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Uncle Sam wants to scan your iris and collect your DNA, citizen or not

theregister.com

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Re: Uncle Sam wants to scan your iris and collect your DNA, citizen or not

#41

Post by yannyu »

pdonis wrote: post #32
yannyu wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about as accurate a Buzzfeed headline, but I guess that's par for the course on the internet these days. It's not a "DNA sample" in the way that most people would consider it these days, no more than a used cup would also be called a "DNA sample". But to your point, it can still be used for surveillance and tracking. Also, your phrasing is designed to make it seem like a huge overreach, when this act has likely…

> this act has likely saved millions of lives through early diagnosis of preventable diseases and early intervention on disabilities Why does the state have to collect and keep the sample for that to happen? Why can't it be the private property of the parents, provided to whatever private testing labs are used to do the tests?

That seems like a fair criticism. I don't know enough to quantify the benefit of retaining these samples, but I do know that the reason for keeping samples primarily relates to quality control, research, and development of tests.

There is a process for people to have the sample destroyed, I also have no idea how easy or how often that is used.

Re: Uncle Sam wants to scan your iris and collect your DNA, citizen or not

#43

Post by [deleted] »

abeppu wrote: post #40
y-curious wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time I fly from SFO, there’s a face-tracking camera that takes your photo after you stand up close to it. There’s definitely some sort of data harvesting there and there’s no opt out that I know about. I also have Clear, which was voluntary but certainly collected my biometric data years ago. I also have Global Entry, which has a similar scanning tech to point 1.

Yeah, I think the crappy side of it at this point is that the biometric data they collect is never leveraged to help you as a citizen. If I lose my passport while abroad, given that the government has my fingerprints etc, why can't I use those biometrics to reenter the country (and have a replacement passport reissued immediately)? Officially, you are supposed to be able to opt out of the face recognition cameras at…

[deleted]

Re: Uncle Sam wants to scan your iris and collect your DNA, citizen or not

#44

Post by ModernMech »

slg wrote: post #36
ModernMech wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way to prevent authoritarians from abusing power is to not elect them, and to throw them in jail when they violate the law. They're not hard to spot; people warned about the current guy for a decade before he took over. What's happening right now is not because the government had a database lying around and an unspecified authoritarian picked it up. What's happening is that after a specific authoritarian staged a…

>The way to prevent authoritarians from abusing power is to not elect them, and to throw them in jail when they violate the law. This was the true motivation for my comment. It's futile trying to design your laws to withstand the dangers of a future authoritarian regime taking power when that authoritarian regime can just as easily change or ignore those laws once they take control. Our government is experiencing a r…

Yup, the fight against American authoritarianism happened between 2015 and 2025. It's now over, authoritarianism won. All that's left now is for it to burn itself out as people bear the consequences they refused for a decade to entertain were possible.

We spent 10 years warning about him, pointing out his specific authoritarian tendencies, January 6 was predicted years before it happened, but when people said "he's not going to leave" they were met with mockery.

Who tf cares about databases when their plan was to just use their power to throw out entire states worth of votes? The entire J6 plot was that Pence was to reject the certification of the vote so that states could send "alternative electors" who voted for Trump, which would have disenfranchised millions of people at once. What is the law supposed to do against such anti-democratic "might makes right" depravity? At that point, the players have abandoned the game entirely, they're playing by different rules, your laws are meaningless.

Edit: to the dead comment below me:

> If you actually believed you were living under a dangerous, authoritarian government you wouldn't be posting about it on the internet. You'd be scared shitless trying to delete any trace of this connected to yourself.

Bro, I'm already labelled part of a terrorist organization by this government for my political beliefs. There's nothing I can say here or elsewhere that would change that, so at this point my fate is locked in because I'm not going to change what I believe.

There's not point in hiding anything, now is not a time for hiding, it's a time for speaking your mind. These people are authoritarians, but they are not all powerful. Yet. They have no consolidated power. Yet. They 100% want to, but that's not going to be possible as long as people continue to speak out. Read Timothy Snyder's, On Authoritarianism. He describes what you suggest is the rational response as "obeying in advance", which is the primary way in which the authoritarians seize power -- it's freely given by people who are too afraid to push back.

