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Leaked Document Reveals Upcoming Biometric Experiments At US Customs
sarahnaomi sends word of new biometric technologies coming to U.S. entry points. "The facial recognition pilot program launched last week by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which civil liberties advocates say could lead to new potentially privacy-invading programs, is just the first of three biometric experiments that the feds are getting ready to launch. The three experiments involve new controversial technologies like iris and face scanner kiosks, which CBP plans to deploy at the Mexican border, and facial recognition software, according to a leaked document obtained by Motherboard. All three pilots are part of a broader Customs and Border Protection program to modernize screenings at American entry and exit ports, including at the highly politicized Mexican border, with the aid of new biometric technologies. The program is known as Apex Air Entry and Exit Re-Engineering Project, according to the leaked slides. These pilot programs have the goal of "identifying and implementing" biometric technologies that can be used at American borders to improve the immigration system as well as US national security, according to the slides."
The Global Entry kiosks use finger prints and facial recognition to verify your identity already.
I don't see how this is a privacy concern. If you are traveling via plane, you already need to show a government issued photo id, which means the government already has your mug-shot.
So, everyone expects to be perfectly anonymous at a Customs Checkpoint, eh?
Really? Going to a place where the guards on both sides of the border check your identity routinely, and people expect anonymity as a matter of course?
Could we perhaps find something more important to be outraged about? Like LSU's baseball team embarrassing themselves last night? Or the morning coffee being cold? Or the birds waking my wife up early (therefore grumpy)?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Now the retinal transplant seems like a plausible future scenario.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Build-a-Wall: that is stupid. it didnt work in berlin, it didnt work in china, it doesnt work in Israel, and its just a single donation to a government contractor.
Immigration Reform: Powerball odds now more promising than reasonable reform legislation. The plutocracy does not share your interest in expanding the number of homebuilders and salad harvesters eligible for social security, medicare, healthcare, and especially disability compensation.
Lets turn the place into Half Life 2: Yes please. Drones, Bioscanners, those lasers that sweep over people, xrays, drug sniffing robots, tasers, Terminators, and lots of plastic handcuffs and temporary prisons with indefinite detention. This system works perfectly to avoid the problem, ignore our melting pot ethos, and turn a profit for a quantifiable number of military and defense related government contractors. Tune in next year when we roll this shit out at stadiums, train stations, bus stops, and shopping malls.
Good people go to bed earlier.
...and it didn't work in a lot of cases. In fact, it failed to meet half of the targets set for the programme (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/9087049/Iris-recognition-gates-scrapped-at-two-airports.html). All this, after the government touted the scheme as "watertight". Just goes to show the standards the government works to, eh?
Come on, people, be realistic. Slashdotters are the foremost people complaining about antiquated low-tech approaches to problems and how they could be sped up, and probably half of us already use fingerprint or face recognition on our devices. Yet we're also among the people most aware of the negative impacts of such systems and the potential for abuse.
This isn't random scanning, or general surveillance - this is a Customs checkpoint, where their ENTIRE JOB is to know who is passing in and out of the country. This is one of the ONLY places where such technology is justified. The danger isn't the open explicit mandated checkpoints, it's the misuse of this technology at every commuter station and the entrances to entertainment or shopping venues - and the availability of government-collected information (which we are coerced to provide) to commercial interests for non-public purposes. Though on a practical level it's more likely to go broke because someone got access to my finances through stupid commercial activity.
I see this as complimentary information on your passport/ID against frauds/fake papers. Why is it touted as an invasion of privacy ?
Don't you know it is now both immoral and criminal to think beyond the next quarterly report?
I think that might have been more relevant back in the 17th through 19th centuries, even for most of the 20th, when there were plenty of jobs for low or limited skill workers. Nowadays western countries are having to try very hard to maximize the numbers going into education because without a degree you won't get much work as a result of hugely increased automation that shows no signs of stopping. For better or for worse, that's just how it is.
