buckthesystem

This kind of reminds me of "Dad's Army" in a way __________________________________________________ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10...e--cleared.html A council publishing 'Wanted' photographs of alleged litterbugs insisted today that it has a legal right to identify suspects - even if they are eventually cleared. As town halls face a growing revolt over new powers to issue on-the-spot fines and access people's personal data, one authority has already handed cameras to litter teams who patrol the streets for anyone dropping so much as a matchstick. The crackdown has been launched by Colchester Borough Council, which claims it has been checked and approved by their lawyers and the police. Its team of six 'street care officers' will now photograph everyone caught dropping litter in the council's 160-square mile area including Colchester town centre and surrounding villages. And the council say the photographs will be kept on file indefinitely because people caught may re-offend. Today council chiefs defended its policy as it emerged that across Britain town hall workers are being armed with sweeping police-style powers to hand out fines for a raft of offences. Officials say the Colchester scheme was introduced after a 23-year-old local woman was caught by a litter warden dropping a cigarette butt, but gave a false name and address when handed a

I came across this, and it is almost exactly what I have concluded recently, except for the part where it says "...legitimate security concerns exist in this age of terrorism..." (as I think the "terrorism" threat is greatly exaggerated, and I believe that there is no way that real id was created "because of terrorism" either. I believe that "terrorism" has just been used to scare people into accepting things like "real id"). Anyway, please read it and tell me what you think. ______________________________________ http://www.newswithviews.com/guest_opinion/guest128.htm "REAL ID, The Constitution And The Mark Of The Beast" By Representative Sam E. Rohrer August 24, 2008 NewsWithViews.com History offers many examples of societies which have sought to increase security by sacrificing freedom. America itself provides many pertinent instances. However, our founding fathers have not left us without wisdom on this issue. Ben Franklin has famously stated, "People willing to trade freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both." REAL ID undoubtedly exemplifies a scenario in which a difficult tension exists between freedom and security. By commandeering every state's driver's license issuing process, REAL ID threatens the results warned by Franklin - loss of both freedom and security. It has become the biometric enrollment phase of a plan to implement a terribly invasive tracking system, largely without public knowledge or approval. REAL ID is merely the current face of a far larger, international government and private economic effort to collect, store, and distribute the sensitive biometric data of citizens to use for the twin purposes of government tracking and economic control. At issue are much more than standardized or non-duplicative driver's licenses. This effort extends worldwide, threatening every person alive today. Although very legitimate security concerns exist in this age of terrorism, this Act extends far beyond terrorism prevention or protection of the innocent. Keeping that broad picture in mind, let us move to some background behind the face of REAL ID implementation in America. The REAL ID Act passed Congress in 2005 buried in a "must-pass" war funding and tsunami relief bill. The little debate in the House and total absence of debate in the Senate ensured that many Congressmen did not realize the full implications of REAL ID. Importantly, the desire by government and economic interests to implement a national tracking and ID system did not start with the REAL ID Act in 2005. Under the guise of security, it has been attempted numerous times in the past, even during Ronald Reagan's administration. When former Attorney General William French Smith proposed to implement what he called a "perfectly harmless" national ID system as well as when a second cabinet member proposed to "tattoo a number on each American's forearm," Ronald Reagan responded, "My God, that's the mark of the beast," signaling an abrupt end to the national ID debate during the Reagan years. The significant opposition to a national ID system in the past extends to the REAL ID issue today. This conviction has united both Democrats and Republicans as well as such normally opposed groups as the ACLU and the ACLJ. Whether the concern is privacy, religious rights, states' rights, or cost of implementation, REAL ID has galvanized broad and deep resistance, currently including an estimated six hundred groups. Today, over twenty legislatures have passed resolutions or legislation variously opposing implementation of the REAL ID Act. Eleven of those legislatures have gone further by passing laws specifically prohibiting compliance with REAL ID. What does REAL ID do? REAL ID attempts to mandate a standardized process and format for all state drivers' licenses to achieve increased security. Most importantly in this standardized process, REAL ID mandates a certain picture quality. A footnote issued by the Department of Homeland Security establishes this quality as compliant with the ICAO Document 9303 biometric format. The global body setting this format, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), is a specialized agency created under the United Nations. Biometric data can be produced from a simple digital photograph of this quality by running the picture of a person's face through a software program which measures and analyzes the unique, personally identifiable characteristics of that face. The process results in a unique numeric code which identifies a person according to facial measurements. You read that correctly. A unique number or "code" is developed from an algorithmic formula which converts a digital biometric sample to biometric "face print" data. Under REAL ID biometric facial recognition technology, you become a number literally worn on your face - a number which is read by computer, tracked by surveillance camera, and distributed worldwide. Clearly, this international standard provides global compatibility of American citizens' biometric data collected through REAL ID. Having this background, we should observe that many Americans still do not know why the provisions of the REAL ID Act must be rejected and aggressively opposed because they do not understand the full implications of REAL ID. Many wrongly assume that the legitimate need for security trumps all other considerations. However, REAL ID is not primarily about a secure driver's license or terrorism prevention. The full and dangerous implications of REAL ID may be fleshed out through a discussion of why each American must vigorously oppose this Act's most basic tenets. It poses dangers in the following three areas: 1 - REAL ID violates Constitutional rights. 2 - REAL ID compromises national and state sovereignty. 3 - REAL ID threatens the safety of all Americans. I- First, let us note that compliance with REAL ID would violate our constitutionally protected freedoms. Amendment I - Freedom of Religion REAL ID violates freedom of religion for some citizens by forcing inclusion into a system which requires a picture - and more - just to access public services. The Amish and some Mennonites provide examples of religious groups who view the mere taking of photographs as idolatry. REAL ID conditions their freedoms, such as entering a federal building, upon a provision which violates their religious beliefs. Because this "government" identification system limits travel and access to certain public places, and could even become a debit card, other more mainline religious groups view REAL ID as the advent of the "mark of the beast." Particularly because this technology assigns a unique number to represent each person's biometric face print, these concerns are hardly unfounded. A Powerpoint presentation from L-1 Identity Solutions, the major biometrics company in the U.S. today, bolsters this claim. A slide in that presentation includes a graph which charts future likely applications for biometrics. Phase 1 of this "blueprint" for biometric implementation utilizes the authority of Federal agencies to impose such requirements as REAL ID. Phase 2 utilizes bureaucratic leveraging on regulated industries to implement biometrics. Phase 3 anticipates mass implementation on the citizens at large for such everyday activities as buying and selling. As an example, under Phase 2 DHS is attempting to force airlines to pick up the costs of collecting biometrics from foreigners at airports. In Texas under Phase 3, a company is experimenting with using the driver's license as a debit card. Whether one is personally alarmed at some or all of these concerns, REAL ID would prohibit the free exercise of religion for many people. Amendment IV

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/262...ung-people.html Child protection database 'will be used to prosecute young people' A flagship database intended to protect every child in the country will be used by police to hunt for evidence of crime in a "shocking" extension of its original purpose, The Daily Telegraph has learned. By Martin Beckford, Social Affairs Correspondent Last Updated: 2:00PM BST 26 Aug 2008 ContactPoint will include the names, ages and addresses of all 11 million under-18s in England as well as information on their parents, GPs, schools and support services such as social workers. The

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/20...iberties.labour In the Queen's speech this autumn Gordon Brown's government will announce a scheme to institute a database of every telephone call, email, and act of online usage by every resident of the UK. It will propose that this information will be gathered, stored, and "made accessible" to the security and law enforcement agencies, local councils, and "other public bodies". This fact should be in equal parts incredible and nauseating. It is certainly enraging and despicable. Not even George Orwell in his most febrile moments could have envisaged a world in which every citizen could be so thoroughly monitored every moment of the day, spied upon, eavesdropped, watched, tracked, followed by CCTV cameras, recorded and scrutinised. Our words and web searches, our messages and intimacies, are to be stored and made available to the police, the spooks, the local council

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10024811-...mp;tag=nefd.top Microsoft on Monday announced plans to track Australian delegates attending its annual Tech.Ed conference in Sydney next week using RFID tags embedded in conference badges. The move comes months after 50 academics, researchers and students at the University of Washington began a social networking experiment, which has seen participants voluntarily tag themselves. The system records the location of tags every 5 seconds and publishes movements to a Web page. In Australia, human-targeted deployments of RFID tags have largely been limited to state prison systems. ACT Corrective Services in April said it had commissioned U.S. RFID provider Alanco and NEC Australia to install a Wi-Fi-compatible inmate-tracking system within its walls. Microsoft's social experiment can take place only over the five days of the conference, although it could involve a much larger sample size than the UW experiment, with the conference typically attracting no fewer than 1,000 delegates. The software giant will allow delegates to opt out of the tracking experiment, but they will be enticed to participate with the offer of greater access to conference information. Delegates who opt out will have standard barcodes printed on their badges instead. The benefits promoted to delegates to partake the RFID tag experiment include access to real-time information on when sessions are filling up, the ability to see what sessions others are interested in, and tracking where Microsoft so-called MVPs (most valuable players) and regional directors are. Microsoft will also track sessions that each delegate attends and will use that information to customize sessions, the company said in a press statement. It will also send delegates an instant record of what sessions they have attended. The RFID tracking system took just three weeks to build and deploy, according to Microsoft. Research firm IDC has predicted that usage of RFID tags by business would rise by 122 percent in 2009. The track and trace chips were used in 8 percent of companies last year, while 18 percent of them expect to use it in 2009. Microsoft was unable to respond to ZDNet.com.au at the time of writing. Liam Tung of ZDNet Australia reported from Sydney.

Now this is really creepy!!! http://oheraldo.in/pagedetails.asp?nid=8928&cid=2 HERALD CORRESPONDENT NEW DELHI, AUG 24

