Face Recognition in Salt Lake City?

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sun, 06 May 2001 12:00:00 GMT

Cryptome - International License to Practice IT Security Worldwide - If you can download this page, you are qualified to practice IT security. Really. Hehe. [cryptome]

bob lonsberry - Olympics Organizers Are Wrong about Security System - Mr. Lonsberry is oh so wrong about this one. He thinks that the face recognition system that they installed at the Super Bowl should also be used at the Salt Lake City olympics. The organizers have decided, for now, not to use them, due to a huge public outcry. Good for the organizers. Bad for Mr. Lonsberry. Let him know how wrong he is. Comment on this article by clicking on the link near the bottom. I wrote the following:

I am so disgusted by your take on this that I could spit. I'm sick of being x-rayed, searched, questioned, frisked, photographed, id'd, etc., etc. And it gets worse all the time.
There is a real danger in these face-recognition cameras. If we start allowing them anywhere, pretty soon they'll be everywhere. And a log of all of our activities will be available to anyone who wants to control us. I'd rather be blown away by a bomb than live in such a society.
If you're worried about your safety, carry a weapon. Don't impinge on my liberty. Benjamin Franklin said it well: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety".

Linda Hamilton's experience with Taxachusetts state troopers appeared in the "Terra Incognita" section of the newest Liberty:

The Thin Blue Line is a bit thick in the Bay State, as reported in The Massachusetts News:
A woman was pulled over after she displayed her gun at another driver who was tailgating her. A detective at the scene explained to two rookie police officers that having a gun in the car was against the law; and seized it. After being informed that such was not the case, the officer explained that he doesn't "know anything about the gun laws... because they are constantly changing."

Joshua Cooper Ramo at Time Magazine - America's Shadow Drug War - Time covered this week the murder of a missionary and her baby in Peru. I sent them the following letter.

There's a name for the killing of Roni Bowers and her baby. It's called murder in the first degree. The pilot who pulled the trigger should be indicted and tried. If convicted he should be executed. Every American congressman, bureaucrat, and law-enforcement agent who has been part of this government campaign of terror should be tried for conspiracy to commit murder. If convicted, under RICO they too deserve the ultimate penalty, though I'd settle for 20 years without the possibility of parole.

Sally Beatty at the Wall Street Journal via FreeRepublic - Cartoon Network Drops an Anvil On Plans to Show Bugs in Blackface - AOL Time Warner's Cartoon Network was going to show every Bugs Bunny cartoon ever made in their annual "June Bugs" event, but 12 of them were considered too politically incorrect, so have been dropped. [lew]

Lindsay Perigo's Politically Incorrect Show - 27 April 2001 - A Free Radical award for Peter Cresswell for lifting the spirits of a depressed fellow libertarian.

"What works for me when I'm down.? Ignoring the bastards! Reading the sports pages, or a short story by O. Henry, or Saki, or a novel by Robert Heinlein, or a piece by PJ O'Rourke; listening to a piece of music by Duke Ellington; flicking through a book on Michelangelo, or Rodin, or Frank Lloyd Wright; kicking a football around; driving a fine classic car; visiting the pre-1900 section of the Art Gallery (keeping my eyes closed at the rest); sitting with the copy of Michelangelo's Moses in Myers Park; catching a ferry to Devenport for a movie, and admiring Auckland's skyline on the trip back ... Find your passions, and follow them -- don't be put off by the grey ones. '... For life is for those with hearts that beat, and blood that boils, and who fight with spirits undimmed ...'"

Larry Sechrest at The Free Radical - Trafficking with the Brain-Dead: One Man's Experience in "Higher Education" - an associate professor of economics at a small public "university" in western Texas bemoans the plight of higher education. Most of the students don't belong there. Instead, they should acquire vocational training, something from which they will actually profit.

What aspects of society have led to the deplorable state of higher education? From an institutional standpoint, the first thing to go must be the public schools. Don't worry about "reforming" them via some voucher plan. They are beyond redemption. Sell the buildings and equipment to whatever private concerns may have use for them, return that money to the taxpayers, and burn to the ground whatever physical structures may remain. Along with this, all departments of "education" in universities should be abolished, because they have merely served as apologists for the teachers' unions and as promoters of a multitude of false doctrines.

DRCNet - Meet the New Czar, Worse Than the Old Czar - John Walters will make us wish for the return of Barry McCaffrey. Phaser that asshole, Spock.

DRCNet - Consent Searches to Become Extinct? New Jersey and California Move to End Highway Searches Without Probable Cause - a small win for motorists in CA and NJ.

I sometimes want to link to a section of a web page that has no nearby NAME tag (<a name="...">). I'd like an extension of the link syntax that would allow searching on a page. <a href="http://www.foo.com/frob.html#f#find this> would do a search for "find this" on the frob.html page at www.foo.com.

Add comment Edit post Add post

Previous Posts:
LAX Security
Welcome Back, Lance!
Reno on Ethics. Really.
Head Dickhead Steps Down
May Day 2001
Randy Weaver, Still Kickin'
Snow Crash
An Unwinnable War on Drugs
Alwin on Death
Another Stake in Liberty's Heart

Navigation

History

Quotes

Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair