Darryl Shannon wrote:
>
> I'm sure most of you have heard of the stunt the FBI tried at the
> Superbowl. Cameras took pictures of the fans sitting in the bleachers,
> while a computer system compared those faces to mug shots of wanted
> criminals. Well, the search turned up no matches, no one was arrested.
>
> But, it seems that the technology is here to do this kind of thing,
> even if the bugs haven't quite been worked out. Attach the mug-shot
> database to every police surveilance camera on every streetcorner, and
> suddenly it's a lot harder for known criminals to move about.
>
> So...was this a good idea or a bad idea? Fascism creeping in, or just
> an advanced form of cops recognizing the perp they brought in last
> month? Any changes you'd like to see made?
Could be a good thing (sort of a mechanical version of "America's Most
Wanted"), just so long as that mug-shot data base was in the common
domain and accesible to everyone. We should have the right to know if
someone is looking for us. (The crooks already know that they're being
hunted.)
Kevin Street
