We used to fingerprint felons — now, we’re “inking” traffic
scofflaws.
Run a couple of mph over the speed limit in the state of Kansas
(or even fail to “buckle up for safety”) and you’ll be duly entered
into the Kansas Bureau of Investigation’s electronic fingerprint
database — a privilege once reserved for actual criminals, not
ordinary citizens who commit minor violations of the motor vehicle
code. KBI, authorized by the state government, will be “testing
out” 60 automated fingerprint readers throughout the state
beginning this month — all of it funded by a $3.6 million grant
from the Department of Homeland Security.
Who knew Kansas drivers were such an ominous lot?
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated aberrance. California
began fingerprinting driver’s license applicants as long ago as
1977 (when it was optional; it’s now mandatory) and other states
(Georgia, Colorado, Hawaii, Texas) routinely fingerprint motorists
as well — with digitized/electronic systems coming on line. Most
of this is done at license issue time, however.
Kansas is the first state to run fingerprints during traffic
stops.
Recently passed federal legislation will soon require all states
to catalogue motorists’ whorls and swirls (and other so-called
“biometric tags,” including eye scans) within the next couple of
years.
Virginia and a few other states are looking at incorporating
microscopic “radio frequency” ID transmitters into driver’s
licenses that would make it possible for anyone with the right
scanner to download all your pertinent (and even not-so-pertinent)
information — without your even being aware of it. These RFID
transmitters work sort of like those EZ-pass thingies some of us
already have on our cars to help us breeze through tolls. Only in
this case, it would be a matter of making it easier for government
to breeze through our personal data.
Fingerprint scanners are also in use on school buses and in
cafeteria lunchrooms — apparently to make sure no child gets more
than his allotted serving of tater tots. (And perhaps to acclimate
the next generation to this sort of routine monitoring.)
Add to the mix face recognition software tied increasingly
everywhere into video surveillance equipment and our minders in
government will be able to observe and keep track of us as
efficiently as a biologist observing a paramecium under his
microscope.
It’s not “your papers, please!” (say it with a thick German
accent). It’s worse. Because what’s at issue is not merely your
identity — but everything linked to your identity, including your
purchases (tied into your credit cards and bank records), medical
history, even (potentially) your political and social affiliations
insofar as they can be recorded via computer data. The sum total of
your existence; a summary of your life to date. Information of this
sort is constantly being collected and stored in various computer
databases, both privately and government-run — all of it keyed
into your identity.
And your fingerprint.
Sullen DMV personnel and low-grade Nixonian bureaucrats will
shortly have total access to our vital personal information at
their whim, anytime — without any meaningful legal/judicial
protections against such random searches. Then there are the
hackers and identity thieves who will inevitably gain access to our
info.
Our Brave New World is here!
Of course, this go ‘round it’s supposed to be different. And OK.
Our leaders are noble and trustworthy — beyond corruption, perhaps
even beyond good and evil. The awesome power they’re accumulating
will never be abused — even by future “leaders” who may not be so
all-wise or all-benevolent.
They are merely trying to protect us from “terror.” Etc.
And so we must accept without question or complaint ever
broader, ever more intrusive government — up to and including
being catalogued and monitored like paroled felons. Even if all
we’ve done is run a red light or failed to wear our seat belt.