Actually I couldn't disagree more with the author of this, I don't believe that we have voluntarily changed our attitude toward privacy, I believe it has been taken from us and we have been slowly indoctrinated into believing that it was US who agreed to this. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121962391804567765.html Privacy? We Got Over It. August 25, 2008; Page A11 In 1988, Congress banned video stores from disclosing the titles of films that people rent. The issue arose because in the battle to block Robert Bork from the Supreme Court, someone leaked his video rentals. Fast-forward to this summer, and a federal judge hearing a $1 billion copyright complaint by Viacom ordered YouTube to turn over online records about which computer addresses were used to watch which videos on the site. The judge dismissed privacy concerns as "speculative." How quickly our expectations of privacy have changed. Privacy advocates objected that with access to Internet protocol addresses, it would be possible to track who watched what. Hundreds of millions of people have watched videos on YouTube since its founding in 2005 -- indeed, by one estimate, virtually everyone who uses the Web has watched a video on the site. This makes it surprising that there was such little public outcry about this potential loss of privacy. Google, which owns YouTube, has complied with the judge's order by using encryption to hide individual records, but it is indeed "speculative" how much people would object to disclosing this online behavior. This incident is a telling moment. We seem to be following the advice of Scott McNealy, chairman of Sun Microsystems, who in 1999 said, "You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it." And the observation by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison: "The privacy you're concerned about is largely an illusion. All you have to give up is your illusions, not any of your privacy." These comments could be dismissed as technology executives trying to minimize complaints about technology. But whatever we say about how much we value privacy, a close look at our actual behavior suggests we have gotten over it. A recent study by AOL of privacy in Britain found that 84% of people said they would not disclose details about their income online, but in fact 89% of them willingly did. Amazon closely records our taste in books, Gmail scans our emails to deliver relevant ads, and electronic tolls track where we drive. Profiles on MySpace and Facebook are accessible, forever. The disclosure that Judge Bork liked to rent British comedies seems quaint in comparison. Records about us are no longer kept in scattered manila files in dusty cabinets, but digitally, which means in permanent records that can be combined with other records to paint a full picture of our tastes and habits. Information held by different retailers, insurers and government agencies can be mined to create constantly updated files more complete than the most tenacious intelligence report on a suspected criminal a generation ago. Privacy advocates do their jobs by reminding us of these risks, but our choices all seem to be in the direction of trading away privacy. The fantastic power and convenience of digital life has led us to change what we consider private in ways that we can only begin to understand. Indeed, our expectations of privacy have changed radically over time. Stanford law professor Lawrence Friedman in his recent book, "Guarding Life's Dark Secrets," documents the total lack of privacy expectations through the medieval period, when people lived together with no option for privacy, to a period of privacy for some people and some purposes as part of what he calls the "Victorian compromise." Propriety was defined through social norms focused on reputation, which included significant freedom for otherwise scandalous behavior if it was done carefully, in private. "If the nineteenth century was a world of privacy and prudery, a world of closed doors and drawn blinds," Mr. Friedman writes, "then the world of the twenty-first century is the world of the one-way mirror, the world of the all-seeing eye." We now seem happy to trust companies with our information for benefits such as one-click buying and online searches for personally relevant results. In a digital world where it is possible to know more than ever about everything, including one another, the new vice may be the flip side of privacy -- concealing information about ourselves of legitimate value to others. In the physical world, surveillance cameras, satellites and bio-recognition systems have redefined privacy expectations. We have learned that "privacy can be very dangerous," as federal appeals judge Richard Posner has observed. "Obviously if you're a terrorist, privacy is enormously important. So the more we think of privacy as endangering us, that will reinforce these commercial incentives to surrender privacy." Privacy remains a virtue, or at least we still say it does. But the balance has been tipped by other values, such as transparency, a free flow of information and physical security. We're in the early stages of adapting to more digital and visible lives, with privacy expectations better defined by what we do than by what we say.

