A similar joke was made at the North American meeting of the Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators.
Quebec is the only jurisdiction in North America that issues a digital driver's license but doesn't retain the photographs (that might have changed since 2004, but at the time, the provincial assembly would not allow that to occur for privacy reasons.)
Apparently the head* of the Alberta licensing system yelled out that Alberta would be happy to keep the digital photographs of Quebecois since Quebec couldn't.
*as is expected with this joke, the friend of mine at this meeting noted that the guy was a douche.
I get a better deal with an ATM card through paypal than I get through my own bank. I actually collect interest on all my money as if it were a savings account. My "free" checking at my bank doesn't give me interest on money in my checking account. And if I put money in my savings account I can get fined for taking money out of it too often.
To be fair, the only problems I've heard about happen to people who use their accounts for selling on ebay. Those of us like you and me, who basically use the Paypal account as really good secondary bank account, don't seem to incur the wrath of Paypal.
I think one could argue that Mr. Harper doesn't oppose RFID as much as he finds it impotent.
Though I've only met him once, and haven't read fully his book Identity Crisis I think he is very anti-RFID but chose only to discuss the issue in the context of how well it works for that particular blog entry.
I believe him to be very pro-privacy and civil liberties, but he often chooses to argue against a system on efficacy grounds instead of invoking philosophical arguments.
For all the love that the US government and big corporations seem to have for 'free trade' and 'globalization', they don't seem interested in open borders.
Open borders are a threat to power for the government. However I'd say that big corporations are sympathetic to open border concepts, and would prefer to see them.
It's not like they haven't been quiet to this point. Many are pushing for raising the H1B cap (or eliminating the cap.) There has been a lot of corporate concern regarding the US-VISIT program. Surprise, surprise--photographing and fingerprinting everyone who comes to the US is having a negative effect on tourism and trade.
Keep in mind, the political parties are schizophrenic on these issues. Republicans wanted to lift the H1B cap (generally) but implement US-VISIT. Democrats want the H1B cap low, but I think they could be talked into making US-VISIT less severe.
Like I say, its the last time I'll be spending my well earned cash in the States
Good for you. As an American I applaud you. I certainly wouldn't visit any country that photographed and fingerprinted me as a condition of entry, and I wouldn't expect anyone else to either.
I'm curious--Where did the retinal scan take place?
This issue is a common misconception. I actually want to say that there was a time at the beginning where people with machine readable passports from the visa waiver countries were exempt, but some issue fell through, and they decided to do everyone who wasn't Canadian, Mexican, or arriving with a diplomatic/NATO visa.
The only circumstance I think it's justifiable is hospitals and other situations in which there's a lot of employees mingling with non-employees. Even then, I think I might be justifying that psychologically because I can't find any other logical basis for the card.
I've cautioned against employee ID cards with the name/logo on the card. I believe this presents a major liability problem if the employee (or someone else who looks kinna like the employee) decides to use the card for a nefarious purpose. If you must have an ID card, it's best that the card not indicate the issuer. The human mind processes the photograph to face comparison so quickly that other things can be missed.
Some security types and myself were discussing the odd fetish for employee ID cards. One suggested that if a building insists on having one, it would be better to have the document not contain a photograph, but instead stick with the description information (height, weight, eye color--like a non-photo driver's license.) The reason for this is that security guards would be more likely to give a better look at the person holding the card and might be more likely to pick up something that's amiss.
One would think that the state would require the sourcecode for due diligence...
My county (Franklin County, Ohio) expressed a "strong preference" for their voting machine vendor to provide the source code to a 3rd party elections systems assessor.
It was not a requirement, but the fact that Diebold wouldn't, but ES&S would was one of the reason why Franklin County chose the ES&S system.
Keep in mind, there was no directive from the Ohio Secretary of State on this issue, nor a law from the General Assembly requiring it. Franklin County probably has the most concerned and intelligent leadership running its board of elections, and in that regard, establishes great precedence for the other 87 counties, but they are certainly not under obligation to follow its lead.
