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The Secret Service Wants To Test Facial Recognition Around the White House (theverge.com)
The Secret Service is planning to test facial recognition surveillance around the White House, "with the goal of identifying 'subjects of interest' who might pose a threat to the president," reports The Verge. The document with the plans was published by the American Civil Liberties Union, describing "a test that would compare closed circuit video footage of public White House spaces against a database of images -- in this case, featuring employees who volunteered to be tracked." From the report: The test was scheduled to begin on November 19th and to end on August 30th, 2019. While it's running, film footage with a facial match will be saved, then confirmed by human evaluators and eventually deleted. The document acknowledges that running facial recognition technology on unaware visitors could be invasive, but it notes that the White House complex is already a "highly monitored area" and people can choose to avoid visiting. We don't know whether the test is actually in operation, however. "For operational security purposes we do not comment on the means and methods of how we conduct our protective operations," a spokesperson told The Verge.
The ACLU says that the current test seems appropriately narrow, but that it "crosses an important line by opening the door to the mass, suspicionless scrutiny of Americans on public sidewalks" -- like the road outside the White House. (The program's technology is supposed to analyze faces up to 20 yards from the camera.) "Face recognition is one of the most dangerous biometrics from a privacy standpoint because it can so easily be expanded and abused -- including by being deployed on a mass scale without people's knowledge or permission."
The ACLU says that the current test seems appropriately narrow, but that it "crosses an important line by opening the door to the mass, suspicionless scrutiny of Americans on public sidewalks" -- like the road outside the White House. (The program's technology is supposed to analyze faces up to 20 yards from the camera.) "Face recognition is one of the most dangerous biometrics from a privacy standpoint because it can so easily be expanded and abused -- including by being deployed on a mass scale without people's knowledge or permission."
With someone like Trump in office, it must be at least 10 times harder to keep people out who would want to kill him.
In all likelihood, they won't be White House records available for anyone other than law enforcement, however. They will most likely be classified Security / Law Enforcement / Secret Service data, privileged as strategic data and part of ongoing investigations into threats
Same deal as FBI records.... they contain private personal information about people and secret info about investigations and investigative procedures -- and therefore cannot be retrieved for public scrutiny. You can request your own FBI file under FOIA but not the FBI file of another person or details of a particular investigation, that is: just the same, not the dosiers about potential whitehouse visitors --- Recall, even senators could only briefly LOOK at parts of FBI investigation files related to Kavanaugh, and that required extremely tight controls to ensure that no senator could take any notes or retain any copies about info in the files.
That's how serious law enforcement is about controlling sensitive files, and the visitor listing will likely either be wiped in a few months or tightly cordoned off, so the only people who will ever see any of it are investigators in the SecretService.
Computer: I've got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. [scans target]
Target: I reveal my Inmost Self unto my God: MAGA!
Computer: Sigh.
On the other hand, Facebook doesn't send a SWAT team into your house when you they think maybe you did something they don't like. Government has a legal monopoly on violence.
I just figured they were already doing this. I mean why not?
Besides, if they were doing this are wanted to do this why would they even announce it. Just do it.
Anyone, scratch that, any American who would find a reason not to utilize this technology in and around the White House can GTFO in my opinion.
The White House, regardless of who currently resides there, is a sacred area of the USofA.
If you think this is just because of Trump, you may want to look back at the number of incidents which actually occurred when Obama lived there, including an armed intruder jumping the fence and actually ENTERING THE BUILDING and a mentally ill woman getting shot to death with a baby in her car after panicking, ramming the east entrance, and fleeing. Seriously, knock it off with the partisan shit. I know about 45% of the readers on this site blame Trump, Republicans, and straight white men for the entirety of the world's evils, but nutters being attracted to the White House are a completely non-partisan phenomenon.
Protections? Have you heard of Edward Snowden?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)