-Caveat Lector- (Note: What a bunch of BS propaganda. Getting Americans used to the idea of fingerprinting, National IDs, and other forms of biometric identification. Resist this insanity, learn to say NO!)
Fingerprints give U.S. a new sense of security Peter T. Kilborn The New York Times Thursday, February 21, 2002 BEAUMONT, Texas Little blue disks with lids, about the size of 50-cent pieces, are glued on the counter close to each of the three cash registers at Sam's Package Store. When an unfamiliar customer writes a check, Peggi Parigi, owner of the store with her husband, asks for a driver's license, a place of work and a phone number. Then she points to a disk. "I need a right thumbprint," she told Ann Harris, 46, who was paying $21.65 for a bottle of Royal Crown whiskey. "For what?" Harris, a department manager at Wal-Mart, said she thought. "I'm not a criminal." It was Harris's first encounter with thumbprinting. It probably will not be her last. In this busy oil town in southeastern Texas, and for that matter in most of Texas and in much of California, the Middle West and Florida, what was once acceptable only for criminals is becoming routine for consumers who use checks at places other than their own banks. And even more widespread use of fingerprinting is on the horizon. In December, a McDonald's in Fresno, California, installed a terminal that collects thumbprints and credit card numbers from customers who want to pay for their meals simply by touching a scanner. Sometime this year, the 45,000 employees at HEB supermarkets in Texas will punch in and out of work, not with timecards, but by pressing fingers on electronic terminals. Several states, including Texas, California and Georgia, now require thumbprints on driver's licenses. The growing reliance on fingerprinting has stirred little public opposition in a nation increasingly troubled by terrorism and identity theft. Businesses and government agencies defend the practice as a reasonable response to the widespread traffic in false identifications. Civil rights advocates, however, worry that fingerprinting is being used to intimidate people who patronize businesses that serve lower-income people. And some wonder if databases full of fingerprints can be protected from abuse. Wayne Crews, director of technology studies at the conservative Cato Institute in Washington, said the technology can protect privacy, making it harder for a thief to use a stolen charge card encoded with an individual's thumbprint. But Crews said that big, compulsory databases, like those for driver's licenses and other identifications, which store people's finger or facial images, can be abused by officials, identity thieves or others who find a way into them. "You create a honey pot for hackers," he said. Like it or not, though, the change is coming, said William Rogers, publisher of the Biometrics Digest, a newsletter in St. Louis devoted to covering the technology of human recognition. "Government, health care, finance, school systems - those are all areas that are looking at this," Rogers said. Concern for terrorism has only hastened the trend. "Since Sept. 11, there has been a tremendous focus on this," he said. -end article- ---------------- -InfoWarz "You can have my fingerprints when you pry them from my cold dead fingers." <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