What the hell does the cost of counting the votes have to do with ensuring continuity of democracy? Are we really willing to toss out our liberties for the cost of a good porn magazine?
Except for a few particular situations (such as voting for the disabled ) I believe that mail-in voting is superior to traditional voting, particularly when you factor the costs into account (which will likely cause most American jurisdictions, in the long run, to go to mail-in voting.) In Ohio, elections are funded at the county level, and many counties struggle to cover the costs. (I don't see the state or federal legislature changing this issue anytime soon. One county board of elections has had to sue the county for more funding.)
I'm a pollworker this year in my county. I've decided to do it again because I suspect pollworking will become extinct sooner than later.
A $100 PC in a $50 arcade cabinet with a $20 printer could do everything that a perfect voting machine needs to do
I couldn't agree with you more.
It's absurd that we should spend $5k on a machine that gets used only twice a year, and probably has maximum lifespan of 20 years, but more realistically 5-10 years.
Assuming 250 voters per machine per elections (which is very high) 2 elections per year at 10 years and you get a capital cost of $1/voter without depreciation. That might not sound so bad to you, but the human resource costs (poll workers, machine rovers, people to deliver, setup machines, etc) are enormous.
When you put it alltogether, the average cost for a voter to vote in person is somewhere between $7-$12/voter. If they did it by mail, that cost goes down to $3/voter.
Other famous democratic countries do use pencil and paper.
To be fair, a Canadian Federal election basically has one choice for voters to make--their MP. So do other Parliamentary systems.
In 2004, here in Ohio, I had 54 different race and issue choices. I have my mail-in ballot in front of me right now, and this year I've got 31 choices (6 statewide offices, 1 congressional, 2 general assembly, 2 county offices, 14 judgeships, and 6 state and county referenda.)
Counting all that by hand would be an enormously complex task.
The poll workers should be required to have an extra one on hand just in case one breaks. It would be used to stand in for the one that was being checked.
In my county (Franklin County, Ohio) that would be an extra 1200 machines at a cost of $5000 per machine. That seems like a lot for the purpose of random testing. (It also messes around with the process workflow of how machines are activated and turned off at the end of the day. At this point in time, only machine rovers (people who go from precinct to precinct and have the keys to open and fix the machines) can turn them on/off during the election.)
Assuming that you truthfully reported what you were doing, certain conclusions can be drawn regarding your behavior and intentions at wherever it is you are.
"I'm at the mall" can imply a bunch of activities, but probably not drug consumption or doing homework. "Playing football" lends itself to the same implications.
My point is that a lot of these activities are not as amorphous as "being on the computer" (which, at least, doesn't imply drug consumption.) Self-reporting what you're doing on a computer can be done reasonably truthfully and yet produce a massively incomplete picture of what may be happening.
As with anything, a parent has to have some type of framework to determine what is good or bad for their child to be doing. ("At the mall now? With person X and Y. I guess that's ok.) What type of framework can a parent legitimately develop for being on a computer?
So Jacob's parents can't be bothered to, you know, go see wtf this kid is doing on MySpace?
I think people severely understimate the complexity of monitoring what their children do on Myspace.
Several notable issues arise:
a.) Being on the computer is not a particularly homogenous activity. Going to the mall, coffee shop, or downtown to Main street at 3am is. On the computer, you can be doing at least 10 things simultaneously, some of which may be productive (such as homework and research) and other things less so (such as instant messaging and Myspace.) Because they are multitasking, it's very difficult for a parent to discern what they are doing without watching, basically, their every mouseclick...
b.) which is essentially impossible (unless the parent installs software to do this, which is a non-starter thanks to issue c.)) Looking over someone's shoulder as they are on a computer is an invasive process (significantly more invasive than most are willing to attempt. After all, your cliche teenager story of mom reading her daughter's diary always happens when the mom finds the diary and the teenager isn't around.) Even for the most hardened parent who doesn't mind doing this, it can be mind-numbing and time wasting (again, owing to the fact that the individual could do 1000 other productive/benign things while their parents are watching.)
