Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted • Hacker News Board

Re: Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

#111

Post by Blikkentrekker » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 2:09 AM UTC

loceng wrote: post #86

throwawaylinux wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Religious exemptions shouldn't be a thing though. I should not get more protections or rights in any way than another citizen because I happen to have or claim different beliefs than them. I'm not talking about being discriminated against because of religious beliefs, mind you. I'm talking about the right to do or refuse something (e.g., refuse a fingerprint or, or refuse to serve alcohol) and protection of those cho…

Replace religious exemption with phrase deep conviction; relation to religion is only in use in policy as mass religion played a role to counter government, requiring at least some compromise for government to gain the most popular religions/organizations as allies, to align with.

That is the Dutch standard, “deep conviction”, but I see no merit in that either.

One should not be given special privileges because one's convictions be “deep” which is, if anything, symptomatic of not basing them on prudence but on hysteria and emotion.

It's also irrelevant for the company itself; if a company can reasonably accommodate a man whose convictions are deep, it can do so the same with anyone else for the same reason.

Re: Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

#112

Post by aaron_m04 » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 2:09 AM UTC

kgc wrote: post #109

motohagiography wrote: post #24

Good. Religious exemptions are pragmatic canaries for state overreach. People are not livestock, even if states and employers like to treat them that way. The idea of a religious exemption isn't just some pastafarian variation, it represents a very real line between the individual and group and whether one is a citizen or mere property. This is the marking issue with biometrics. Are you a being with agency, or are yo…

Could someone just start a religion that disallows taxation and stop paying taxes?

I very much doubt that any government would allow that, for obvious reasons.

Re: Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

#113

Post by adrianba » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 2:09 AM UTC

throwthere wrote: post #52

throwawaylinux wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Religious exemptions shouldn't be a thing though. I should not get more protections or rights in any way than another citizen because I happen to have or claim different beliefs than them. I'm not talking about being discriminated against because of religious beliefs, mind you. I'm talking about the right to do or refuse something (e.g., refuse a fingerprint or, or refuse to serve alcohol) and protection of those cho…

I agree with you on principal but the courts have kind of interpreted the free exercise clause of the first amendment broadly by 2021 standards and there's not really any going back.

I'm not sure it's that bad. It's still the law in the United States that you cannot claim a religious exemption to a (state) law of general applicability. If the law applies to everyone regardless of religion and was not intended to impact a particular religious practice, then you cannot challenge it you because you claim that it affects your right to exercise your religion. See City of Boerne v. Flores, which affirmed Employment Division v. Smith despite Congress's attempt to legislate it away.

Re: Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

#114

Post by Blikkentrekker » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 2:10 AM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #31

motohagiography wrote: post #24

Good. Religious exemptions are pragmatic canaries for state overreach. People are not livestock, even if states and employers like to treat them that way. The idea of a religious exemption isn't just some pastafarian variation, it represents a very real line between the individual and group and whether one is a citizen or mere property. This is the marking issue with biometrics. Are you a being with agency, or are yo…

> The idea of a religious exemption isn't just some pastafarian variation Anyone’s assumptions or thoughts can qualify as a religion. At least for any consistent and useful definition of religion.

And they rarely do in countries that award special privileges to “religions”.

It all comes down to whether some court, quite arbitrarily, rules whether one's convictions are a “religion” or not, and if they be, one may derive special privileges from it.

Re: Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

#115

Post by chime » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 2:12 AM UTC

blunte wrote: post #99

I suspect this is an engineered situation/story/post. I suspect it is designed to drum up conflict and destabilize a society. Who really benefits from this is up for debate, and I won't speculate. That out of the way, fingerprints and faces are essentially public. Unless you wear a mask and gloves in public, you are visible. And even so, you'll shed some DNA material here and there. If you're so concerned about that,…

Thank you for pointing this out. I wish more people thought like this instead of instantly reacting. It turns out the Internet in the real-world is opposite of Monsters Inc. The crux of the movie was that children's laughter had more power than their frightful screams. Publishers have discovered that rage-inducing click-bait is more profitable than in-depth stories that help us resolve issues.

