Are Biometrics The Safety Valve We Need At Airports?

Trump Tests Biometric Eye Scans for Domestic Flights

 March 1, 2017  1 Comment

(SHTF Plan &a Mac Slavo) During the war on terrorism, Americans compromised their liberties to fight for freedom. Now, during the war on immigration, Americans will again be compelled to sacrifice liberties for American sovereignty.

Photo by Leszek.Leszczynski (CC)

In the name of security, anywhere, anytime. All measures will be justified, everyone will be authorized and the population will be controlled.

That is the moment we have arrived at in America.

A combination of policies that President Obama put into place, as well as fresh executive orders put in place by President Trump’s executive orders, have created a new front in the world of national security. They are now using biometrics to verify passport and identity, in the name of cracking down on immigration.

Additional scrutiny, and an over-bearing scent of gestapo is again cropping up in airports, as yet another layer of surveillance is added to the line up.

Here’s a look at one version of the machines now being tested and phased in at airports and other checkpoints:

Both visitors from abroad, and American citizens alike have now been required to submit to biometric iris scans in order to board a flight. Wow.

via Jeffrey Tucker of the Foundation of Economic Education:

For some 15 years, airport security has become steadily more invasive. There are ever more checkpoints, ever more requests for documents as you make your way from the airport entrance to the airplane. Passengers adapt to the new changes as they come. But my latest flight to Mexico, originating in Atlanta, presented all passengers with something I had never seen before.

We had already been through boarding pass checks, passport checks, scanners, and pat downs. At the gate, each passenger had already had their tickets scanned and we were all walking on the jet bridge to board. It’s at this point that most people assume that it is all done: finally we can enjoy some sense of normalcy.

This time was different. Halfway down the jetbridge, there was a new layer of security. Two US Marshals, heavily armed and dressed in dystopian-style black regalia, stood next to an upright machine with a glowing green eye. Every passenger, one by one, was told to step on a mat and look into the green scanner. It was scanning our eyes and matching that scan with the passport, which was also scanned (yet again).

Like everyone else, I complied. What was my choice? I guess I could have turned back at the point, decline to take the flight I had paid for, but it would be unclear what would then happen. After standing there for perhaps 8 seconds, the machine gave the go signal and I boarded.

I talked to a few passengers about this and others were just as shaken by the experience. They were reticent even to talk about it, as people tend to be when confronted with something like this.

I couldn’t find anyone who had ever seen something like this before. I wrote friends who travel internationally and none said they had ever seen anything like this.

I will tell you how it made me feel: like a prisoner in my own country. It’s one thing to control who comes into a country. But surveilling and permissioning American citizens as they leave their own country, even as they are about to board, is something else.

This isn’t required for all flights, yet.

This writer encountered a Homeland Security / U.S. Customs and Border Protection test at select airports… they are still working out the kinks.

But the question is, after all the frustrations that Americans had with flying after 9/11, and watching their liberties sacrificed at the alter security, after dealing with ridiculously long lines – are Americans now willing sacrifice even more liberties and submit their biometric scans?

Unfortunately, they may be.

As a general mass, Americans have proved underwhelming in their opposition to invasions of privacy on the part of private corporations, especially those online and in computing and communication devices. They have also shrugged off and become immune to fifteen years of airport harassment and additional checks and scans.

Now, iris scans might even one day make security faster – but it’s a devilish tradeoff, and an enormous trust of power an agency that was created into existence out of the 9/11 emergency atmosphere, and which grows only when feeding the machine fear and terror.

Update: a reader has pointed me to this page at Homeland Security:

As part of U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) border security mission, the agency is deploying new technologies to verify travelers’ identities – both when they arrive and when they leave the United States – by matching a traveler to the document they are presenting. CBP’s goal is to enhance national security and protect a traveler’s identity against theft through the use of biometrics.

Biometric information (such as finger, face, or iris) measures a person’s unique physical characteristics. CBP incorporated fingerprints for biometric identification and verification in 2004, and is now testing facial and iris imaging capabilities to help improve travelers’ identity protection, the integrity of our immigration system, and our national security.

I happened to be on the “one daily flight” that gets exit scanned.

[…]

What people don’t often consider is that every rule that pertains to immigration ultimately applies to emigration as well. Every rule that government has to treat immigrants a certain way also necessarily applies to citizens as well.

Chandran Kukathas is right when he says that “controlling immigration means controlling everyone.” (source)

It looks like their tests have so far met with very little resistance, and all signs green, as support for Trump’s new order of police, border, military and security agencies are given new mandates to enforce laws, and take necessary measures to control borders, verify individuals and protect the country. That’s the narrative, and Americans are cheering it on with very little forethought about the consequences it could hold.

For now, Americans are willing to accept new controls.

That is, if nobody reawakens to the massive civil liberties issue that is going on.

Welcome Aboard, But First US Marshals Will Scan Your Retina,BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT FREE

Original SourceChandran Kukathas is right when he says that “controlling immigration means controlling everyone.” (source)

It looks like their tests have so far met with very little resistance, and all signs green, as support for Trump’s new order of police, border, military and security agencies are given new mandates to enforce laws, and take necessary measures to control borders, verify individuals and protect the country. That’s the narrative, and Americans are cheering it on with very little forethought about the consequences it could hold.

For now, Americans are willing to accept new controls.

That is, if nobody reawakens to the massive civil liberties issue that is going on.

