Have eyeball, will travel

[question everything]

Sunday, June 5, 2005

Have eyeball, will travel

Select program for high-speed passes to speed through airport security gets boost as entrepreneur's plan for voluntary iris ID gets Orlando Airport as first taker.

By BRIAN BERGSTEIN
The Associated Press

Since the federal government began letting select frequent fliers with new high-tech passes speed through airport security checkpoints, one of the biggest complaints has been that the year-old program is too limited to be of much use.

Now, a privately run version coming online in Florida could spur efforts to broaden the program - and boost media entrepreneur Steven Brill's vision of installing such a system across the nation at airports and other security- sensitive locations.

Beginning June 21, the Orlando airport will let travelers pay $80 a year for a card that guarantees an exclusive security line and the promise of no random, secondary pat-down. To get this new "Clear" card, travelers would have to be vetted by the Department of Homeland Security and submit to fingerprint and iris scans. Similar systems exist at some European airports, and in five U.S. airports as part of a test by the Transportation Security Administration.

But the TSA's "Registered Traveler" program, which is free for now while in its test phase, has been capped at 10,000 participants, and cards obtained at one airport don't work at others.

More..

http://www.ocregister.com/ocr/2005/06/05/sections/business/your_money/article_546891.php

[amazona]

1. iris scans?

I would be happy to participate in a trusted traveler program but NOT if it requires scans of my eyes. We don't have good information on the long-term medical consequences of scans to the eyes. I would expect increased risk of cataract to be a given. You only get one pair of eyes. There's a better way to do this. Stop digitizing fingerprints, which allows fingerprints to be changed without any record of how they have been changed. The old way of collecting fingerprints meant every person had unique fingerprints. The digital way means that a guy in Oregon gets arrested for a bombing in Spain even though he can prove it wasn't physically possible for him to be there or the fingerprint to be his.

This is a problem that must be solved but not by giving up any chance of having one's eyesight in one's later years.

[fishnfla]

2. I think this is kinda cool

and I also think that iris scan technology is the wave of the future.

Digital retinal imagining is also being used in all sorts of ocular health care applications, GDX and OCT are becoming the standard of diagnostic care, so I know it is safe.

[SoCalDem]

3. Irradiating thymus glands and tonsils used to be considered safe too

until teens started getting thryoid cancer:eyes:

[fishnfla]

4. Yes and Galileo and Copernicus were considered heretics

:eyes:

The technology uses digital imaging with visible and infrared light, which is harmless to ocular tissue in the wavelengths used. Indeed, in retinal imaging, it is used on the most delicate eye tissue,one of the most fragile tissues in the whole body,the retinal pigment epithelium, without harm. In fact, it is most often used on eye tissues that have already been compromised by disease, and repeatedly so, without any side effects.

[Gormy Cuss]

6. Just curious: used repeatedly means how much exposure?

I ask because there are many things like X-rays and therapeutic radiation that are fine in managed doses but aren't a good idea in higher exposures. Are you familiar with any research that points to even relatively minor side effects from daily exposure to digital imaging? I'm thinking here about workers who might pass by retinal scanners a dozen times a day for example. No impact on eye tissues at all?

My worry is that there is such strong profit potential for these products that there may be a rush to widespread use without proper consideration of potential risk for much higher exposure levels than seen in current data.

[fishnfla]

7. Let me put it to you this way

The machine you are looking at right now has been proven to cause more harm to vision than digital ocular imaging ever will (google "computer vision syndrome").

Its kinda funny to me, defending technological advances on the internet and people claiming eye damage when the technology they are using is far worse.


Its light that is being used, not radiation or Xrays, not even UV radiation. The eye as a optical device is built to withstand light.


In response to your question, people have 2 retinal scans at a time, sometimes a few months apart, whatever Medicare pays for. I have never heard of any limit being placed upon the procedure. In fact, I never heard of one harmful side effect from the testing at all.

[Gormy Cuss]

8. Thanks

I'm well aware that our modern habit of staring at screens isn't good. That's one of the reasons I asked the question because it would seem to be a benign activity. Retinal scans 12 per day x 5 shifts per week is much more than current use. Nice to hear no one's found any harm in the way our eyes process it.

[amazona]

11. some people fly every day!

Airlines employees would be at front lines of any risk, and pilots depend on their eyesight for their job.

Eye exams happen once a year or less often.


I ask because there are many things like X-rays and therapeutic radiation that are fine in managed doses but aren't a good idea in higher exposures.

Your concern is the same as mine. Hell, we have never really been told the truth about how many cases of breast cancer are caused by mammograms, especially mammograms given before the days of the newer low dose machines. Lots of equipment used for medical purposes is too dangerous to be used daily or weekly on people who are not ill. This is my eyesight, people.

There are other ways to vet trusted travelers.

[fishnfla]

13. and the FAA is using the technology on pilots now

The FAA has the most stringent vision requirements of any governing body on the face of the earth, even more than the military.

In addition, pilots, knowing their livelihood depends on their vision, and how strict the FAA is, are very concerned about their vision.
Now they go thru this all the time without a problem. I defy you to demonstrate one known case of an iris scan causing any vision damage to one person on the face of this earth.