Hmmn, getting them used to being imprisoned early. What happens if the GPS system shows that the anklet is still and in one place for too long? Does a SWAT team arrive, break down the doors and start shooting? Quote: "''We are at a critical point in our time where we can either educate or incarcerate,'' Penn said, linking truancy with juvenile delinquency and later criminal activity. ''We can teach them now or run the risk of possible incarceration later on in life. I don't want to see the latter.'' "Incarceration", gee what does she think this plan is? And: "''Students and parents must understand that attending school is not optional,'' Penn said. ''When they fail to attend school, they are breaking the law.'' Doesn't this just make you feel real contempt for "the law"? Finally: ''Sometimes, as I said, students are runaways. Parents don't know where they are,'' Penn said. ''So it's for the safety of the child, as well as the safety of the community.'' Oh, well, that's OK then, it is all about "safety" and "the child/ren" ________________________________________________________________________________ ___________ http://www.suntimes.com/technology/1123025...s082308.article BY ASSOCIATED PRESS SAN ANTONIO, Texas---- Court authorities here will be able to track students with a history of skipping school under a new program requiring them to wear ankle bracelets with Global Positioning System monitoring. But at least one group is worried the ankle bracelets will infringe on students' privacy. Linda Penn, a Bexar County justice of the peace, said she anticipates that about 50 students from four San Antonio-area school districts -- likely to be mostly high schoolers -- will wear the anklets during the six-month pilot program announced Friday. She said the time the students wear the anklets will be decided on a case-by-case basis. ''We are at a critical point in our time where we can either educate or incarcerate,'' Penn said, linking truancy with juvenile delinquency and later criminal activity. ''We can teach them now or run the risk of possible incarceration later on in life. I don't want to see the latter.'' Penn said students in the program will wear the ankle bracelets full-time and will not be able to remove them. They'll be selected as they come through her court, and Penn will target truant students with gang affiliations, those with a history of running away and skipping school and those who have been through her court multiple times. ''Students and parents must understand that attending school is not optional,'' Penn said. ''When they fail to attend school, they are breaking the law.'' Penn said the electronic monitoring is part of a comprehensive program she started four years ago to reduce truancy. She cited programs in Midland and Dallas as having success with similar electronic monitoring measures. But Terri Burke, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said requiring students to wear the GPS bracelets full-time raises privacy concerns. ''We're all for keeping kids in school, and we applaud any efforts to make that happen,'' Burke said. ''But the privacy issue: What happens with the bracelet or anklet after school is out? Is that appropriate for the school or courts to know where and what this person is doing outside of school?'' Asked why the students have to wear the ankle bracelet all the time instead of just the school day, Penn cited problems with runaways. ''Sometimes, as I said, students are runaways. Parents don't know where they are,'' Penn said. ''So it's for the safety of the child, as well as the safety of the community.'' Burke said truant students and runaway kids are different issues. Asked specifically about privacy concerns, Penn said she didn't have a comment. But, she added, her priority is ''looking for the good of making these children accountable ... it's for the concern of these children getting an education.''

