From CNN:
Bolding mine.
You’ll have to connect the dots for me. Newfangled biometric lockers == loss of liberty?
Yes, apparently the biometric data is being run through a terrorist database (not, IMHO, a totally bad idea given that the SOL is one of your more likely terrorist targets). And if they decide to broaden that and make it a “wanted criminal” database, that might raise some civil liberties issues. But at the moment, getting fingerprinted isn’t a requirement for actually getting in to the statue and there’s no indication that the fingerprints are stored or recorded.
Are you saying that the fingerprints are being run through some national database of fingerprints? Or perhaps it is just a system to ensure that the person who put the thing in the locker is the person who retrieves it?
Your tin foil hat doesn’t seem to be properly fitted.
Aren’t these lockers still optional. Meaning if you don’t have to stash anything, you don’t get scanned? Don’t see the loss of liberty here.
Sorry, I’m not seeing it… The lockers are optional. Therefore, the people using the lockers have the choice to have their fingerprints scanned.
Even if they scanned everyone going to Ellis Island, it’s still not a loss of liberty. You don’t have to go, hence you don’t have to get fingerprinted. Now, if they start doing regular stops on the highways, streets, or sidewalks and scan you just for the hell of it, that’s loss of liberty.
Sure the lockers are optional – so long as you’re not carrying anything larger or sharper than a pencil eraser.
I’m not suggesting it’s 1984 just yet, but from a symbolic point of view it’s pretty sucky. “Come and see the symbol of our liberty… BUT FIRST YOU MUST STAND IN LINE AND SUBMIT TO ZE FINGERPRINTING PROCESS, ZEN VE VILL COMPARE YOUR PRINTS TO OUR DATABASE… and have a nice day!”
Do we have any proof that the Statue is a target? Other than the fact that we would be terrorized by the loss?
Al Cicada has blown up many things.
Embassys
Navel Ship
Finacial Centers
Military Commmand Centers
Have they ever destroyed a purely symbolic target?
IMHO the Statue would be very far down the list of possible targets.
Finagle, you were so close. Keep reading the CNN article. Carefully, because the transition sentence could be misleading.
Locker fingerprints are not run through any database at all, other than the one contained in the locker controller. I used one of these at Universal Studios in Orlando last winter and thought it was very cool; impossible to lose your key, and no risk of forgetting which locker you put your stuff in, because the machine tells you which locker your stuff is in when it reads your fingerprint. It really put me more at ease because I didn’t have to worry about my phone and keys falling out while I zoomed around the rides.
Yes, it was a little bewildering until I read the sign. It even recommended to use your right thumb.
The CNN article goes on to say that more sophisticated biometric scans are being used by the INS. But not by the Parks Service, or by Universal Studios.
I don’t know about you, but there ain’t any boats in my belly button, no matter how fat I am.
Yup, you’re right. Which makes the OP even more alarmist than it already was. The only reason people should be complaining is that the good old-fashioned cheap and reliable lock and key is being replaced by fancy gadgetry that’s probably gonna break all the time.