In this new environment a massive influx of people without much in the way of qualification becomes a burden moreso than a positive addition, even if they're willing to work their asses off, as most of them are. Meanwhile all they're actually doing is competing for the crap jobs with the most disadvantaged in whatever country and driving down salaries for those that need them the most. I may have missed something here, but I don't think so.
If the US really wanted to address this problem it would legalise most drugs besides the nastiest ones (added bonus of prison populations falling through the floor and people not being stigmatised for life, leading to greater earning potential, plus taxes on drugs) and provide incentives for its neighbours to the south to deal with corruption within their own governments. I've become firmly convinced that 90% of the causes for impoverishment on a national level are plain old graft. Wealth isn't being shared as it is in developed countries.
Anyway yeah. My two cents.
We have them Mexicans INVADING America. We have to secure the border and keep them out. They are diluting our culture and they don't want to learn English and they are bringing ebola and they are bringing measles because they don't have vaccination. It's the downfall of America. SECURE THE BORDER NOW!!!
I can understand mandatory voting, however I will only accept it if there is a non of the above option. Should non of the above receive the most votes then a new election has to be held and none of those candidates can run in the second election.
I figure it will take one or two run off elections and the hardliners on either side will disappear for more moderate people.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Let's not forget that border patrol has authority up to 100 miles inland from the border (so just not around the border of Mexico). This means this tech could be used in most of the big cities around the U.S. The full details of the border can be found at http://www.thenation.com/article/180649/66-percent-americans-now-live-constitution-free-zone
Why is it that every time I read stories like this I just want to go punch a TSA agent in the cock?
The last time I flew back from international travel I got the privilege of getting photographed like all US citizens going through customs at JFK or Newark (I forget which one I went through in January) and decided to see what I could get away with. I have a black fedora I wear so I tipped my head down until the picture of my face was just a picture of my hat and flipped the camera the bird. The border agent seemed to be in a good mood as he chuckled when I brought the printed document that comes out of the machine up to him that has the picture on it. His only additional comment that it wasn't a very appropriate picture and waved me through. I figured at the time the worst that would happen is that I would be told to go back and fill it out again, get a proper picture and stand in line some more.
Time to offend someone
This has always been the destination of Statists since the very concept of State was invented by humans. The only effective limit is the capabilities of the State — sensory organs of rulers and their staff, and the recording and cataloging technologies of the times. Computers greatly expanded the latter in the past several decades, they are now expanding the former — and the State wishes to use everything available to the max, as it always did.
Why is it a false sense? It sure seems to be working. I'm not claiming, this is necessarily a good thing, but it is working...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Note, "Mandatory voting" typically means "Mandatory attendance".
In a mandatory voting society, it's entirely reasonable to spoil your ballot, or select RON.
You seem to think, that if the wall fails to prevent all trespass, it may as well not exist at all. This is profoundly wrong.
Contrary to your unsubstantiated statements, the wall did work in Berlin:
and still works in Israel:
A wall around my property is also working very nicely, thank you very much, as is one around the White House and other numerous installations world-wide, both private and public — fence-builders are not out of business, are they?
It didn't do much for China, because walls by themselves aren't enough — an unattended and unpatrolled border will be breached — but it still slows an invasion down and makes the defenders' (if there are any!) job easier.
One has to try real hard to get more wrong than you just did, congratulations...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
At the ATL airport. Pretty whizzy. I think it may have actually sped up the process. The only strange part was you basically move through a set of various stations and checks, like 4 or 5 before you finally talk with an agent about declarations at the end. It was pretty streamlined and pretty easy to use the devices.
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
While border crossing has typically meant displaying government issues documentation, primarily a passport and any related travel/entry visas. This requires informed consent of the traveller, they are asked to display their papers. The question is, what about programs that aren't obvious or informed consent?
The part that is concerning is the existence of classified "experiments" where is it not clear what information is being gathered, who has access to it, and how it is being used.
History has repeatedly shown that undisclosed, and/or unchecked surveillance ends up being misused against the public, not in the public interest.
If everything is legal, robust, and accurate, why does law enforcement has to be done in such a clandestine manner? The vast majority of identification / evidence techniques used in court are robust enough to withstand being challenged by the defence.