Re: Uncle Sam wants to scan your iris and collect your DNA, citizen or not

#45

Post by parineum »

harimau777 wrote: post #9
slg wrote: post #3

It's weird how many people's perception of this type of behavior is shaped by the person sitting in the White House. EDIT: It's also weird how my comment is being perceived exclusively as criticizing the critics of this administration rather than criticizing the supporters of this overreach. My comment was intentional phrased very generally, if you think it is specifically about you, that reveals something about you.

Wouldn't it be weird if that didn't shape their perception? It's not surprising that people are less trusting when an authoritarian is in power.

What makes this objectionable is that it's an authoritarian thing to do.

Re: Uncle Sam wants to scan your iris and collect your DNA, citizen or not

#46

Post by tho423i43344324 »

Unsurprising.

India, which given its colonial-era ruling-elites who are maniacally obsessed with the Anglosphere, is today considered a "laboratory" for doing social experiments that'd be considered a outrage against human dignity in their own countries. This country was the first in line not only the biometric identification projects (Aadhar), and for demonetization (of 2016 with UPI). All of these were funded and pushed by USAID.

Both of these were implemented by running roughshod over constitution and regulation, by "roping-in" key regulatory people by giving them what they desire the most - access to the ruling elites in the US. Eg. Infosys' Nandan Nilekani was thrust to the top with his USAID funded projects.

Now the results of this "human corralling" experiments (note: a lot of what Orwell described came out of his experience in British-colonial India), is now coming to the West.

Re: Uncle Sam wants to scan your iris and collect your DNA, citizen or not

#47

Post by rootusrootus »

harimau777 wrote: post #9
slg wrote: post #3

It's weird how many people's perception of this type of behavior is shaped by the person sitting in the White House. EDIT: It's also weird how my comment is being perceived exclusively as criticizing the critics of this administration rather than criticizing the supporters of this overreach. My comment was intentional phrased very generally, if you think it is specifically about you, that reveals something about you.

Wouldn't it be weird if that didn't shape their perception? It's not surprising that people are less trusting when an authoritarian is in power.

At this point, at least a third of the country always thinks an authoritarian is in power.

Re: Uncle Sam wants to scan your iris and collect your DNA, citizen or not

#48

Post by decremental »

ModernMech wrote: post #44
slg wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The way to prevent authoritarians from abusing power is to not elect them, and to throw them in jail when they violate the law. This was the true motivation for my comment. It's futile trying to design your laws to withstand the dangers of a future authoritarian regime taking power when that authoritarian regime can just as easily change or ignore those laws once they take control. Our government is experiencing a r…

Yup, the fight against American authoritarianism happened between 2015 and 2025. It's now over, authoritarianism won. All that's left now is for it to burn itself out as people bear the consequences they refused for a decade to entertain were possible. We spent 10 years warning about him, pointing out his specific authoritarian tendencies, January 6 was predicted years before it happened, but when people said "he's n…

[dead]

Re: Uncle Sam wants to scan your iris and collect your DNA, citizen or not

#49

Post by whoooboyy »

rootusrootus wrote: post #47
harimau777 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it be weird if that didn't shape their perception? It's not surprising that people are less trusting when an authoritarian is in power.

At this point, at least a third of the country always thinks an authoritarian is in power.

FWIW, I've believed we've had an authoritarian in power for quite a while now. Obama, Trump, Biden, and Bush have all tried and succeeded in expanding executive power. They've all engaged in extrajudicial killings overseas.

Nothing sets me off like seeing people think this behavior from Trump doesn't have shared roots across both parties.

Biden kept kids in cages. Obama bombed weddings. Yes, the current admin is accelerating hard but like, prior admins were accelerating.

People should really try to stop thinking about politics like it's a two party game where you have to pick a side. Figure out your principles, and start finding candidates who match those principles.

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