-Caveat Lector- RadTimes # 66 - October, 2000 An informally produced compendium of vital irregularities. "We're living in rad times!" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- QUOTE: "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate." -- Noam Chomsky ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents: --------------- --Spectrum Squatters --Report Says Global Accounting Firm Overlooks Factory Abuses --No Cure for Political Blues --American Society of Industrial Security meeting --The Roots of Homicide --The Unnatural Death of a Natural Right [guns] --USDA says better job needed in segregating biotech crops --Replace Auto License Plates With Bar Codes --Identifying Suspects in 3D ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Begin stories: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Spectrum Squatters <http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/09/opinion/09SAFI.html> by WILLIAM SAFIRE WASHINGTON -- What powerful special interest strikes terror in the heart of both parties in Congress, and turns both Al Gore and George Bush into quavering sycophants? In terms of ripping off the taxpayers with not a peep from the media, nothing compares with the broadcasters' lobby. This phalanx of freeloaders has stolen the free use of great chunks of the most valuable natural resource of the information age: the digital television spectrum owned by the American people. Five years ago, despite warnings of John McCain, Bob Dole and former F.C.C. chairman Reed Hundt, NBC, ABC and CBS pulled a bait-and-switch. Because their analog spectrum, a gift to them from the past, was outdated, they demanded a lion's share of the new, digital bandwidth. When a few of us suggested that this national resource be opened to competitive bidding rather than given away, the broadcasters insisted that the airwaves were their entitlement. With a gift of the new spectrum, they promised to deliver free TV broadcasts on high-definition television. The Republican Congress and Clinton White House promptly doubled the broadcasters' bandwidth a freebie estimated then at $70 billion, now worth far more. Worse, the lobby was told it could keep making money on its old analog portion of the spectrum until 2006 or until 85 percent of American homes had digital TV, whichever was later. But it took over 20 years for color TV and 16 years for video recorders to reach that level of market penetration. That's like giving the broadcasters squatting rights on the digital spectrum for decades to come. Result of Congress's foolish and craven gift of such a cost-free option? Broadcasters have been sitting on their hands, delaying new development and looking for ways to use the new spectrum for profitable cell phones and wireless e-mail, which has nothing to do with broadcasting the promised free digital TV. Meanwhile, cable and satellite companies, having invested heavily in digital technology, provide the new wares to consumers but at a high price. U.S. taxpayers, who invested $70 billion of spectrum value in broadcasters to get free digital TV, are forced to wait for decades. Lesson: When private money is on the line, private companies move fast; but when public assets go to private pockets, at no interest, private companies sit tight. William Kennard, chairman of the F.C.C., uses a homely analogy about spectrum squatters: it's as if Congress gave each broadcaster two rent-controlled apartments on Manhattan's Upper West Side, and the broadcaster occupied one while leaving the other empty. What's the F.C.C. to do when Congress and the White House refuse to say "use it or lose it" to the squatters and thereby let a lobby threaten the U.S. lead in new technologies? To speed our transition to free digital TV, Kennard will mount the bully pulpit in a New York speech tomorrow. He'll call on Congress to require that all new TV sets be DTV-capable in two years. High volume would not only lower the price of receiver chips to manufacturers but also stimulate consumer demand for the improved images which, in turn, would provide the profit incentive to broadcasters to get off their duffs. Then the F.C.C. chairman will urge Congress to close the 85 percent loophole that now turns the double dose of spectrum into a generation-long broadcasters' entitlement to corporate welfare. Then he'll suggest requiring a fee after 2006 for the use of the old analog channels. "This 'spectrum squatter's fee,' " says Kennard, "would escalate yearly, until broadcasters complete their transition to digital and return the analog spectrum to the American people." That would light a fire under the networks and even encourage debates at public-dispirited NBC. Although the subsidized industry's legion of lobbyists will lash back in fury, now's the time to ask: How will Al Gore, the professed populist, handle this hot potato? Where stands George Bush, who would probably appoint the F.C.C. commissioner Mike Powell, Colin's son, to the chairmanship? Let's find out if either candidate would propose legislation to stop the giveaway and to sell or lease the public's spectrum thereby bringing free broadcast digital TV to average Americans. Or would both let the huge ripoff roll? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Report Says Global Accounting Firm Overlooks Factory Abuses <http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/28/business/28SWEA.html> by STEVEN GREENHOUSE In a rare inside look at the auditing firms that inspect overseas factories to see whether they are sweatshops, an M.I.T. professor contends that the world's largest factory-monitoring firm does a shoddy job and overlooks many safety and wage violations. The professor, Dara O'Rourke, said in a report to be issued today that inspectors from the firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers, had a pro-management bias, did not uncover the use of carcinogenic chemicals and failed to recognize that some employees were forced to work 80-hour weeks. He also said the firm overlooked other basic problems, including timecards that were falsified and machines that were missing safety guards to protect workers' fingers. "PwC's monitoring efforts are significantly flawed," said Dr. O'Rourke, a professor of environmental and labor policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "PwC's audit reports glossed over problems of freedom of association and collective bargaining, overlooked serious violations of health and safety standards, and failed to report common problems in wages and hours." Pricewaterhouse officials defended their monitoring, saying their inspectors often uncover violations of minimum wage, overtime and safety laws. But these officials acknowledged that the firm's inspectors occasionally missed things that an expert on industrial hygiene, like Professor O'Rourke, would uncover. "I think we do very good work in this field, and we're contributing to improving conditions on behalf of our clients," said Randy Rankin, the partner in charge of Pricewaterhouse's global contractor compliance practice. Many apparel companies and universities have hired factory-monitoring firms in recent years to reassure consumers who want to know that the clothes they buy were not made in sweatshops. Pricewaterhouse, which performs more than 6,000 factory inspections a year, is the world's leader in doing inspections for companies, like Nike, that want monitors to check on conditions in the factories they use. Professor O'Rourke accompanied Pricewaterhouse inspectors and officials with Business for Social Responsibility, a nonprofit group in San Francisco, to factories in China and Korea after Harvard, Notre Dame and three other universities asked them and several other groups to review conditions at more than a dozen plants that make apparel with the universities' logos. That broader monitoring report was presented to the universities last week but is not scheduled to be released until early October. Professor O'Rourke's report comes during a fierce debate in which many student groups, labor unions and human rights groups are criticizing corporations and universities that rely on auditing firms to inspect their factories. These groups assert that the auditing firms often have a pro-corporate tilt, do not do thorough inspections and should work with nongovernmental organizations, like human rights groups, to gain a fuller picture of factory conditions overseas. Professor O'Rourke, who has inspected more than 100 Asian factories for the World Bank and various United Nations organizations, called on universities and companies to demand more rigorous monitoring efforts. He criticized Pricewaterhouse inspectors for failing to identify that workers in a garment factory in Seoul, South Korea, used a spot remover containing benzene, a carcinogen. When he visited a factory outside Jakarta, Indonesia, he found that the firm's inspectors had overlooked the same problem during an earlier inspection. He also faulted the firm's monitors for not noting that the labor union at a Shanghai garment factory was, like most Chinese unions, controlled by management. And he criticized the inspectors for failing to note that little information was given on chemicals used in the factory and that some workers did not wear proper gloves, masks or shoes while doing dangerous tasks or handling dangerous materials. In addition, his report said Pricewaterhouse monitors received most of their information from managers, not workers, and did perfunctory interviews with workers inside the factory instead of in-depth interviews outside, where workers would probably talk more openly. His report questioned why Pricewaterhouse monitors found that the Shanghai employees worked 50 to 60 hours a week, while his inspection of time cards found that one employee worked 316.5 hours in a month, or 75 hours a week, and 20 consecutive days. Pharis Harvey, executive director of the International Labor Rights Fund, a nonprofit group based in Washington, said, "The lesson to be drawn is that Pricewaterhouse has to learn how to monitor before it can claim it's doing a serious job." Defending Pricewaterhouse, Mr. Rankin said his firm received information not just from managers, but by observing factories, examining their records and interviewing their workers. He accused Professor O'Rourke of bias and of failing to appreciate that his firm found many overtime and safety violations. "The allegation that we rely on management at the expense of all other things, that's absolutely wrong," Mr. Rankin said. He said the firm's inspectors might not have found some of the timecard problems that Professor O'Rourke found because they looked at only a sampling of timecards. And he acknowledged that his firm's inspectors might not have recognized that the spot remover was a benzene derivative because they were not trained industrial hygienists. Allan Ryan, university attorney at Harvard, said he was not in a position to judge whether Professor O'Rourke's criticisms were valid. "We know monitoring has shortcomings," he said. "What Dara O'Rourke is saying is that it might have more shortcomings than we thought." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No Cure for Political Blues A SEASON OF NEWS COVERAGE: NO CURE FOR POLITICAL BLUES By Norman Solomon Creators Syndicate The media summer of 2000 is now history. As leaves begin to fall, let's consider a few key dynamics of the political season that has just passed. Despite complaints about smarmy orchestration and chronic pandering, the Republican and Democratic conventions resulted in gobs of deferential coverage. Some journalists rolled their eyes or even shed a bit of light on the big money bags behind the Oz-like curtains, but each party got what its backers paid for -- a week of mostly upbeat publicity. Meanwhile, Americans saw very little news about the iron-fist tactics that police used in the host cities to suppress thousands of social-justice demonstrators. Evidently, several days of militarizing a downtown area is the latest new thing for laying down the political law. In Philadelphia, while the Grand Old Party partied, police raided a protest headquarters. The gendarmes proceeded to confiscate and destroy large numbers of handmade puppets being readied for deployment in the streets. The crackdown was understandable, since art can be subversive. Better to be on the safe side! Two weeks later, in Los Angeles, the Democratic show unfolded with frequent boasts of authentic inclusion. At the same time, outside Staples Center, the decidedly "unincluded" ran gauntlets of locked-down thoroughfares and rubber bullets. The American Civil Liberties Union quickly pointed out that police were targeting journalists for physical attack. But freedom prevailed: Demonstrators were invited to assemble in a designated "protest zone." Realpolitik smarties seem to have convinced most reporters and pundits that the era of big government is -- or at least should be -- over. Evidently, the downsizing of the public sector includes the First Amendment. Don't worry, your One-Half Amendment rights are secure. In the electoral arena, the "bipartisan" (translation: two-party monopoly) Commission on Presidential Debates has upheld the notion that small is beautiful. Narrow is great, too. By mid-September, plans for the fall debates were just about complete, with only George W. Bush and Al Gore scheduled to square off. Most journalists seem happy with the match-up excluding Ralph Nader and Patrick Buchanan. Although quite a few daily newspapers around the country have editorialized in favor of opening up the debates, elite national media seem comfortable with sticking to the two-party nominees. Political humorist Mark Russell gave voice to the prevailing media attitude: "Some say that Nader and Buchanan should be included in the debates. And while we're at it, let the Minor League Toledo Mudhens play in the World Series." Ha ha. Well, that's settled. However, a minor detail is worth noting. Most members of the public -- also known as "the American people" in politicspeak -- remain unenlightened about the virtues of confining the presidential debates to a pair of corporate-friendly politicians. According to a new Zogby poll, Reuters reports, "likely voters agree that third party candidates should participate in the debates." When citizens were presented with a list of a half-dozen potential participants, two of them -- Nader and Buchanan -- received majority support for inclusion. As a public service, some commentators have done their best to drive down the poll numbers of the third party candidate with the most popular support. This summer, several widely syndicated columnists -- with Anthony Lewis of The New York Times in the lead, followed by such thinkers as The Boston Globe's Thomas Oliphant and The Washington Post's E.J. Dionne -- went after Nader with liberal vengeance. Not coincidentally, there has been scant media interest in probing fundamental implications of the government's shoddy "regulatory" apparatus that made the Bridgestone/Firestone tragedies possible. Although still routinely tagged in news stories as a "consumer advocate," Nader and his awesome grasp of such issues did not intersect with the mass media frame. News accounts of the lethal Firestone debacle have detoured around words like "crime" and "murder" -- which could be accurately applied to the premeditated cover-up decisions made in high corporate places. By the time autumn officially began, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration was saying that at least 103 people died and more than 400 others were injured because of the defective tires. "Corporate crime wave" doesn't exactly roll off the media tongue. If a small group of thugs made decisions that caused the deaths of more than a hundred Americans, the airwaves and editorial pages would be filled with calls for severe punishment including long prison sentences or even executions. After all, in medialand, we cannot tolerate crime in the streets. Crime in the suites is a very different matter. It's so much easier to stick with bipartisan debates. Why complicate the media picture? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- American Society of Industrial Security meeting by Alan Simpson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sept. 15, 2000 The American Society of Industrial Security has just had its mammoth bash and conference in Orlando, from last Sunday till Thursday. Around 16,000 attendees from all over the world, the key industrial security, and counter intelligence officers from the private sector, and many government agencies. I was fortunate to interview over a hundred during the exhibition and conference, and met many more. The general mood was we live in dangerous times, America is hemorrhaging, and trade secrets are being ripped off at an alarming rate. Most cite insiders, and point to Clinton as a major reason why there is no loyalty, integrity or respect anymore. Overwhelming grades for the FBI, DOE and CIA were a resounding "F" with the FBI getting a minus F (if that is possible). NSA were not seen as a major problem, despite the publicity for "Echelon", and many were complimentary over their ability to eavesdrop on global hotspots. "Sneaky Bastards, but we need them" was one comment. Most thought they were just doing their jobs, and many commented on that it is your responsibility for the security of your traffic, not anyone else's. The CIA did not fare that well, and many made humor over their constant failures. Their image in the private sector appears somewhat tarnished. The FBI on the other hand caused many to be very vocal, for Waco, Ruby Ridge, and Los Alamos. They have a SERIOUS credibility problem. I was amazed that some of those vocal about the FBI under Clinton, were ex-FBI veterans! Few had good words on Janet Reno, and as we have ladies in the group I will not repeat what some suggested she do! The large British contingent to a person, were very critical over Blair, and "LegoLand". The Idiot Blair was regarded by all as a "Control Freak". Most were looking forward to the Human Rights challenges in October. Overall a very glum perception of a peacetime intelligence and counterintelligence effort. Finally a record number of companies were creating, or planning to enter the intelligence/counterintelligence business, here in the USA. Total lack of confidence in the existing product from government agencies was by far the main reason. One footnote that agencies might want to consider, not everyone with responsibility for the nations future, and it's wealth is Top Secret- or Secret-cleared ex-govt or -mil types. Be careful, when planning briefings and conferences, you may compartmentalize and classify yourself out of business! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Roots of Homicide <http://www.sciam.com/2000/1000issue/1000numbers.html> by Rodger Doyle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> The U.S. property crime rate matches those of most other industrialized countries, but its homicide rate exceeds western Europe's by 4 to 1 and Japan's by 7 to 1. The historical roots of this disparity may lie not in the Western frontier, as many believe, but in the institution of slavery and the unusual history of firearms in America. In the antebellum South, whites used the threat of violence to intimidate blacks and encourage deference. In the view of historian Roger Lane of Haverford College, the respect demanded of slaves fostered a "culture of honor," in which a man's personal worth was measured by how others behaved toward him. Trivial slights had to be answered immediately and with physical force, if necessary. Homicide resulting from quarrels did not usually result in a conviction. The Southern culture of honor spread to poor whites and to the slaves themselves, who eventually brought it to the inner cities of the North. Disrespect for the law was reinforced by the tendency of authorities to ignore murders of blacks by blacks. Current high homicide rates in the former Confederate states and in many large cities trace largely to the attitudes developed during slavery, according to Lane. He also says that high rates in the Southwest reflect in part attitudes among Mexican-Americans, many of whom also practice a culture of honor tracing to the region's historical circumstances. The American attitude on firearms is rooted in British North America, where all freemen, except in Quaker Pennsylvania, were required to carry arms for protection against the Indians, the French and others. The colonial era's long guns and dueling pistols were expensive and hard to manipulate and thus were not often used in disputes. But then in the 1840s came the more efficient, cheaper and easily concealed Colt revolvers and with them, an increase in white homicide rates. More than 80 percent of gun murders today involve a handgun. Among Western industrialized nations, gun ownership correlates with homicide: in England and Wales, where virtually no one owns a gun, the homicide rate in 1997 was only 1.3 per 100,000 population, whereas in Finland, which has the highest gun ownership level, the homicide rate was 2.7. If gun ownership were the only determinant of homicide, the U.S. rate would fall into the intermediate category shown on the map. It is the combination of easy access to guns and an extraordinary readiness to use them that helps make the U.S. homicide rate so high. According to Franklin Zimring and Gordon Hawkins of the University of California at Berkeley, up to half the difference in homicide rates between the U.S. and Europe is explained by greater gun use by Americans. The U.S. has seen several waves of homicide, including one that peaked before the Civil War, a possible second wave that crested in the 1920s, and the current wave, which peaked in 1980. The ascending phase of this wave, which began in about 1960, more or less coincided with several trends that have been proposed as contributors to homicide: the decline of union manufacturing jobs; the