No more than 13 seconds in a microwave oven will do it! Yep you are correct, that will happen......... but when that highway patrol pulls you over for some minor thing and sees that you have destroyed your license what is he to think...... if you are required to have a rfid license and you destroy it, you have no license and that will add about five other charges to your ticket besides getting your car towed and possibly the night in jail...... and to do that with a passport is just total folly to expose yourself to that bunch of crazies. Yep, the microwave will work....... if that is what you really want to experience. Why I said "no more than 13 seconds ....." is because if it is left any longer than that it might show scorch marks around where the chip is embedded, otherwise it is not obvious what it was that made the chip blow up. How can the owner user of the passport/DL be blamed for the fact that the RFID chip doesn't work? After all, the government has insisted that "the only information that is held on the RFID chip - or linked to it - is the same as the information on the front of the card, so it shouldn't really matter. It is just a matter of principle. And it is not your fault if you have been issued with a faulty product, or their stupid system doesn't work.

"Delay" these rules? What sort of "head in the sand" wimpy people are in the justice department? Their job is to see that justice is done, not just pander to weirdos. Logic would dictate that these "rules" should be scrapped altogether, not just "delayed". That's just not how it works, bts...... Oh, I get it finally!! For some strange reason I thought the justice department would be independent and impartial, but then I forgot that the judges are politically appointed and the justice department is really just another branch of government, or a government department just like so many others. Therefore they are there to further the political agenda "of the day", so how could they be independent or impartial, silly me.

This is totally evil! There is no good case to be made for this to happen at all, surely I am not the only one who sees a lot wrong with this. Here's a good example: Supporters say the measures simply codify existing counterterrorism practices and policies that are endorsed by lawmakers and independent experts such as the 9/11 Commission. They say the measures preserve civil liberties and are subject to internal oversight. The first part: "..... "'Independent' experts" = (hilarious, funny - maybe not, whoever wrote this really believes it). The "...... measures preserve civil liberties ......" = Last part, "subject to internal oversight" = well, a definition of "internal oversight" is needed here, and how biased is "internal oversight"? But wait, there's more ...... "If police officers no longer see themselves as engaged in protecting their communities from criminals and instead as domestic intelligence agents working on behalf of the CIA, they will be encouraged to collect more information," German said. "It turns police officers into spies on behalf of the federal government." Civil liberties groups also have warned that forthcoming Justice Department rules for the FBI may permit the use of terrorist profiles that could single out religious or ethnic groups such as Muslims or Arabs for investigation. Mukasey said the changes will give the next president "some of the tools necessary to keep us safe" and will not alter Justice rules that prohibit investigations based on a person's race, religion or speech. He said the new guidelines will make it easier for the FBI to use informants, conduct physical and photographic surveillance, and share data in intelligence cases, on the grounds that doing so should be no harder than in investigations of ordinary crimes. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said that updating police intelligence rules is a move "in the right direction. However, the vagueness of the provisions giving broad access to criminal intelligence to undefined agencies . . . is very troubling." It looks like the FBI and justice department are pretending that these matters are not important, do not need addressing, and will sort themselves out. This is not the case at all! These matters are of vital concern, will not "go away" and need addressing urgently and fixing so that they are not dangerous immediately and before any legislation like this is even considered.