It doesn't matter if I wholeheartedly agree with an article that causes me to have negative emotions. Yes, the climate is getting worse. Yes, a few power plants and containers ships are responsible for a significant fraction of the pollutants. Yes, humans are not working to fix it fast enough. Yes, politician X supports horrible thing Y.

Nevertheless, I don't recall giving a push notification the right to trigger my emotions.

Re: Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

#116

Post by Blikkentrekker » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 2:13 AM UTC

aaron_m04 wrote: post #112

kgc wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could someone just start a religion that disallows taxation and stop paying taxes?

I very much doubt that any government would allow that, for obvious reasons.

There are other somewhat similar cases however.

In Finland, conscription may be avoided by being a Jehova's witness, that sole religion, on the basis of that it is a non-violent religion, ignoring that many other religions have similar tenants, and many non-religious people are also deeply pacifist who are still conscript. — That sole religion, so named, is exempted from conscription.

And one only need prove membership, not prove that one actually holds those non-violent beliefs to be exempt.

Re: Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

#117

Post by kome » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 2:13 AM UTC

blunte wrote: post #99

I suspect this is an engineered situation/story/post. I suspect it is designed to drum up conflict and destabilize a society. Who really benefits from this is up for debate, and I won't speculate. That out of the way, fingerprints and faces are essentially public. Unless you wear a mask and gloves in public, you are visible. And even so, you'll shed some DNA material here and there. If you're so concerned about that,…

facial recognition technologies and fingerprinting are not normal and please, don't try to normalize them. biometric surveillance technologies (such as facial recognition) in public places should be limited, but also other form of biometric data — such as of faces but also of gait, fingerprints, DNA, voice, keystrokes and other biometric or behavioural signals.

When monitored, we change behaviour and self-censor.

When categorised, we are judged and discriminated against.

It's a vicious circle of power imbalances.

This is NOT normal.

Re: Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

#118

Post by mbg721 » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 2:13 AM UTC

throwawaylinux wrote: post #44

motohagiography wrote: post #24

Good. Religious exemptions are pragmatic canaries for state overreach. People are not livestock, even if states and employers like to treat them that way. The idea of a religious exemption isn't just some pastafarian variation, it represents a very real line between the individual and group and whether one is a citizen or mere property. This is the marking issue with biometrics. Are you a being with agency, or are yo…

Religious exemptions shouldn't be a thing though. I should not get more protections or rights in any way than another citizen because I happen to have or claim different beliefs than them. I'm not talking about being discriminated against because of religious beliefs, mind you. I'm talking about the right to do or refuse something (e.g., refuse a fingerprint or, or refuse to serve alcohol) and protection of those cho…

Even if you don't personally believe in any religion, it's useful for a society to formally acknowledge an authority that's greater than the individuals to whom it gives political power.

Re: Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

#119

Post by User23 » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 2:16 AM UTC

adrianba wrote: post #113

throwthere wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you on principal but the courts have kind of interpreted the free exercise clause of the first amendment broadly by 2021 standards and there's not really any going back.

I'm not sure it's that bad. It's still the law in the United States that you cannot claim a religious exemption to a (state) law of general applicability. If the law applies to everyone regardless of religion and was not intended to impact a particular religious practice, then you cannot challenge it you because you claim that it affects your right to exercise your religion. See City of Boerne v. Flores, which affirm…

Would a state law banning infant male circumcision as genital mutilation without consent stand?

How about a state law against branding or tattooing infants or any other irreversible body modification?

Clearly these are both rhetorical questions with obvious answers. Whether or not those obvious answers are morally correct is another matter.

Re: Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

#120

Post by Blikkentrekker » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 2:17 AM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #32

latenightcoding wrote: post #6

most of my family agreed to get fingerprinted to get free gym membership (family friend runs the gym and you scan your thumb at the door for access). It pissed me off so much.

Modern fingerprint reader systems don’t capture and store an entire fingerprint. They use algorithms that extract a number of features from the print. You can’t extract someone’s fingerprint from a gym’s fingerprint scanning system and run it through a background check database, for example. If you’re concerned about giving up identifiable data points, the photo on your gym membership account is more likely to be usa…

Or one's simple legal name and billing address.

I'm honestly a fair bit more concern about that dealing in legal names and addresses is still so common than I am about tracking cookies, but, as usual, people are more afraid of new things than of old, even if the old be more dangerous.