c.) The intergenerational technology gap is a handicap for parents. Just about all of human history was spent with wisdom and information flowing downwards age wise. We are in a fascinating time period where quite a lot of information of modern life flows upward from children to parents (much of which is key to "survival." Who on this board has helped their parent master something on the computer that they needed for work?) Because children are essentially the gate-keepers to technology information for their parents, it's very complex for parents to begin questioning how their gate-keepers are using technology.
I'm always a little surprised that some people get worked up about voter fraud when it's far easier and cheaper to pull shenanigans before the first vote is even cast (such as the province holding a referendum that was adjusted to require a majority of registered voters to vote yes. Frankly, after learning this, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the identification requirements were a form of voter supression based on their design.)
Leaving that aside, yes, pollworker fraud is entirely built around the accuracy of the voter list. The state has the responsibility to make sure deceased voters are removed; when they are not, and the pollworkers know they are dead, then it's easy for them to cast a vote in that person's name, and then blame someone off the street for doing the deed.
Why... how absolutely barbaric! I never realized that you Canadians were such... such... racists!
I believe only Quebec has ID requirements. Further, there are ways of dealing with people who don't have ID.
Their ID requirements are either a health card, a driver's license or a passport. The new Quebec health card has a photograph, but I believe many do not. Quebec does not require a photograph on the driver's license (and is the only jurisdiction in North America which does not archive the photographs.)
Quebec is surprisingly sympathetic to ID privacy issues.
You bring along an extra suitcase and they seal you inside at the check in counter.
In the movie the Fifth Element, the interplanetary ship basically did that. I know quite a lot of people who believe that sticking passengers in boxes and drugging them for flight is inevitable.
I'd be curious to see if they continue demanding ID to fly under the security ruse.
My answer, frankly, was based on anecdotal interviews (from me and others) when we'd ask Germans "why do you put up with mandatory ID cards?" or "why do you put up with mandatory police registration?" Their answers tended to be along the lines of "it's ok because it makes government work faster." It was unique because when I ask my relatives in Latin America why they deal with similar, the response I get is vastly different.
We should just tell the US to go fuck themselves over the data and not travel there
I'm actually blown away that so many people are willing to travel voluntarily to the US based on the new laws. The first thing we do to everyone who isn't a Canadian or Mexican is photograph and fingerprint them. I wouldn't travel to any country that did that to me. (And I do support other countries doing it to US citizens until we stop doing it to their citizens.)
This article implies that some tourists are already telling the US to go to hell.
Nevertheless, many Americans have reacted to the information with a collective yawn.
My Ohio now allows mail-in voting simply for the asking (no conditions needed.) According to the local papers, the quantity of mail in ballots being requested has increased dramatically (I personally don't doubt that Ohio will become an all mail in state in a few years, like Oregon.)
According to informal research, the top reason for requesting the mail in ballot is to avoid the lines. The second reason--distrust of the voting machines. I've met with the Director of my county's Board of Elections, and in spite of their work (Franklin County was the only county to require 3rd party examination of source code of voting machines) people are highly distrustful.
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Well, in fairness the state does offer free state-issued ID cards from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles if you don't have a license.
Georgia and Missiouri similar laws were rejected because while the ID card might be free, the birth certificate needed to get one is not.
A similar joke was made at the North American meeting of the Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators.
Quebec is the only jurisdiction in North America that issues a digital driver's license but doesn't retain the photographs (that might have changed since 2004, but at the time, the provincial assembly would not allow that to occur for privacy reasons.)
Apparently the head* of the Alberta licensing system yelled out that Alberta would be happy to keep the digital photographs of Quebecois since Quebec couldn't.
*as is expected with this joke, the friend of mine at this meeting noted that the guy was a douche.
