I am a Colorado resident, and I would like to clarify a few points I think some people are glossing over. A state government spokesperson who is extremely familiar with the program called into the local Mike Rosen radio talk show (a well known and popular Denver show) to discuss this system. Here are some of the points she clarified:
1. The primary purpose of this system is to prevent identity theft, which is a rapidly growing type of crime. The most basic type of identity theft (criminal obtains sufficient personal information on someone to request a new copy of their driver's license) would be directly blocked by this technology (new photo does not match old photo). And, although she did not say this, I would imagine that if there are any "close calls" or other questions, the final decision would be deferred to a human operator.
2. Contrary to an erroneous report on Friday by the AP, there are NO plans to begin photographing drivers in cars and comparing those photos to the drivers license database. This was not mentioned in the Denver Post article, but it appeared in the online version of the Denver Rocky Mountain News on Friday.
Once again, the purpose here is to combat identity theft. Mike Rosen stated that he thought this was an appropriate use of technology to combat this particular crime. He also stated that, while there are always concerns about potential future uses for these photographs, those nebulous future concerns do not lead him to oppose this technology at this time. I agree with him on both points.
Yes, it is possible to dream up many possible orwellian future uses for this technology. However, it is incumbent upon us, as citizens, to maintain knowledge of and vigilance over the actions of our elected officials to prevent future abuses of this and other surveillance technologies.
There is another ongoing NSA Secure Linux project. It is being done by the Computer Security Research Division at NSA. They are attempting to port the Flask Security Architecture to Linux. Flask is a policy-flexible OS security architecture.
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NSA headquarters:
. 105020,-76.766410&spn=0.033131,0.026307&t=k&hl=en
= 38.834428,-104.697948&spn=0.008283,0.006577&t=k&hl =en
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=fort+meade,md&ll=39
Headquarters AFSPACECOM (the left building), USNORTHCOM (middle building, still being built), and Army Space (right building, still being built):
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=schriever+afb,co&ll
I am a Colorado resident, and I would like to clarify a few points I think some people are glossing over. A state government spokesperson who is extremely familiar with the program called into the local Mike Rosen radio talk show (a well known and popular Denver show) to discuss this system. Here are some of the points she clarified:
1. The primary purpose of this system is to prevent identity theft, which is a rapidly growing type of crime. The most basic type of identity theft (criminal obtains sufficient personal information on someone to request a new copy of their driver's license) would be directly blocked by this technology (new photo does not match old photo). And, although she did not say this, I would imagine that if there are any "close calls" or other questions, the final decision would be deferred to a human operator.
2. Contrary to an erroneous report on Friday by the AP, there are NO plans to begin photographing drivers in cars and comparing those photos to the drivers license database. This was not mentioned in the Denver Post article, but it appeared in the online version of the Denver Rocky Mountain News on Friday.
Once again, the purpose here is to combat identity theft. Mike Rosen stated that he thought this was an appropriate use of technology to combat this particular crime. He also stated that, while there are always concerns about potential future uses for these photographs, those nebulous future concerns do not lead him to oppose this technology at this time. I agree with him on both points.
Yes, it is possible to dream up many possible orwellian future uses for this technology. However, it is incumbent upon us, as citizens, to maintain knowledge of and vigilance over the actions of our elected officials to prevent future abuses of this and other surveillance technologies.
Lincoln F. Sternn
There is another ongoing NSA Secure Linux project. It is being done by the Computer Security Research Division at NSA. They are attempting to port the Flask Security Architecture to Linux. Flask is a policy-flexible OS security architecture.
Their Secure Linux project page is available.