[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" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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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