I get a better deal with an ATM card through paypal than I get through my own bank. I actually collect interest on all my money as if it were a savings account. My "free" checking at my bank doesn't give me interest on money in my checking account. And if I put money in my savings account I can get fined for taking money out of it too often.
To be fair, the only problems I've heard about happen to people who use their accounts for selling on ebay. Those of us like you and me, who basically use the Paypal account as really good secondary bank account, don't seem to incur the wrath of Paypal.
I think one could argue that Mr. Harper doesn't oppose RFID as much as he finds it impotent.
Though I've only met him once, and haven't read fully his book Identity Crisis I think he is very anti-RFID but chose only to discuss the issue in the context of how well it works for that particular blog entry.
I believe him to be very pro-privacy and civil liberties, but he often chooses to argue against a system on efficacy grounds instead of invoking philosophical arguments.
For all the love that the US government and big corporations seem to have for 'free trade' and 'globalization', they don't seem interested in open borders.
Open borders are a threat to power for the government. However I'd say that big corporations are sympathetic to open border concepts, and would prefer to see them.
It's not like they haven't been quiet to this point. Many are pushing for raising the H1B cap (or eliminating the cap.) There has been a lot of corporate concern regarding the US-VISIT program. Surprise, surprise--photographing and fingerprinting everyone who comes to the US is having a negative effect on tourism and trade.
Keep in mind, the political parties are schizophrenic on these issues. Republicans wanted to lift the H1B cap (generally) but implement US-VISIT. Democrats want the H1B cap low, but I think they could be talked into making US-VISIT less severe.
It's spelled correctly.
As a friend of mine in Jersey once said under similar circumstances: "How much fucking professionalism you want anyway?"
(It's not the lack of professionalism that's bothering me, it's the fact that the "from the...dept" doesn't make any sense here.)
Like I say, its the last time I'll be spending my well earned cash in the States
Good for you. As an American I applaud you. I certainly wouldn't visit any country that photographed and fingerprinted me as a condition of entry, and I wouldn't expect anyone else to either.
I'm curious--Where did the retinal scan take place?
The China Daily article is clearly incorrect.
This issue is a common misconception. I actually want to say that there was a time at the beginning where people with machine readable passports from the visa waiver countries were exempt, but some issue fell through, and they decided to do everyone who wasn't Canadian, Mexican, or arriving with a diplomatic/NATO visa.
everybody should have an employee ID card anyways
They should? Why? What exactly is achieved?
The only circumstance I think it's justifiable is hospitals and other situations in which there's a lot of employees mingling with non-employees. Even then, I think I might be justifying that psychologically because I can't find any other logical basis for the card.
I've cautioned against employee ID cards with the name/logo on the card. I believe this presents a major liability problem if the employee (or someone else who looks kinna like the employee) decides to use the card for a nefarious purpose. If you must have an ID card, it's best that the card not indicate the issuer. The human mind processes the photograph to face comparison so quickly that other things can be missed.
Some security types and myself were discussing the odd fetish for employee ID cards. One suggested that if a building insists on having one, it would be better to have the document not contain a photograph, but instead stick with the description information (height, weight, eye color--like a non-photo driver's license.) The reason for this is that security guards would be more likely to give a better look at the person holding the card and might be more likely to pick up something that's amiss.
One would think that the state would require the sourcecode for due diligence...
My county (Franklin County, Ohio) expressed a "strong preference" for their voting machine vendor to provide the source code to a 3rd party elections systems assessor.
It was not a requirement, but the fact that Diebold wouldn't, but ES&S would was one of the reason why Franklin County chose the ES&S system.
Keep in mind, there was no directive from the Ohio Secretary of State on this issue, nor a law from the General Assembly requiring it. Franklin County probably has the most concerned and intelligent leadership running its board of elections, and in that regard, establishes great precedence for the other 87 counties, but they are certainly not under obligation to follow its lead.
