The airports of the developed world have been turned into mini prototype police states, with little or no backlash from those forced to pass through them. But of course we’ll suffer any assault on our God-given rights to ‘save us from the terrorists,’ won’t we? This argument is based on the assumption that there are actual terrorists worth worrying about and secondly that the measures being taken in our airports are aimed at stopping their activity. Both claims cannot be substantiated.Following in the footsteps of several US counterparts, Sydney Airport recently announced its beta testing of face recognition biometric cameras, aimed at identifying ‘terrorists and other undesirable travellers’ according to the Sydney Morning Herald. As with all biometric technologies, the digital algorithms that make up your facial features are captured and compared with a computer database of criminals. If you resemble an enemy of the state then red flags are immediately coordinated to the operator and your dangerous terrorist activity is brought to a swift halt.
Proponents of this system fail to take into account that terrorist masterminds are hardly likely to use notorious criminals to carry out operations where their movements will be filmed a hundred times over. If there were nineteen hijackers on September 11 roaming around American airports, surely there would be multiple video sequences of their activity? The FBI says so but all they have provided us with is a dodgy tape of Atta with two different time stamps on it. The rest is classified ‘due to the ongoing investigation’.
Another fairly important factor related to facial recognition technology is that it doesn’t actually work. A Boston Globe report, cited by The Register, concludes that a similar test at Boston’s Logan Airport failed miserably. You see, not unlike a toaster that only has two settings – burnt and warm bread – facial recognition technology is either far too sensitive or positively laid back. Either Ahmed and his terrorist chums walk on by unhindered or a mother with a pram is likely to be subjected to an armed standoff. On the non-sensitive setting, anyone who is aware of the technology can avoid it by wearing a pair of sunglasses.
So what other methods will Big Brother present in order to ‘save us from the terrorists’?
In the first stage of what will eventually morph into the behemoth ‘Total Information Awareness’ – the US Justice Department has proposed anti-terrorism regulations that would entail everyone who wanted to fly in and out of the country would be forced to disclose detailed personal information. This report was carried by The Washington Times. Even though the Immigration and Naturalization Service would implement the regulations, the law would apply to American citizens. This at a time when both the northern and southern borders are more wide open than ever. The ACLU, more interested in making sure gay people are allowed to cavort in street parades, have declared no opposition to the proposal.
Some people, perhaps even most, would have no aversion to providing their name, date of birth, citizenship, sex, passport number, country of residence, U.S. visa number, and address while in the United States. I would certainly support such measures for foreigners if I were under the delusion that our governments had any incentive to prevent terrorism. But what most don’t realize is that this is only the initial stage of a nice little horror that the government has been planning for a year or more.
As can be judged from reports early last year by both The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times, these new proposals are merely the first generation in the creation of a centralized government database via the airports and airliners and one which will possibly form the largest chunk of Total Information Awareness.
Federal aviation authorities (power) in alliance with technology companies (greed) eventually plan to delve much deeper into your personal life, right down to your daily activities through to what magazines you read. This, according to Joseph Del Balzo, formerly with the FAA, will enable the government to have, “a pretty good idea of what’s going on in a person’s mind.” Such minute details would characterize an individual’s ‘threat assessment’ – so if you willingly submit to letting the government know how many times you go to the toilet a day then you’ll get a green security grade, cheap airline tickets, fast airport security checks, convenience and consumer love. On the other hand, if you have any semblance of morality or memories of what it was like to live in a free country and refuse the ‘trusted traveller pass’ – you’ll get a red security grade and will be rightly hassled for the subversive that you are.
The government will have a large task on its hands collating all the data, but has already been assured by market research companies that the system is workable. They will willingly pass on the data they’ve collected on you from all those annoying dinnertime calls, just for a small slice of the money pie. Big Brother then quashes our fears by promising us there is no possible scope for abuse of the program. Officials admit that ultimately the system is designed to be integrated into the biometric national ID card. Let me spell it out for you. A mandatory national ID card with your biometric thumbprint scanned on which tells the reader how the government view your behaviour on a scale of ‘submissive and compliant with state demands’ (green) to ‘definite subversive, possible enemy of the state and potential terrorist – 9pm house curfew’. Get the picture?
Just take a glance at how the early ‘security measures’ have played out at airports across the world. Every week we hear stories about 18-year-old zit faced adolescents fondling blonde haired, blue-eyed women because they might be terrorists. Or how obese, greasy old men take 8-year-old Katie aside for some ‘special screening’. Nicholas Monahan, a film producer, related the harrowing tale of how his pregnant wife was forced to expose herself and have screeners touch her breasts in full public view at Portland International Airport. Upon seeing his wife crying her eyes out, Monahan complained and was subsequently arrested and thrown in the airport jail (yes they do have those now). Monahan likened his experience to something out of The Gulag Archipelago. The trauma of the experience contributed to his wife having to have a caesarean section.
