Monday, August 24, 2009

Biometrics Part of Immigration Reform?

How soon will it be that anyone who refuses to submit to an iris scan will end up in a detention center? Or at least we'll be unemployed...

I mentioned the biometrics as part of immigration reform in my "Freedom Not Reform" article recently, but i didn't even take it as seriously as i think it now needs to be taken.

Some promoters of immigration reform are insisting that biometrics technology will be necessary to keep everyone in line. Man, what a great way to get all those who value civil liberties to unite against giving undocumented immigrants a way to become legal- even those who would like to see legalization. Is Schumer getting kickbacks from the biometrics industry? Someone needs to look into this. And what's the status of the Real ID, anyway?

So what is this going to look like: will there be an anti-biometrics movement?

I found some interesting commentary on a blog called "Of America": "This national ID move is either a labrynthine charade designed to give Obama and the Democrats a way out of their commitment to immigration reform-even the conservative, punitive “get tough approach of CIR”- or a very dangerous move to continue the Bush surveillance project under the guise “immigration reform.”

Biometric technology opens new security frontiers
And it could become the dominant way for Americans to identify themselves if Congress moves ahead with efforts to create a biometric employee-verification system to ensure that only U.S. citizens and legal immigrants get jobs.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who chairs the Senate's immigration subcommittee, has said that a verification system based on fingerprints, iris scans or some other form of biometrics must be part of any comprehensive immigration-reform bill.

The plan is controversial with civil libertarians, who say it poses a threat to Americans' privacy. But supporters say it is the only reliable, tamperproof way to stop the identity theft and fraud that plagues the current E-Verify system.

For such a proposal to work, Americans would need to provide their fingerprints or other biometric information to the government to help create a federal database that employers could use to identify would-be workers as legal U.S. residents...

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