breakup of families with the rise in divorce; the increase in births to unwed mothers; and the growth of illegal drug use. The decline in rates since 1991 coincided with the waning of the crack cocaine epidemic that started in 1985. Other developments, including greater police efforts to prevent gun carrying and the recent economic expansion, which provided more jobs, have played a role. The proportion of young men, always the most violent group in society, fell in the 1990s and so also contributed to the decline in homicides. One of the most hopeful developments of recent years is detailed by Richard Curtis of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who found that many disadvantaged Puerto Rican and black youths in New York City became deeply disenchanted with the drug use of parents and older siblings and are now attempting to reestablish their lives and their communities. Curtis believes that similar developments are happening in other cities across the country. Still, no one knows how the next generation of young men will feel and act, and no one can predict what devastating new drug might be concocted or how the fast-changing U.S. economy will affect the murder rate. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Unnatural Death of a Natural Right By Timothy Wheeler It wasn't supposed to be this way. When Great Britain banned the sale and ownership of handguns in 1997, few expected it to be a panacea against such horrors as the Dunblane massacre, a madman's handgun rampage that killed 16 children and gave political impetus to the anti-gun movement. But nobody expected the surge of violent crime that followed. Believe it or not, Britain's rates of assault, robbery, and burglary now exceed those in the United States. Murder and rape are creeping closer to U.S. rates. The American news media have virtually ignored this amazing change, even as American politicians push more stringent, British-style gun-control schemes. In scenes evocative of "A Clockwork Orange," cities across Great Britain are being increasingly terrorized by bands of young thugs who beat, rob, shoot, and rape their way to the top of the criminal food chain. But "Clockwork's" vicious protagonist Alex and his bullyboys were armed only with clubs and switchblades. Today's predators carry guns, in carefree contempt for the new law. Violent crime in Britain had begun to rise even before Dunblane. Still, the Guardian in London reported this month "between 1997 and 1999 there were 429 murders in the capital, the highest two-year figure for more than 10 years." Two-thirds of the crimes involved firearms. BBC News reported "a dramatic rise in violent crime" from 1998 to 1999 as revealed by the British Home Office's July crime report. Violence against persons rose by 16%, and sexual offenses rose by 4.5%. The robbery rate skyrocketed by 26%, adding to a total violent crime rate increase of 16% in a single year. It would be simplistic to attribute Britain's violent crime wave entirely to the 1997 handgun ban. But it is clear that the ban did nothing to stop crime or even slow it down. Illegal guns continue to flow into the country, supplying youthful predators ever more willing to use them. The Guardian noted that shopkeepers increasingly find themselves facing handguns or automatic weapons. How can lovely England, the wellspring of America's legal tradition and culture, have come to this helpless state? America's traditional right of gun ownership is indeed rooted in England. That "true, ancient, and indubitable right," historian Joyce Lee Malcolm writes, was born in 1689 in the English Bill of Rights. The American founders adopted it as the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights a century later. While American political tradition retained the right to gun ownership, England eventually discarded it. Legal scholars Joseph Olson and David Kopel describe in a Hamline Law Review article "All The Way Down The Slippery Slope" how gun ownership in England was hounded to extinction, one "sensible" law at a time. The stages of its death mirror the stages advocated by today's American anti-gun activists. Starting with the Pistol Act of 1903, no British subject could buy a pistol without a license. Similarly, Americans ceded power to their federal government with the Gun Control Act of 1968, which established strict controls on the sale or transfer of guns to citizens. Licensing of gun owners is currently espoused by Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore, among others. Parliament passed the Firearms Act of 1920, which added the requirement of a government-sanctioned "good reason" for owning a gun. Olson and Kopel observe that gun ownership was no longer viewed as a right, but as a privilege. One can hear the echoes of this blow to English liberty as American gun-grabbers now plead that no deer hunter really needs a semi-automatic rifle. It is no coincidence that the British also gave up their right of self-defense. Parliament repealed the common law rules on justifiable use of deadly force in 1967. Since then, a British subject who uses deadly force to defend against a violent home invasion is considered the criminal, not the victim. A chilling example is the Norfolk farmer Tony Martin, now serving a life sentence for shooting and killing a career criminal who broke into his home. Britain now finds itself at the bottom of the slope, bereft of the primal and decent notion that a human life is worth defending. British subjects are now forced to submit to enslavement by common thugs. So much for Britain's legacy of liberty. Will America suffer the same fate? Americans should put the brakes on our own slide down the slippery slope of gun confiscation. Otherwise we will find ourselves defenseless against the criminals who have always been a part of society. And when that happens, in the words of the villain Alex, we can brace ourselves for a bit of the old ultra-violence. ---- Timothy Wheeler, M.D., is the Director of Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership, a Project of The Claremont Institute. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- USDA says better job needed in segregating biotech crops WASHINGTON, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said Monday that Kraft Foods Inc's recall of taco shells containing an unapproved biotech corn variety showed the government has to do a better job of segregating gene-spliced grains and commodities. "We've got to do a better job of segregating those commodities to make sure that...we basically protect people from things that haven't been approved," Glickman told reporters after speaking at a hunger forum. He also praised the Food and Drug Administration for keeping a close eye on the situation. "The FDA is monitoring the situation very closely, very carefully," Glickman said. "I don't think there is any public health and safety issue here but the fact is the product has not been approved for human consumption. It should not be served." Kraft announced the recall on Friday after finding evidence that a variety of Bt corn approved only for animal feed was in some taco shells it manufactured. The corn has not been allowed in human food because of scientists' worry that it might be an allergen. The USDA, FDA and Environmental Protection Agency share responsibility for regulating biotech foods. The USDA has authority over farm field testing of new biotech crops, while the EPA is responsible for evaluating crops that have been genetically altered to repel pests. The FDA is now finalizing rules that will mandate consultations between agency scientists and food companies developing new varieties of gene-spliced products. Currently, those consultations are voluntary. The agency is also working on guidelines for food manufacturers who want to add a label indicating whether a food does or does not contain a gene-modified ingredient. Another speaker at the hunger meeting, the Rockefeller Foundation's Gordan Conway, said the U.S. government should require labels on genetically modified food. "I believe there is a large consumer demand for it. It's as simple as that," said the head of the philanthropic group which supports the development of biotech crops to help improve yields in the Third World. Conway also said he did not believe biotech food presented any "serious health hazard." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Replace Auto License Plates With Bar Codes "Replace Auto License Plates With Bar Codes; High-Tech Law Enforcement" Roanoke Times & World News (09/24/00) P. 3; Long, Earl G. Retired General Electric foreman Earl G. Long suggests that one idea for controlling speeding on the nation's roads is using technology to track speeding vehicles and prevent violators from purchasing gas. The license plate would be replaced by a bar code, which a radar gun and scanner can track from every lane on the roads. A computer would be notified when a speed limit is broken, and would issue a statement to the violator and to gas stations, so that the vehicle could not buy gas until the fee is paid. Drivers can pay the fee at a gas station, when the police arrive to settle the fine. Three violations would mean losing a driver's license for one year. Long proposes this idea to control speeding, save lives, and save money on insurance. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Identifying Suspects in 3D "Identifying Suspects in 3D" Law Enforcement Technology (08/00) Vol. 127, No. 8, P. 112; Paytner, Ronnie L. The Integrated Law Enforcement Face-Identification System is the next generation of face-identification technology. It deploys a three-dimensional system to match surveillance camera images or still photographs to existing mug shots. Other similar technology to this point has decreased in accuracy when the camera angle was over 15 degrees, but ILEFIS performs with a high degree of accuracy. It is based on a 3D framework, which constructs the face surfaces by using the available 2D images collected from crime scenes or mug shots. The new technology can identify angled-view face images of non-cooperative subjects, like those obtained from a video camera at a distance. The system was developed by Dr. Arsev Eraslan of the National Institute of Justice Office of Law Enforcement Technology Commercialization. Although it is not on the market yet, it is ready for commercialization and has the potential for use in law enforcement, corrections, security, finance, and banking industries. ====================================================== "Anarchy doesn't mean out of control. It means out of 'their' control." -Jim Dodge ====================================================== "Communications without intelligence is noise; intelligence without communications is irrelevant." -Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC ====================================================== "It is not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society." -J. 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