If this is already happening, measures are needed to stop it happening, not measures to legalise it! If you surrender your "photo' id" for cig's or alcohol, why does the store need to "scan" it? Surely sighting it would be enough! They do not need a database of customers' DL numbers, names and addresses. If you come across this, I'd challenge it. Write letters and keep on sending "reminder letters" until you get a reply. If it is illegal, they will have some explaining to do and be accountable for their actions. Why would the US gov't ever need or want to subpoena your "google" search history? Surely for them to get a subpoena from a judge they would have to have a pretty strong case for justification? It still seem defeatist for me to hear "the antichrist's throne will be established and there is nothing we can do about it". We can fight it, and we must!

"Delay" these rules? What sort of "head in the sand" wimpy people are in the justice department? Their job is to see that justice is done, not just pander to weirdos. Logic would dictate that these "rules" should be scrapped altogether, not just "delayed".

No more than 13 seconds in a microwave oven will do it!

The law might be theoretically enforced, but what is the bet that they won't be compensated? After all doesn't the justice system usually rule the police to be above the law and never have to answer for their actions?

When I first read of this about two weeks ago or so my first reaction was "shock, horror", sort of like my reaction when I first heard about the ANPR plan in UK, and since I have been talking about it with various people. Now I'd like to see what mainly American people think of it (NYers in particular) and Christians. Christians might have a different point of view. Straight "off the top of my head" I came up with so many reasons why it won't work as envisaged, and it just seems to me like a particularly sinister plan to make a lot of trouble for a lot of people and waste a lot of taxpayers' money. I was reminded of it this evening as a friend just sent me this by email: ________________________________________________________________________________ ____________ http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/08/oper...te-takes-shape/ Operation Sentinel: The High-Tech Police State Takes Shape by Tom Burghardt / August 17th, 2008 Operation Sentinel, a new program unveiled by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), would encircle Manhattan with thousands of surveillance cameras that photograph every car or truck entering and exiting the city across its network of bridges and tunnels. Information captured by this intrusive project would be stored in a huge database for an undisclosed period of time. Additionally, a network of sensors installed at toll plazas would allegedly be able to capable detect radiological materials that could be used in potential terror plots, the New York Times reports. However, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) has denounced the proposal as

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10...cards-too.html# Are ANY secrets safe with Ms Smith: new row as Home Office data-loss firm will be kept on... and they'll be handling ID cards too By James Slack Last updated at 12:26 PM on 23rd August 2008 Jacqui Smith was under fire for failing to sack the private contractor which lost personal data on thousands of criminals. The Home Secretary said PA Consulting - which has won Government contracts worth

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4666105a11.html You might say Wellington Hospital has had a touch of Irish luck. Twenty-two foreign junior doctors have just arrived in Wellington

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4665701a12.html Russian soldiers stood guard at checkpoints deep inside Georgia's heartland on Saturday, drawing accusations from Washington that Moscow's military pullback did not match up to what it had promised. Russia says it will permanently station what it calls peacekeeping troops inside Georgia to prevent new bloodshed, but Georgia and its Western allies suspect the Kremlin will use the force to keep a stranglehold on the ex-Soviet state. Moscow sent in troops after Georgia tried to retake its breakaway South Ossetia region. Russia crushed Georgian forces and pushed on further, crossing the country's main East-West highway and moving close to a Western-backed oil pipeline. Convoys of Russian tanks, armoured personnel carriers and soldiers left their positions on Friday and headed back into rebel-held territory