Don’t forget for a second that all this is coming from a government that is ‘manufacturing terrorist alerts to keep the issue alive in the minds of voters and to keep President Bush’s approval ratings high’ according to World Net Daily. Go look for the definition of terrorism in your dictionary and you’ll get something similar to, "The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.” By this very definition, the only group gaining a political advantage from terrorism or the threat of terrorism is the White House! Who is creating the ‘terrorist threat’ to justify the windfall of power and money that goes hand in glove with new airport security regulations? The very same group pushing the security regulations.
Here’s a solution that would prevent another September 11 from happening, along with preventing our airports from becoming police state processing points. It’s a solution that is loaded with common sense, guaranteed to work, but would make no money for technology companies and wouldn’t contribute to feeding Total Information Awareness, which is just coincidentally why the government has been dragging its feet over implementing it. Arm the pilots.
America wake up our rights are being taken away ! is that what you want ?
nice cut copy and paste job, eye rape, eye rape.
Reply:wow! it's too early for me to read all that, but i wanted to agree with you that our freedoms are being wiped out and i am mad as h*ll about it! putting a watch on this to read later today!
Reply:sorry to much to read .but i get what your trying to say .no i am concern with my right being violated .but i do think that we are living in a different world now after 9/11 so we have to give up a little of our freedoms to be safe to travail this country and overseas
Reply:The terrorists are not afraid of any number of powerful arms as they are prepared to sacrifice their lives in the execution of thier missions. arming the pilots even with atomic weapons is not going to save you or the innocent passengers on board any aircraft. The terrorists are engaged in the destructive activities for want of opportunity to work or lack of resources . They hafve an abundanc eof resources specaill y created for destructive activities all over the world . The safety of the innocent and ordinary people , women and children are more impotant than the civil rights of those who recent the incomvenience of being subjected to measures intorduced for ensuring safety . you have to decide for your yourself , between safety and right . if right ios impotant for you , you have to procure your own plane to perform you rjpurney and you can not put the lives of others to risk for your convenience . You can choose to die . it is your option. you can not decide that others should b killed for your petty pleasure in th ename of right . it is lways easy for anyone to criticize one who undertakes to discharge some funtion and responsibility . but it is dificultto for those who criticize others , to do the job themselves. No responsible gvoernment can ignore the saftetyof any individual whom it has got to deal with in some capacity or other.
people who are engaged in terrorism are not poor or lacking in resources . They have more money to recruit people all over th eworld and keep the governents in the whole world in tender hooks all the time . They have money to run several countries.They are not fighting agfainst any particular govenment for livberty or freedom of any particular people from su[ppression in any particular part of the world from any specific government . They are fight ing the entire world of non-muslims who are in noway concerned with them. This particular aspesct is to be taken note of . They are fighting and killing non-muslims . So the war that is going all over the world id one of pervert fundamentsl Islamists and civilisation. so the members of a particular community become suspects int the minds of people who do not belong to that community . This is an unfortunate situationthat the terrorits have managed intentionally to create so that they can create a disenchantment in the minds of the people of that particular community aginst the Governments all over the world , of non-muslims. Ths is not an esy to thing to manage . The only key to the solution is in the unity of all the weel -meaning people of all communities to join together to defeat the nefarious intention of the terrorists who are misusing religon for destructive activities.
People of the community whose name is getting tarnished by the terrorists shouel understnd that the pligh tot which they are put ot all over the world today is purposely created by the terrorists and that there is no use of blaming the others for the miseries created by the terrorists . The very purpose of the terroists is to turn the people against the administrations other than the ones that support them . by adopting a hit and run tactics . so that the poeple would bet harrased by the administrations for thier nefarious activities.This the pople must understand fully well and should not do any thing that would weaken the govenments in thir fight aginst this dirty and dangerous menance. There is a greater responsibility on the muslim community which is being exploited by the terrorists for thier purpose by using the name of their religon for destruction all over the world . They have to to be in the forefront of this fight against terrorism perpetuated in the name of their religion as they seem to be opposed to thier religon being identified as one of terrorists .and that it is the terrorists who are creating the bad name for their religon. Any thing in the nature of advising or compelling the administrations to surrender tothe terrorists would only mean that the people suggesting that course are acting in collusion with the terrorists as their civilian arm. So we have to to out up with the little inconveniences that we are subjected to on the very rare ocassion of an air journey and avoid playing inot the hands of the terrorists inthe least important causeof right agiinst the most dangerous situation of subjecting thosuands of innocent people to the risk of loosing thier lives for the pleasures of the fundamentalists .
remember that those who speak about the inconbeneiences do not travel by air daily and every body does it only occasionally and that for this inconvenience they are put up to on a rare occassion is nothing when compared to the safety of thousands of innocent people . so those who criiticize any adminsitration for the little discomfort that they are put to in the process of eliminating terrorists attacks cosul only expose themselves as friends of terrorists or in the least as irresponsible persons only. That is not right . Everybody should join in the fight aginst terrorism whatever be its denomination.