This mammogram, X-ray, radiation talk is a red herring and you should know better. Its apples and oranges. We are, once again talking about light waves in the visible spectrum, which the human eye manages safely everyday.

With your head stuck so far in the sand, I'm sure you're perfectly safe.

[bennywhale]

14. Do you really want to live in a world where your eyeball is scanned

during your daily business by the government. This technology will spread and spread until there is total control under a police state. I don't find that cool in any way. It is naive to keep weakly giving over power to government.

[merwin]

15. Fine, for access to your computers. But how does it help security for

airports? Terrorists can't get these retinal scans as well? Note that the 9/11 terrorists got legal driver's licenses, and for all intents and purposes were legally allowed to be in the USA and travel freely.

This is just a government tracking system, and IMHO should be avoided at all costs.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

5. Hardened cockpit doors and avionics that can be

taken over from the ground (say with a code and a password using a frequency skipping technology that is pretty much uncrackable) might make this scrutinizing of the American public somewhat unnecessary.

Is it just me, or would it make sense to limit what a potential hijacker could do (if) the planes electronics were able to be commandeered from the ground, allowing for a safe landing at any airport in the country.

Color me stupid but I don't see why this fly by wire system, (which has been in operation for decades) hasn't been incorporated into a system which would make hijackings impossible. Oh, and then there's the cockpit door thing, plus the air marshalls.... really, is all this patting down and sniffing all that necessary? Methinks not.

They may want to stop ordering the visa department in Saudi and other nations to ignore bad passports, paperwork and visas of people who "may" have a particular mindset, depending on which religious sect they may be from. That always bothered me, ya know, the guy who worked in the visa offices overseas who stated that he was ordered to let these guys through.... pity.

I suppose if you need an excuse to go on a global military adventure, you need some sort of vehicle to get you there....

[JohnyCanuck]

9. All this hyper security with special passes and ID cards etc.

that you have to apply and qualify for to get the special treatment enabling you to bypass the searches and inconveniences foisted upon the rest of the unwashed masses is just to get us ready for the day when they tell us all we will need a micropchip implant for anything from riding a city bus to buying our groceries or borrowing a library book - never mind for getting on a plane to go visit Great Aunt Mayble in Peoria.

If they were to do that tomorrow, obviously no one would fall for it, so they are going at in stages. First it will be ID cards and retinal scans to avoid security lines at airports and then as enough people get comfortable with that they'll extend it into other areas and one day someone will say, "Gee whiz folks, if we just implant this tiny microchip you won't even have to slow down to stare into the retinal scan machine in the library, post office, airline check-in counter, bus station etc., why we'll just use handy dandy RFID to scan the chip as you walk by. Now won't that be a convenience and be a great time saver since you won't have the bother of queuing up to use the retinal scan machines with everyone else. Those retinal scans can be such a hassle."

And here's the ultimate goal:

To show to what extremes the CIA is willing to go in developing the technology to control human behavior, they funded the "research" of Dr. Jose Delgado. Delgado was infamous for implanting radio-activated electrodes in animals (and possibly in humans).

In the pictures to the left he is demonstrating that his implants in a bull's brain can stop it even after it starts to charge Delgado.

You may get a slight whiff of sulphur and brimstone as you read this quote from Delgado:

"We need a program of psychosurgery and political control of our society. The purpose is physical control of the mind. Everyone who deviates from the given norm can be surgically mutilated.
"The individual may think that the most important reality is his own existence, but this is only his personal point of view. This lacks historical perspective.

"Man does not have the right to develop his own mind. This kind of liberal orientation has great appeal. We must electrically control the brain. Some day armies and generals will be controlled by electrical stimulation of the brain."

Dr. Jose Delgado (MKULTRA experimenter who demonstrated a radio-controlled bull on CNN in 1985)
Director of Neuropsychiatry, Yale University Medical School
Congressional Record No. 26, Vol. 118, February 24, 1974

From Brainwashing America

See Also:
The Nazification of America

Police State USA

Write it off as tin-foil hat BS if you want, time will tell.

[pfitz59]

10. It's not "1984", it's "Animal Farm"!!!!!

Some pigs are more equal than other pigs! "Registered traveler" my ass! Go to the back of the line, elitest thugs!

[amazona]

12. i'm at the front of the line anyway

The trusted traveler program would have to do more than put me at the head of the line. It would need to have significant additional benefits -- such as the ability to board right before the flight is departing instead of requiring me to be onboard 30 minutes/15 minutes early for international/domestic flights. (You'd be surprised at what a difference a few minutes can make when you have a tight connection.) Just giving me a line pass is not giving me anything I don't already get.

You see, as a frequent flyer, I already qualify for going to the head of the security line. The original "trusted traveler" program was offered as a test to people who fly once a week or more. Well, if you fly once a week or more, you are already an elite in one or more airline's programs, and among your benefits is the right to skip to the head of the line.

If this program is just a "line pass," it's worthless. I'd like to see a trusted traveler program that offered such things as--
1) last minute boarding for the trusted traveler
2) less restrictions on the trusted traveler's carry-ons -- I've proven I can be trusted with my Swiss Army Knife
3) no security X-ray or pat-down required for me and my bags.

If they think people are going to pay for an investigation and a line pass...then they are clueless as to the benefits that frequent flyers already receive for spending so much time in the air.