:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::
"Everything is being compressed into tiny tablets. You take a little pill of news every day - 23 minutes - and that's supposed to be enough." -Walter Cronkite, RE TV news. The Web has changed that for many, however, and here is an extra dose for your daily news cocktail. This prescription tends to include surveillance and now war-related links, along with the occasional pop culture junk and whatever else seizes my attention as I scan online news sites.:: 2.18.2003 ::
:: fftgffr (food for thought, grounds for further research) ::
Perspective: Closer to a national ID plan?
A News.com report by Declan McCullagh
February 17, 2003, 4:00 AM PT
WASHINGTON--A little-known company called EagleCheck is hoping to provide a standardized identity check technique that governments and corporations will use to verify that you are who you claim to be.
If EagleCheck or a system like it succeeds, it becomes eerily possible to imagine a future in which identity card readers are omnipresent, girding us in a constant mesh of surveillance. Want to pick up your car from the parking garage? Insert your identity card and forefinger in the reader first. Going to work at the office or coming home to an apartment building? Better make sure you have that microchipped card with you. Have any unpaid parking tickets anywhere in the United States? Better just stay at home.
Needless to say, this massive database would end up bursting with detailed records of all our life's activities. It would be incredibly valuable to police and create an irresistible temptation for misuse, either through corrupt officials or through electronic intrusions. I'm not saying that such a scenario is happening today. It isn't. But it's possible, and if there's another terrorist attack on the United States, all bets are off.
posted by me
:: 10:56:00 AM [+] ::
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