Reply:Arming the pilots is a good point.
However, living in DC, I think they do a great job at airport security at Reagan National, and if it will keep my family safe, I will put up with some small inconveniences, and that is all they are.
Last, your post is way too long, and I bet most people didn't read a third of it, which is kind of too bad since your points were interesting. I think you should make it a bit more concise and send it to a newspaper like the Washington Post as a letter to the editor.
Reply:What a soap box Y!A has become!! Your solution, as well as the accusations and assertions you make are 100% ludicrous! LOL!!
And by losing my rights do you mean my right to worship as I please, my right to own guns, to travel freely within my beautiful country, my right to buy or sell property, my right to eat what I want the way I want, my right to choose the ppl who govern me, my right to believe you or not? Do you mean those rights?
Do me a favor and stay away from MY America! If you're here already, then I strongly suggest you get out before you're found out! BTW; I have the right to say that to you, loser!
Reply:I love Big Brother. Lay off.
I would gladly let anyone read my mail, email, and diary. They can listen to my conversations and tape all they want! I don't do anything wrong so they can have at it if it means they will find a few bad seeds out there.
By the way, arming the pilots is a dangerous thing to do. If someone were to slip past the security as a fake pilot, or if someone were to get to the pilots, their gun could be used against them.
I say check away! I am willing to wait an extra hour or more to make sure my plane is safe. Taking into account human error, it is better than not doing anything!!!
Reply:After 9/11 it is a very difficult situation. America has lot of enemies both from outside and from within. Homeland security is brought in just to control these things. I feel as a normal US citizen flow with the tide as you have nothing to fear. So long you love your country and do not mean any harm let them do whatever they want and it is in no way affect the honest citizens.
Reply:What instance can you show where YOUR personal rights have been affected at ALL..???
Get a BLOG if you want to post your idiotic tyrades!
Reply:We are in the middle of WAR brought on by Islamo-Fascist PIGS that would like to destroy America and our
way of life and the extra security is absolutely necessary
to prevent any more 9/11s. Why don't people understand this????????
Reply:I need more money to afford any "rights."
What are you harping about?
Reply:Stopped reading after the second paragraph, a shame really, because you make some really good points and what I read was very well thought out. Can't you make it a bit shorter?
Reply:Are you running or not?
Reply:No. And we elect you to talk on our behalf to make this all go away and we can get back to our normal lives. If you speak as passoinatlly as you write, you got the job and I am sure that other agree.
Reply:Some body had a lot to say.
Reply:You know what...
*If* all the precautions taken at airports stops one- ONE - terrorist attack from being carried out inside the US then I am for whatever it takes to accomplish that. You have not lost ONE right. You may be scrutinized over a bit more but so what! You'll claim that WE are all losing our right to privacy. Baloney. There is nothing so sacred in my privacy (or yours) that it should not be scrutinized for the greater good of protecting each other and our country from any further attacks.
You lost your argument with me when you stated "This argument is based on the assumption that there are actual terrorists worth worrying about". Anyone that is ignorant enough to believe that there aren't terrorists worth worrying about has a problem bigger than what the government is supposedly trying to do.
What is it you are trying to do? I am tired of you and your kind playing games with me and my life and future.
This isn't some political game as you would like to have people believe. This is war and it is real.
Reply:I agree we should arm the pilots. I don't really have a big problem with identifying people at the airport though. We have been doing it through IDs and documentation for the past 40 years anyway.
I would be more concerned with proposals to put up cameras on every street corner to catch "speeders and red light runners". The cameras would be used to spy on the US public, as is being done as we speak with all the cameras already in place.
Reply:I agree on all points. this america is far too screwed up. Every politics and religions are paranoid and everything. It's a mess. We should do something about it. (I'm not joking, nor was i being sarcastic)
Reply:I would vote for you ................are you planning to run ..........?
The era of Big Brotherism has arrived .............
Reply:yep! arm the pilots, arm the people and may the best man win. But thats my opinion. Just no shooting in the back.
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