[FYI] (Fwd) FC: Rand report: Facecams can thwart terrorism, install

["Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>]

------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent:      	Mon, 13 Aug 2001 11:48:22 -0400
To:             	politech@politechbot.com
From:           	Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject:        	FC: Rand report: Facecams can thwart terrorism, install them now!
Copies to:      	tcgreene@bellatlantic.net, woodwardlaw@aol.com
Send reply to:  	declan@well.com

[I've copied the author of the paper, a Rand analyst named John
Woodward. He is an attorney who lives in Virginia and was most
recently a CIA operations officer for 12 years, according to his bio,
in addition to being the CIA Staff Assistant to the Undersecretary of
Defense for Policy at the Pentagon. --Declan]

********

From: "Thomas C. Greene" <tcgreene@bellatlantic.net>
To: <declan@well.co4m>
Subject: Rand urges face-scanning of the masses
Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 06:14:30 -0700


http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/20966.html

Think tank urges face-scanning of the masses

The famous Rand Organization http://www.rand.org, a putatively
non-partisan think tank, has come out in favor of using face-scanning
technology to violate the privacy of the innocent masses in search of
-- you guessed it -- terrorists and pedophiles, the two most detested
fringe-groups on the planet.

Following the regrettable inclinations of all modern governments, a
recent Rand report http://www.rand.org/publications/IP/IP209/IP209.pdf
reckons that the natural rights of the majority of ordinary,
law-abiding citizens should be sacrificed for the sacred mission of
identifying and prosecuting a mere handful of sexually perverted or
homicidal lunatics.

"Biometric facial recognition can provide significant benefits to
society," Rand says, and adds that "we should not let the fear of
potential but inchoate threats to privacy, such as super surveillance,
deter us from using facial recognition where it can produce positive
benefits."

Chief among these are the detection of terrorists and pedophiles, as
we said. No matter that these sick individuals comprise a mere
fraction of a fraction of normal human beings. No matter that
detecting them requires the most outrageous government intrusions into
the natural comings and goings of millions of innocent people.

Rand's answer to serious questions of personal liberty is a few
easily-skirted regulations which ought to allay all of our concerns.

"By implementing reasonable safeguards [for government use of
biometric face scanning], we can harness its power to maximize its
benefits while minimizing the intrusion on individual privacy," the
report chirps optimistically.

Rand returns repeatedly to the controversial, and prosecutorially
worthless, use of biometric face scanning at the 2001 Super Bowl
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/16561.html.

"While facial recognition did not lead to any arrests at the Super
Bowl, there is evidence that using such a system can help deter crime.
In Newham, England, the crime rate fell after police installed 300
surveillance cameras and incorporated facial recognition technology.
While it is possible that the criminals only shifted their efforts to
other locales, crime in Newham at least was deterred."

That's rich. So it's 'possible' that local criminals moved elsewhere,
is it? Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows it's certain that
they did, which implies that no one will ever be safe until every dark
corner of the planet is blanketed by high-tech cameras performing a
sort of criminal triage on all of us.

And after all, things could be worse. "The facial recognition system
used at the Super Bowl was not physically invasive or intrusive for
spectators. In fact, it was much less invasive than a metal detector
at a public building or an inauguration parade checkpoint. In this
sense, facial recognition helped to protect the privacy of
individuals, who otherwise might have to endure more individualized
police attention," Rand points out.

Of course, no appeal to Fascism and Kafkaesque control would be
complete without reference to the safety of innocent children. Rand
does not let us down: "many parents would most likely feel safer
knowing their children's elementary school had a facial recognition
system to ensure that convicted child molesters were not granted
access to school grounds."

It's all very popular, but immensely dangerous, thinking. Preserving
personal liberty requires that we all accept a bit of chaos, a bit of
hooliganism, a bit of risk. Yes, you or I might possibly get our heads
bashed in by brain-dead hooligans, or get blown up by terrorist
bombers, and our little lambs might get exploited by sexual sickos if
we don't keep a close eye on them. But probably not.

Surely, the suffocating, risk-free environments our governments are
trying so desperately to sell us to extend their powers of observation
and control are far more grotesque and soul-destroying than anything a
terrorist or a pedophile might ever hope to produce. ®




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