Smile for the US Secret Service

Judg3 writes "Apparently the United States federal government began a plan in 1997 to start a national photographic database, digitizing driver's license photos among other things. More details are availible online. " It's being test piloted in 3 states currently, while kudos goes to Electronic Privacy Information Center for uncovering the information about this program. As would be expected the bogeymen are "illegal immigrants and terrorists".

Comments

Privacy

[_Spirit]

Are there no privacy laws in the U.S. ? I'm from the Netherlands and we have fairly strict laws on privacy. Organisations always have to inform the people involved that they are/will be registered. Organisations even have to show you what they've got on you if you request it. (This does not apply to all information, criminal investigation stuff for example is different)
When these laws came into effect all organisations had to inform you what info they had on you and for what purpose. This opened my eyes a bit. I never visited a church in my life and found out I had been registered there as a member all my life.

Could someone tell me how this works in the U.S. ?

Message on our company Intranet:
"You have a sticker in your private area"

Alternate theories ...

[fable2112]

Illegal immigrants and terrorists AGAIN? Can't they come up with something original?? :)

"We're making a national database of driver's licenses to crack down on underage drinking!" Yeah, that's it!!

Unfortunately, that might actually get someone's attention. Most people aren't illegal immigrants or terrorists, but I'd say most of us had a beer or two hundred before reaching the magical 21st birthday. And unless DWI was involved, I somehow doubt most people would want to turn a 19-year-old trying to buy some alcohol into a federal criminal.

Is this the real reasoning behind the program? It might be a component. Who knows? It could be an easier way to track "subversive elements" (like I've posted on other threads, the FBI probably has a good-sized file on me, but it hasn't interfered with my life YET).

Or here's another interesting and somehow frightening thought: IIRC, strict followers of Islam do not believe in taking pictures of anyone or having any pictures taken of them. "You're not in our photo database, and you look Arabic ... you're obviously a terrorist." NOT good.

Anyone else got any to add to this? :)

Re:Alternate theories ...

[jabber]

The real reason for this, and other spooky things that have gone on lately is this (IMHO).

Job Security

Since the fall of the "evil empire" we have had lots of essoterically skilled people with nothing better to do. The government can't exactly have a layoff of people with these skills, since there are other countries - some of them adjacent to Kuwait and Iran, that would be willing to pay a lot of money for such skills.

So classifying, qualifying, quantifying and cataloguing the American public is the NSA/CIA/FBI/etc way of keeping their staff gainfully occupied with busywork. And as a side effect, the residual 'kill-a-commie' directors get another means of making a power grab later.