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Finnish Politician Suggests Embedding Chips In Citizens To Protect the Welfare State
New submitter janit writes that social benefits to Finnish citizens living outside of Finland have in recent days been the cause of controversy, and links to an article which suggests just how much of a controversy: A politician from the True Finns Party, Pasi Mäenranta, is also worried about the abuse of the benefits. He published a post on Facebook, where he suggests that all Finnish citizens leaving the country be embedded with an identification chip. Sounds like a parallel system might be a popular idea with some U.S. presidential candidates, too.
I guess we need a second installment of 1984 as the pace of ideas from authoritarian control freaks have exceeded Orwell's wildest nightmares.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
"Mäenranta is not worried about this being a violation of privacy, since people are already willingly tracked with smartphones, Google or Facebook."
Slippery slope, indeed.
Still, I'd argue that Google does not (yet) have the monopoly on legal use of force on their side.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Revelations 13:16-17:
And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name...
Just sayin', regardless of reality or fantasy, when your policy suggestion is basically the exact thing the devil does during the "end times," you might have a tough sell there.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Especially US presidential candidates....
--PM
He is using several arguments: we could track terrorists (== people going to Syria), we could find easily people in natural catastrophes. I think he missed one of the advantages. If everyone, including children, has a gps chip, and the data about location is stored for a reasonable amount of time (let's say 50 years, but more is possible) we will be able to find possible pedophiles if a children complains, even 50 years later!
How about we punish people who abuse the welfare system with blacklisting from it? In the US, our Office of the Inspector General for Social Security found that the Social Security Administration was committing black letter of the law violations on about 25% of the Social Security Disability payments it was awarding. That means the floor for how much corruption is 25% of all transfer payments. Send the employees involved to prison and blacklist the fraudulent recipients from receiving it, even if later they end up needing it after all. Cruel? You bet. That's a feature in dealing with welfare cheats. If they're going to cheat the current recipients who need it and the tax payers, then by God society isn't going to have a wad of cash ready for when they do need it.
I think that at least with smartphones he misses the point, when they were introduced the point wasn't to track the individual carrying the phone, it was to provide the individual with the ability to communicate and to use applications for productivity. Arguably some of the first smartphones from Qualcomm didn't even have data service, the productivity applications were entirely centered on the phone, and they were essentially Palm Pilots with a telephone function added to them.
Jump to the modern phone, and you find that if people use features that allow them to "check in" from a given location, they only use that feature when they choose to use that feature. They do not state their location everywhere they go, they use it selectively, to essentially boast, or because they earn a living through online connectedness and marketing and it is to their advantage to share far too much information with the rest of us.
As to the data communication between the handset and the carrier, that's an unfortunate necessity of the technology. The frequencies and density of users means that phones have to be tracked in order to remain in communication with them as they roam about a given area and change towers. The average cell user doesn't really understand how that technology works either, but would probably not be happy if their movements were being logged everywhere they went, an that theoretically should be privileged information between the carrier and the subscriber, as in the United States, one Federal Circuit has recently ruled.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
... Europe considers implementing a new chip-in-Finn system!
I'm all for embedding chips in politician to protect the state... oh, wait ...
I don't think our education system is a laughingstock - people fall all over themselves to attend school here. Our crappy urban and rural public schools are the laughingstock.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Social Security Retirement is payable outside the USA now for citizens and other approved people (green card holders etc) who live in certain countries with agreements with the USA. This should continue. I worked and paid into Social Security Retirement as per the agreements. I would expect my money when I complete the requirements. But I don't hold my breath. Wall Street wants every penny of retirement money they can get their hands on.
However, Social Security also has many other programs that I do not mind curtailing if the recipient lives outside of the country. Social Security Disability is one. SSI (Supplemental Security Income) is another. Both are cut off if you are outside of the country over 6 months. Medicare does not cover anyone outside the USA as far as I know.
I gotta ask.... why do you exempt state pension from the mix? If I worked for the Sate of Ohio all my life I could retire to Thailand without a loss of income? But I cannot take my a Federal pension with me?
It really keeps me going.
I just really like to call out people with blinders and agendas, as certain mods obviously have.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
You must be talking about Republicans.
You know, the ones who keep trying to dictate the lives of those who receive public benefits, telling them which food to buy ('they bought expensive meat!"), controlling their sex lives ("stop having so many kids....but don't contraception or get an abortion!"), and telling them how they don't deserve a minimum wage ("you don't deserve to live outside of poverty and out of the street!! but you stould still get an education you cant afford and pick yourself up by your bootstraps!"), trying to keep them voting ("a day off to vote? this isn't a democracy!"), and so forth.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Let's face it, the Bible is allegory and the Social Security number is the number you fear. You are marked with it at birth, and though it may not appear physically on your skin, it is embeded in your mind, and written by (in) your dominant (right) hand every time you complete a business transaction. It is essentially a permanent number which identifies you and is almost impossible to change. You are taxed through it, every business is tracked by it, every significant financial transaction requires it - to buy a house, get a car, apply for government help, collect disability or retirement benefits, even to sign up for tickets to the Masters golf tournament.
To not see that the beast has already taken over and given to embed a number in everyone is to be blind to what has already occurred. The chip isn't the problem, the chip is just a convenience. It's your participation in the entire last century of society that dooms you to hell.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Scandinavian welfare states evolved from the traditional communitarian cultures of these countries. Within this culture, the Lutheran moral code promotes helping each other out in time of need while stigmatizing freeloading.
But now Europe as a whole is facing an uncontrollable, Arizona-style flood of refugees who are not part of this culture and who do not feel restrained by the Lutheran moral code. Now Finland has its first Joe Arpaio.
Typical retail clerk, probably per store policy, in a power outage will be to say "Can't do it." Can't/won't take cash because "the computers are down". You can tote up the costs and add the tax and have exact change, but they still won't make the effort to accept it because "the computers are down".
"Finland is beginning to sound like a shithole"
This guy belongs to a party called "True Finns". He's obviously a nazi douchebag. You have a point, though, since this party got 17.7% of the votes in the 2015 parlamentary elections, becoming the second largest one.
There was one senator who voted against the Patriot Act, and it was not a Republican.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
You are welcome on my lawn.
So tell me which party voted 100% to compel Americans to buy a contract from private companies under penalty of fines? Which party voted 100% against this? Which party lied their ass off about the results it would have? If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. It will not add a thin dime to the deficit. The average family will save $2,500 per year. There are no death panels. Etc. Is this ringing any bells? Which party is illegally regulating CO2 as a pollutant? Anyone who believes there is a spit of difference between the two major parties is delusional. This is why conservatives are in open rebellion against the establishment republicans.
So the Democrats don't want to tell me I can't have a firearm, that I must have health insurance, that I can or can't do business with Cuba or Iran... You see? It's both major parties that are statist and controlling. They just keep people divided over which parts of your life they want to control more. If you want less control over your life exercised by the state, try the Libertarians.
Yes, Feinstein just wants to tax your firearms, not ban them completely. Keep telling yourself that.
If illegals voted 80% for Rs, the Ds would seal the border tomorrow.
Most of Europe requires photo ID to vote, or require documentation that would be needed to get a photo ID. I know Germany, the Netherlands, and Ireland all require photo ID or similar documentation to vote. I somehow doubt that all of these countries have fallen victim to a nefarious Republican plot to disenfranchise the poor. Only in the U.S. is it controversial to require an ID to vote.
No, you are the moron if you think borders don't matter. You hide behind cynicism and ridicule as if they make you sound intelligent. They don't. You sound childish. Grow up.