I must have been asleep at the switch. How is it possible I'd missed the nominating period, which ended April 5? Here are the categories:
- The Most Invasive Proposal
- Greatest Corporate Invader
- Worst Public Official or Department
- Lifetime Menace Award
- Put RFIDs in registration stickers on all Texas motor vehicles.
- Put RFIDs in Spring ISD schooldchildren's ID cards.
- The Texas Department of Pubilc Safety risks identity theft on a massive scale by compiling a statewide database of the two most common biometrics used as passwords. The proposed enabling legislation would allow the gathered biometric facial recognition and fingerprint data from Texas drivers and ID card holders to be used for any law enforcement purpose without a court order.
- Dallas PD shares surveillance data with private businesses.
Oh, and if there's a Big Brother photo essay contest, Freedom is Slavery has an entry.
Interesting post. I wish I could attend.
ReplyDeleteIt's a bummer they do not have a category for "Worst Orwellian Doublespeak by a University Official". There are some Texas examples of that, as well.
So - The Texas police want to have a database of biometric data so that they can retrieve fingerprints and pictures anytime they want it?
ReplyDeleteAt best, to give the police such power is to throw away so much civil liberty that we might as well be robots coming off the conveyor belt at the Honda Corporation. "Charge me up and I vote for you" seems to be the desired motto.
At worst - when the state REALLY goes awry - we might as well have given them our pickup information for the train to Auschwitz.
In Georgia, the state repealed a statute that required fingerprints from drivers. The database of millions of fingerprints was destroyed.