I fear you have misread this situation rather. The UK government is trying to impose a horrible, sinister, system of "voluntary" id cards embedded to a massive database on their "subjects" (note "subjects, not "citizens", as the word "citizen" would imply that they are actually people and the UK gov't clearly thinks that they are not or they wouldn't be treating them this way). It is not "carrying identification everywhere they go" that these young people are objecting to (although I have to question what right you think any government has to make it's people - the people who pay their wages BTW - "carry identification everywhere they go") but they have woken up to the lies and trickery that are inherent in politicians and public "servants", and can see through their propaganda and see what they are really trying to impose, and hopefully will fight this evil realising that there is little point in a "life" without liberty. I believe that these ideas (tracking people, monitoring their actions, building lists and databases of populations, gun owners etc. - I have even heard talk of one European gov't though I can't remember which one it is, making an inventory of knives in a household - forcibly - or by coercion - taking peoples' biometric measurements, etc. etc.) is evil and satanic, and it is long past the time when people should merely lobby politicians to 'change their minds'. We can fight this, and we must!!!!!

This is wonderful to see that the younger generation is not going to just "roll over and take" all this rubbish, much unlike (seemingly) the majority of older people are doing. ______________________________________________________________________ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_...icle4513723.ece ID card 'propaganda' backfires as students revolt Etan Smallman Trust Britain

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/21/wh...ivil_liberties/ Bush makes last-minute grab for civil liberties By Bill Ray Published Thursday 21st August 2008 16:15 GMT US citizens could be investigated without just cause under a new plan from the Justice Department, while those who choose to leave the country will have their records kept for 15 years and available to any litigious attorney. The Justice Department plan won't be unveiled in detail until next month, but the New York Times is reporting (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/washington/21fbi.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=F.B.I.&st=cse&oref=slogin) that the plan will to allow the FBI to open an investigation into anyone without clear suspicion, and that's got civil liberty groups understandably concerned. Meanwhile the Department of Homeland Security has been quietly building a database of every border crossing by a US citizen, claims (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/19/AR2008081902811.html?nav=rss_technology) the Washington Post, and intends to hang onto the data for 15 years - foreigners will have their data stored for 75 years. All this information sits in a database which will be exempted from the 1974 Privacy Act, which would require individuals to be informed if lawmen request the data. Both these moves are about solidifying temporary powers that were put into place following the terrorist attack in New York in September 2001, and doing so before Bush leaves office and is replaced by someone who may be less hard-line. Details of the Justice Department plan were revealed in closed briefings to Congressional staff, and four Democratic senators have written to the Attorney General expressing their concern. The letter, signed by Russ Feingold, Richard J. Durbin, Edward M. Kennedy and Sheldon Whitehouse, claims the new plan "might permit an innocent American to be subjected to such intrusive surveillance based in part on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, or on protected First Amendment activities". As a result the Attorney has agreed not to sign the plan before Congress gets a proper look at it on September 17th. The border-crossing database being created in the name of Homeland Security came to light last month in a Federal Register notice, and is intended to form a record which can "quite literally, help frontline officers to connect the dots", according to a Homeland Security spokesman. But it won't just be terrorists who are tracked on the database. The information will be available to any court or attorney in civil litigation, or even the media: "When there exists a legitimate public interest in the disclosure of the information." As a fully paid up member of the fourth estate The Register is looking forward to having access to US border crossing records, but we promise to only use the information in legitimate cases, so if you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear from us.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=how-rf...used&sc=rss How RFID Tags Could Be Used to Track Unsuspecting People A privacy activist argues that the devices pose new security risks to those who carry them, often unwittingly By Katherine Albrecht If you live in a state bordering Canada or Mexico, you may soon be given an opportunity to carry a very high tech item: a remotely readable driver

I guess this is what happens when you have idiot, unaccountable, bureaucrats toying with peoples' lives _____________________________________ http://www.muncyluminary.com/oniWire/oniWi...p;category=News Pa pilot says he

http://www.coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ar...STOMERSERVICE02 Couple to sue over police destroying pot BY TREVOR HUGHES