Big Brother and the Retinal Scan
My editorial comment: the various government agencies and departments could never get organized enough to monitor our every move. With that having been said, here's an entry from unbossed.com:
Recently, a friend of mine lost his Naturalization Certificate, the document that proves that a person has legally become a citizen of the United States....As my friend contacted the Department of Homeland Security, which now houses the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) (previously the INS), his request for a new Naturalization Certificate was denied pending a "biometric analysis." By this, they meant fingerprinting along with a retinal scan. The notification from USCIS included local sites that perform such biometric analysis for a fee.
As an American-born citizen of Mexican descent, I would like to think that if I were to lose my passport (which like the Naturalization Certificate serves to prove that I am a citizen), I would not be submited to a retinal scan. But then again, I am not Muslim, and my friend is.
As we speak, hundreds, if not thousands of people from countries that are predominantly Muslim (whether in the Middle East or the former Soviet Union) are being rounded up for biometric analysis. This obvious infringement on the Fourth Ammendment of the Constitution is happening without much reporting from the mainstream media. Our neighbors are being treated like criminals until proven innocent, as long periods of dentention continue for those unfortunate enough to be caught up in a system run by people who fear terrorism, but seldom know how to fight it (global terrorism has increased dramatically since most of our country's "anti-terrorism" efforts have come full-swing).
On the constitutional front biometrics is questionable at best. While fingerprinting has come to play a fairly accepted role in routine background checks for certain types of employment, various states have ruled that the mass collection of personal information is a violation of personal privacy.
In Perkey v. Department of Motor Vehicles (1986) the Supreme Court of California ruled that "the collection of fingerprints for... unspecified and widespread usage infringes on individual privacy rights." Today, biometric information is uploaded for various purposes to be utilized by numerous governmental agencies for verification and distribution, all under the premise of increasing security. In other words, the personal features of individuals who have not been charged or convicted with any crimes are being used by the federal government to create a database of individuals who are associated with Islam, secular as they may be.
The government's stance is that the war on terror has prompted the need for increased security measures. But when the citizenry allows blatant violations of basic civil liberties in the name of security, our nation moves nearer to the end of democracy....
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