I'm pretty sure the parent was trying to say they were unpaid. The fact that they are not forced was a given.
Most poll workers are volunteers.
I'd be surprised if that were the case in even one state (but I could be wrong.)
Here in Ohio, pollworkers are paid $95/day. They need about 4000 pollworkers just in my county.
In New York city, they pay $200 per day. California appears to pay $70-$100. They get $6/hr in Harris County, Texas.. And $200/day in Essex County, New Jersey.
I also found that Florida, Missouri, Alaska pay pollworkers. I haven't seen a state that doesn't yet.
What the hell does the cost of counting the votes have to do with ensuring continuity of democracy? Are we really willing to toss out our liberties for the cost of a good porn magazine?
Except for a few particular situations (such as voting for the disabled ) I believe that mail-in voting is superior to traditional voting, particularly when you factor the costs into account (which will likely cause most American jurisdictions, in the long run, to go to mail-in voting.) In Ohio, elections are funded at the county level, and many counties struggle to cover the costs. (I don't see the state or federal legislature changing this issue anytime soon. One county board of elections has had to sue the county for more funding.)
I'm a pollworker this year in my county. I've decided to do it again because I suspect pollworking will become extinct sooner than later.
A $100 PC in a $50 arcade cabinet with a $20 printer could do everything that a perfect voting machine needs to do
I couldn't agree with you more.
It's absurd that we should spend $5k on a machine that gets used only twice a year, and probably has maximum lifespan of 20 years, but more realistically 5-10 years.
Assuming 250 voters per machine per elections (which is very high) 2 elections per year at 10 years and you get a capital cost of $1/voter without depreciation. That might not sound so bad to you, but the human resource costs (poll workers, machine rovers, people to deliver, setup machines, etc) are enormous.
When you put it alltogether, the average cost for a voter to vote in person is somewhere between $7-$12/voter. If they did it by mail, that cost goes down to $3/voter.
Other famous democratic countries do use pencil and paper.
To be fair, a Canadian Federal election basically has one choice for voters to make--their MP. So do other Parliamentary systems.
In 2004, here in Ohio, I had 54 different race and issue choices. I have my mail-in ballot in front of me right now, and this year I've got 31 choices (6 statewide offices, 1 congressional, 2 general assembly, 2 county offices, 14 judgeships, and 6 state and county referenda.)
Counting all that by hand would be an enormously complex task.
The poll workers should be required to have an extra one on hand just in case one breaks. It would be used to stand in for the one that was being checked.
In my county (Franklin County, Ohio) that would be an extra 1200 machines at a cost of $5000 per machine. That seems like a lot for the purpose of random testing. (It also messes around with the process workflow of how machines are activated and turned off at the end of the day. At this point in time, only machine rovers (people who go from precinct to precinct and have the keys to open and fix the machines) can turn them on/off during the election.)
Assuming that you truthfully reported what you were doing, certain conclusions can be drawn regarding your behavior and intentions at wherever it is you are.
"I'm at the mall" can imply a bunch of activities, but probably not drug consumption or doing homework. "Playing football" lends itself to the same implications.
My point is that a lot of these activities are not as amorphous as "being on the computer" (which, at least, doesn't imply drug consumption.) Self-reporting what you're doing on a computer can be done reasonably truthfully and yet produce a massively incomplete picture of what may be happening.
As with anything, a parent has to have some type of framework to determine what is good or bad for their child to be doing. ("At the mall now? With person X and Y. I guess that's ok.) What type of framework can a parent legitimately develop for being on a computer?
So Jacob's parents can't be bothered to, you know, go see wtf this kid is doing on MySpace?
I think people severely understimate the complexity of monitoring what their children do on Myspace.
Several notable issues arise:
a.) Being on the computer is not a particularly homogenous activity. Going to the mall, coffee shop, or downtown to Main street at 3am is. On the computer, you can be doing at least 10 things simultaneously, some of which may be productive (such as homework and research) and other things less so (such as instant messaging and Myspace.) Because they are multitasking, it's very difficult for a parent to discern what they are doing without watching, basically, their every mouseclick...
b.) which is essentially impossible (unless the parent installs software to do this, which is a non-starter thanks to issue c.)) Looking over someone's shoulder as they are on a computer is an invasive process (significantly more invasive than most are willing to attempt. After all, your cliche teenager story of mom reading her daughter's diary always happens when the mom finds the diary and the teenager isn't around.) Even for the most hardened parent who doesn't mind doing this, it can be mind-numbing and time wasting (again, owing to the fact that the individual could do 1000 other productive/benign things while their parents are watching.)
c.) The intergenerational technology gap is a handicap for parents. Just about all of human history was spent with wisdom and information flowing downwards age wise. We are in a fascinating time period where quite a lot of information of modern life flows upward from children to parents (much of which is key to "survival." Who on this board has helped their parent master something on the computer that they needed for work?) Because children are essentially the gate-keepers to technology information for their parents, it's very complex for parents to begin questioning how their gate-keepers are using technology.
I'm always a little surprised that some people get worked up about voter fraud when it's far easier and cheaper to pull shenanigans before the first vote is even cast (such as the province holding a referendum that was adjusted to require a majority of registered voters to vote yes. Frankly, after learning this, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the identification requirements were a form of voter supression based on their design.)
Leaving that aside, yes, pollworker fraud is entirely built around the accuracy of the voter list. The state has the responsibility to make sure deceased voters are removed; when they are not, and the pollworkers know they are dead, then it's easy for them to cast a vote in that person's name, and then blame someone off the street for doing the deed.
Why... how absolutely barbaric! I never realized that you Canadians were such... such... racists!
I believe only Quebec has ID requirements. Further, there are ways of dealing with people who don't have ID.
Their ID requirements are either a health card, a driver's license or a passport. The new Quebec health card has a photograph, but I believe many do not. Quebec does not require a photograph on the driver's license (and is the only jurisdiction in North America which does not archive the photographs.)
Quebec is surprisingly sympathetic to ID privacy issues.
Now, of course, during elections the voter ID thing should catch most of these people from not voting
That assumes that the source of voter fraud was from people coming off the street and voting multiple times.
That's complex to pull off and rare. Much more likely to be pollworkers performing the fraud themselves.
You bring along an extra suitcase and they seal you inside at the check in counter.
In the movie the Fifth Element, the interplanetary ship basically did that. I know quite a lot of people who believe that sticking passengers in boxes and drugging them for flight is inevitable.
I'd be curious to see if they continue demanding ID to fly under the security ruse.
My answer, frankly, was based on anecdotal interviews (from me and others) when we'd ask Germans "why do you put up with mandatory ID cards?" or "why do you put up with mandatory police registration?" Their answers tended to be along the lines of "it's ok because it makes government work faster." It was unique because when I ask my relatives in Latin America why they deal with similar, the response I get is vastly different.
We should just tell the US to go fuck themselves over the data and not travel there
I'm actually blown away that so many people are willing to travel voluntarily to the US based on the new laws. The first thing we do to everyone who isn't a Canadian or Mexican is photograph and fingerprint them. I wouldn't travel to any country that did that to me. (And I do support other countries doing it to US citizens until we stop doing it to their citizens.)
This article implies that some tourists are already telling the US to go to hell.
Nevertheless, many Americans have reacted to the information with a collective yawn.
My Ohio now allows mail-in voting simply for the asking (no conditions needed.) According to the local papers, the quantity of mail in ballots being requested has increased dramatically (I personally don't doubt that Ohio will become an all mail in state in a few years, like Oregon.)
According to informal research, the top reason for requesting the mail in ballot is to avoid the lines. The second reason--distrust of the voting machines. I've met with the Director of my county's Board of Elections, and in spite of their work (Franklin County was the only county to require 3rd party examination of source code of voting machines) people are highly distrustful.