Big Brother

Two rather alarming, if unsurprising stories by way of Blogenfreude at Agitprop. First up, the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority is considering:

in their never-ending quest to protect New Yorkers from the fallout from the Dear Leader's War on Terrorâ„¢, [the installation of] fingertip-sniffing card scanners and card vending machines on our subways. At Agitprop, we feel safer already!

Expect police shootings of firecracker-wielding schoolchildren, smokers, and magicians.

Next up, the feds have begun issuing passports that contain biometric information stored on remotely readable microchips, in spite of lingering security and privacy concerns.

The passport chips contain all the personal information printed inside the passport, as well as a digitised photograph of the passport holder. At ports of entry, scanners will access these data and compare them with a national database for identity verification.

The new "E-Passports" have so far been issued only to US diplomats, as part of a pilot programme conducted in collaboration with Singapore, New Zealand and Australia. They will be introduced nationwide by October.

You'll be totally unsurprised to hear that "civil liberties and privacy groups" have some issue with the new passports.

Whatever. Don't they know that everything changed after 9/11? What are they--traitors?!

(Agitprop)

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