Welcome Aboard, But First US Marshals Will Scan Your Retina,BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT FREE

Original Source

The Many "Accomplishments" Of Prez Obama

Thank you, President Obama

Posted on December 9, 2016 by Special To Personal Liberty

This piece, written by Jack Perry, originally appeared at lewrockwell.com.

Many people are alarmed and concerned that president-elect Donald Trump will undo and dismantle all of President Obama’s accomplishments and hard-won achievements that have benefited the American people for some eight years now. I think, therefore, we ought to recognize and applaud these accomplishments so that we do not forget them or so lightly discard them.

President Obama’s great endeavor to bring democracy to Syria has resulted in a catastrophic war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Lest you think this a small feat, bear in mind it took nearly a decade for the Iran-Iraq War to rack up that death toll over almost a decade of scorpions-in-a-bottle fighting. Of course, President Obama can also be congratulated for helping to launch a war that will certainly be more than a mere legacy from his administration. No, a war like this is one parent can be proud to hand down to their children, just like the war in Afghanistan which will probably be left in the will for the next generation to fight in it.

President Obama overcame the natural reluctance in arming terrorists in order to arm terrorists in Syria. President Obama assured us that if background checks were needed in weapons transactions, they were certainly needed here in the United States, and not in a region where all of the “Syrian moderates” would have been called “prohibited possessors” within the United States proper. This was no easy task since the last terrorists we armed with TOW missiles took out some Israeli tanks with them. Be that as it may, we can thank our lucky stars President Obama had the foresight and wisdom to arm people that we could later deny having armed after they got away from American control. This was easy to do since the weapons, wisely, flowed from an Eastern European weapons dealer. President Obama, we applaud this creation of an army that will nip at our heels for decades to come.

President Obama comforted us with assurances that what we thought were “terrorist attacks” in the United States were, in fact, not terrorist attacks at all. Rather, it was “gun violence” and so we could all take solace in the knowledge that those guns got up and perpetrated those attacks all by themselves. The cure would be more background checks, so long as background checks would not be done on overseas weapons transfers to prohibited possessors, er, the Syrian moderates. President Obama reassured us that the only real terrorists were, shockingly, in every police department in the United States. We are grateful to President Obama for having cleared up this error in the realm of semantics for us.

The economy rebounded, again and again, thanks to President Obama. Never before has America seen such spectacular growth in the consumer industries of pawn shops, payday loan chains, auto title loan establishments, rent-to-own centers, and credit collection agencies. President Obama helped get America spending money it didn’t have again and people barely able to pay the rent were once again receiving pre-approved, high-interest credit card offers in their mailboxes. This was no easy task and President Obama is to be applauded for overstocked display cases at pawn shops and “For Sale” signs in front of homes in every neighborhood across America. Thank you, President Obama, for bringing quiet neighborhoods back to America once more. Even if it’s because no one lives in them anymore.

In a nation of around 320 million people, President Obama created hundreds of jobs. We ought to give credit where credit is due because now America can compete with India for coveted customer service call center jobs. We thought we had lost the “Cubicle Gap” with India. But now we are once again staffing anthill-like call centers with flexible schedule positions that provide much-needed jobs for Americans to make payments to payday loan chains and all the pre-approved credit cards that went out like fliers from supermarkets. Thank you, President Obama, for all the great careers in sandwich assembly, sign-twirling, espresso slinging, handbill distribution, door greeting, grocery bagging, and errand running. You got America twirling signs and putting extra pickles on sandwiches again, Mr. President. We doff our silly management-mandated company hats to you.

President Obama’s signature accomplishment is the great health care plan of ObamaCare. They said it couldn’t be done, Mr. President. They said no one could screw up American health care any more than it already was. But you proved them wrong. How can we ever thank you? You have driven up premiums, caused insurers to pull out of entire states, and forced people to buy insurance that won’t be able to afford the rising premiums. You did this brilliantly through the fiat of making it a law you have to have health insurance or pay a fine. Mr. President, it usually takes a dictator to accomplish something like that. But you and your party proved that wrong, too. How can we ever thank the Democrats but, more so, President Obama for a health care plan that makes the old Soviet Union health care plan a better idea?

President Obama’s war on terrorism has worked so well, Europe has seen terrorist attacks that dwarf that Munich Olympics Massacre. The tactic was “Let’s fight them over here and over there, but don’t call them terrorists so we don’t hurt anyone’s feelings”. The need to protect feelings was a brilliant move since we all know that terrorism begins as a self-esteem issue. Indeed, the tactic of paying people to fight the government fighting the terrorists will be a tactic they’ll have to re-write Clausewitz altogether about. And opposing the governments fighting the terrorists? President Obama, you must have lifted a page right out of “Fighting Terrorism For Dummies”. We applaud your low-budget Pericles approach.

I’ve probably left out a lot of other great accomplishments of President Obama, but we don’t have time to bring them up right now. Over time, we will see them bear fruit, almost like a forgotten banana in the backseat during summer. Over time, we will see even more chickens in every pot coming home to roost. Thank you, President Obama, for an America, we can be proud to say “It was like that when I got here…” about.

Jack Perry [send him mail] is a writer living with his wife in the Sonoran Desert where he writes, reads, bakes bread, makes arrows, walks, and documents the foolishness of government itself. When the government is speaking or acting, Jack observes his own Rule Number One: Always Assume It’s A Scam. A perennial desert rat, wayfarer, and path pilgrim, Jack also enjoys silence—especially from the government.