renewal for another 8 years. Typically, you get your 'permenant' license at 21 here and it expires when you hit 65. Address changes are printed on a little sticker they put on the back. They reissue them for women who get married and take their husband's name at a prorated cost. 40+ years of wear on a piece of plastic kept in a wallet? Serious fade even after 10 years.

      --
      Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
    9. Re:so... by jamstar7 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Four cases of voter fraud in a decade? Send your county officials to Chicago, let the Machine teach them how to do it right.

      --
      Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
    10. Re:so... by Culture20 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That's when you get fifty people who know who you are, go into a judge's chambers and let them all testify that you are you under oath.

    11. Re:so... by bobaferret · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think this is what we need to be angry about. We need to be fighting for the government to be as open as they want us to be. In the end when it's all said and done, everything should have lost their anonymity. The Government, the corporations, and the people. We're not talking police state here, we're talk'n equal playing field.

    12. Re:so... by PvtVoid · · Score: 3, Funny

      Facebook can just give them the data if they ask.

      Great. A photo of every citizen with a bong.

    13. Re:so... by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There's a lot of value in having a way to undeniably prove your identity in the eyes of the law. It could help a lot with identity theft and identification wipe-out(like your house burning down).

      No, there is only a small amount of value in being able to prove your identity in the eyes of the law. How often have you been to court? For the vast majority of people such interactions are few and far between.

      There is value in being able to prove your identity in a bunch of different contexts - like withdrawing money from the bank. It doesn't matter who you are, it only matters that you own the account that you are withdrawing from. Same thing with a driver's license. In order to prove your qualifications to drive, you don't need to prove who you are, only that you have passed the driving exam and don't have any black marks on your driving record. The list goes on and on.

      The value of contextual identity is hundreds of times more useful than the value of a single federated identity.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    14. Re:so... by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "What's wrong with this? I know it's all George Orwell and stuff, but really. We've moved so far past having any real privacy anymore, who cares? I like the idea of people not being able to pretend to be me, not that anyone would really want to."

      You should care because it's not possible to have a democratic form of government without anonymity, and you can't have anonymity without privacy.

      The reasons are many, but here is the upshot: if you have no privacy, how can you speak out (or vote) against oppression without fear of reprisal? Answer: you can't. History is full of examples, you shouldn't even have to think twice to come up with one you remember.

    15. Re:so... by dgatwood · · Score: 5, Informative

      Giant facial recognition databases are a powerful tool. That technological power can be used for good or evil, but the risk of evil is no reason to fear the technology itself.

      I think what you're missing here is that our Constitution, and in particular, the Bill of Rights, was founded on the principle of denying the government too much power over the citizens precisely because the founding fathers had no faith in future elected officials using power exclusively for good. Every place where the government's actions are limited by the Bill of Rights, they are prevented from doing good while preventing them from doing harm.

      History has proven that a government that holds too much power over its people will eventually devolve into tyranny. The general public has no possibility of building a database like this for their use against government tyranny, which means that the government must be disallowed from having such a database as well. We can only maintain freedom by carefully maintaining the balance between what your country can do to you and what you can do to your country.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  4. Mission Creep? SSN by ArtemaOne · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Mission Creep is a ridiculous thing to worry about. Just like your Social Security Number, which the SS Administration has declared from the begining that it is NOT to be used as a form of identification.

  5. You already need proof-of-self to buy a gun. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Two, actually. Yes, even from dealers at gun shows.

    For some reason it's racist to ask for ID to vote.

    Vote early, vote often!

  6. In the UK we have been through this already by Chrisq · · Score: 4, Informative

    The Identity Cards Act 2006 mandated national ID cards. In October 2006, the Government declared it would cost £5.4bn to run the ID cards scheme for the next 10 years, and by November 2007 this estimate was revised to £5.612bn. The Identity Documents Act 2010 cancelled this with at least £256 million already spent.

    It is generally acknowledged that this scheme would not have delivered any increased security, as applications would be verified against passport and driving license databases that were already known to be inaccurate.

  7. Re:And doesn't this already exist? by Rob+the+Bold · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When you get your drivers license.. don't they already store your photo in a database?

    The simple solution to this is to just NOT get a drivers license. You know that's a perfectly fine thing to do. Build your life around that fact, instead of lazily building your life around the need to drive a car on a taxpayer subsidized highway system.

    These days, no ID = no vote. Opt out of a driver's license (or non-driver ID card), you opt out of voting, too. You also opt out of having a bank account. There's more, but I'll leave completing the list of opt-outs to others . . .

    --
    I am not a crackpot.
  8. Re:And doesn't this already exist? by iONiUM · · Score: 4, Informative

    Maybe in America you can't get a bank account without photo ID, but in Canada there's an old law that mandates you must be able to get a basic account with no photo ID. Now, if you actually try, banks will make a fuss, but it is possible.

  9. Re:And doesn't this already exist? by DougOtto · · Score: 4, Informative

    These days, no ID = no vote.

    Not in my state. They cannot legally ask for ID at a polling place (not that it'd do any good if they did as you don't even need to be in the country legally to get a DL in New Mexico).

    --
    Solving Unix problems since 1989...
  10. Re:Mission Creep? SSN by moeinvt · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Were you around in 2001? First, we had 9/11. Then on 10/24 the House passed the USA Patriot Act 357-66. The Senate passed it 98-1 the next day, and on 10/26 it was signed into law. SIX WEEKS!

    If you look at the size and scope of this bill and the bewildering number of changes it made to existing law, it's rather obvious that it had it ready and waiting long before 9/11/2001. Do you really need more evidence to demonstrate that there is a "conspiracy" to deprive U.S. citizens of their civil liberties?

  11. REAL id as a national id already tried by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    15 states passed laws prohibiting themselves from implementing a national id and 25 more "rejected" the law

    http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/yes-states-really-reject-real-id

    Sounds like a dead end