While these clandestine techniques being "experimented" with may be pure BS, being misused simply as a basis for law enforcement agents to continue practising age-old discrimination based on racial profiling, bigotry, and sterotypes, not any actual accurate information.
I have yet to see any compelling argument as to why the airline, TSA, or anybody else should care who I am when I fly. I could be the worst terrorist in the world, and if their security measures are adequately indicating that I'm unarmed, it's safe to let me fly.
It's a government issue and an airline issue, where they really want to know who I am for control over tickets and control over the people. Somewhere along the way their insistence that it was for security reasons became the accepted, unchallenged truth. "For security reasons" is not and should not be an excuse for anything they want to do.
P.S. Photo ID is not required to fly. They just make it way less convenient if you don't. See the TSA's own web site for info. http://www.tsa.gov/traveler-information/acceptable-ids
It is the mass of fuckers crossing over illegally that we have NO idea who they are or what they are possibly up to that bother me.
Why not channel all this money into actually making our borders more secure by making them LESS porous?!?!
Hell, dig a mote...make a minefield, let our snipers do training with errant live targets trying to invade our soil illegally.
Ok..so, maybe thats a bit extreme, but seriously....I'm not as afraid of anyone that is trying to come across AT the US customs manned crossing, it is the mass of folks coming over everywhere BUT there that I'm concerned with....spend the money there.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Just abolish Primaries and changing the voting method to something proportional or ranked so that they can vote for more than one. Then force all of them to run at once and have all the hardliners, moderates and even 3rd parties all on the ticket and in this way, voting for 3rd party isn't throwing your vote away anymore (But to be honest, voting for one you don't want is throwing your vote away anyways which is what they have already been doing).
Also, force immediate redistricting and force it to be done by an independent 3rd party or preferably, an open source computer program that all have access to along with the raw data used to draw districts and a seed number so all can verify the results at home. This way the states wouldn't be as gerrymandered as they are in my state (North Carolina). In my state, 1 republican vote has as much weight as 4 Democrat votes due to the way districts are drawn.
Then go as far as banning all government officials from working outside of government after serving even a portion of a term as they are already getting paid and benefits for life. Working for the government should be seen as the endgame, not as a stepping stone to a consulting or lobbying job. And would also force them to forfeit all interests and stock in any company for both them and their significant other before they can be sworn in as to remove any conflict of interests and also bar them from gifts from any company.
Also ban all donations from any groups, all donations must only come from individuals and the limit is capped at what a normal person could reasonably afford. This includes banning Unions, PACs, SuperPACs, Corporations and all. Also, any donations received must be returned to the donors or given to the government after an election, all officials are banned from profiting in any way from said donations.
There is much more I could do, but the general gist is to make the votes actually matter while minimizing the effect money has over the process and those in it.
so you mean build a wall like the Berlin wall?
..and I didn't speak up because i wasn't Mexican.
Remember, whether it's immigrants or Guantanamo prisoners: if it's good enough for Them, then it's good enough for Us.
Just dual boot the laptop and have it not ask which OS to load unless you tap a certain key during the boot sequence. Customs workers are happy because they think they have access, travelers are happy because their data is safe, and lawmakers can go fuck themselves because their ignorance precedes them.
The last time that I (a US citizen) flew back from Canada (last December), I got directed to a kiosk that I inserted my passport into and that took a photo of my face. When I got my last passport photo, I was clean shaven, had just got my haircut and was 20 lbs heavier. When I went through Passport Control, I hadn't had an opportunity to shave for a few days, I hadn't had much sleep either and it had been a couple months since I got my haircut. The kiosk could not match my passport photo against how I looked, so I was directed to a Immigrations officer. He could instantly tell that the photo matched my face.
Most of the people going through Passport Control didn't seem to have the same problem, which was fine because there was a long line for the station after the kiosk and no line for an Immigration officer, so, in the end, I got through more quickly.
No, not like the Berlin wall. A wall designed to keep people out, not in.
Then you can turn up, and make a big scene about spoiling your ballot.