Posted on 09/23/2001 6:57:38 PM PDT by annalex
That would certainly not be either morally justified, nor would the results be happy. However, that's not the issue.
The issue is the fact that terrorists will be able to acquire and deploy nerve gas, biological weapons and perhaps even nuclear bombs. Those who are willing and able to acquire and use such devices in order to commit mass murder must not be allowed to live. It's them or us. It's that simple.
Watching 60 Minutes, tonight, we came with the name, "April." Searched Saddam, Kuwait, April*
Dubya is the spittin' "image" of his old man.
Wonder why nobody in media has gotten the reaction of the Rockefellers to having their WTC destroyed? They were once quite proud of it.
Oracle boss urges national ID cards, offers free software</font size>
Idea driven by security concerns
BY PAUL ROGERS AND ELISE ACKERMAN
Mercury News
Broaching a controversial subject that has gained visibility since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Oracle Chairman and CEO Larry Ellison is calling for the United States to create a national identification card system -- and offering to donate the software to make it possible.
Under Ellison's proposal, millions of Americans would be fingerprinted and the information would be placed on a database used by airport security officials to verify identities of travelers at airplane gates.
``We need a national ID card with our photograph and thumbprint digitized and embedded in the ID card,'' Ellison said in an interview Friday night on the evening news of KPIX-TV in San Francisco.
``We need a database behind that, so when you're walking into an airport and you say that you are Larry Ellison, you take that card and put it in a reader and you put your thumb down and that system confirms that this is Larry Ellison,'' he said.
`Absolutely free'
Ellison's company, Oracle, based in Redwood Shores, is the world's leading maker of database software. Ellison, worth $15 billion, is among the world's richest people. ``We're quite willing to provide the software for this absolutely free,'' he said.
Calls for national ID cards traditionally have been met with fierce resistance from civil liberties groups, who say the cards would intrude on the privacy of Americans and allow the government to track people's movements.
But Ellison said in the electronic age, little privacy is left anyway. ``Well, this privacy you're concerned about is largely an illusion,'' he said. ``All you have to give up is your illusions, not any of your privacy. Right now, you can go onto the Internet and get a credit report about your neighbor and find out where your neighbor works, how much they earn and if they had a late mortgage payment and tons of other information.''
Attempts by the Mercury News to reach Ellison for further comment Saturday were unsuccessful. Many questions about the proposal remain unanswered, such as whether foreign nationals would be required to have a card to enter the country. The hijackers in the Sept. 11 attacks are not believed to have been U.S. citizens.
In the TV interview with anchorman Hank Plante, Ellison said shoppers have to disclose more information at malls to buy a watch than they do to get on an airplane. ``Let me ask you. There are two different airlines. Airline A says before you board that airplane you prove you are who you say you are. Airline B, no problem. Anyone who wants the price of a ticket, they can go on that airline. Which airplane do you get on?''
Oracle has a longstanding relationship with the federal government. Indeed, the CIA was Ellison's first customer, and the company's name stems from a CIA-funded project launched in the mid-1970s that sought better ways of storing and retrieving digital data.
Civil libertarians said caution is needed.
``It strikes me as a form of overreaction to the events that we have experienced,'' said Robert Post, a constitutional law professor at the University of California-Berkeley. ``If we allow a terrorist attack to destroy forms of freedom that we have enjoyed, we will have given the victory to them. This kind of recommendation does just that.'' Post said while such a system may catch some criminals, it could be hacked or faked or evaded by capable terrorists. Nor is it clear that such a system would have foiled the Sept. 11 attacks, he said.
Strong support
But polls last week show many Americans support a national ID card. In a survey released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, seven of 10 Americans favored a requirement that citizens carry a national identity card at all times to show to a police officer upon request. The proposal had particularly strong support from women. There was less support for government monitoring of telephone calls, e-mails and credit card purchases.
The FBI already has an electronic fingerprint system for criminals. In July 1999, the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System became operational. That system keeps an electronic database of 41 million fingerprints, with prints from all 10 fingers of people who have been convicted of crimes.
Faster response
The system has reduced the FBI's criminal fingerprint processing time from 45 days to less than two hours.
Paul Bresson, an FBI spokesman in Washington, said Saturday that he is unaware of the details of Ellison's proposal and declined comment.
Howard Gantman, a spokesman for Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said that she would be interested in discussing the idea with Ellison.
``She does feel that we do need to make some important advances in terms of increasing our security,'' Gantman said. ``A lot of people have brought up ideas about how to create more security and she's interested in exploring them. She'd like to find out more.''
One group certain to fight the proposal is the American Civil Liberties Union.
A statement about ID cards posted on the ACLU's national Web site says: ``A national ID card would essentially serve as an internal passport. It would create an easy new tool for government surveillance and could be used to target critics of the government, as has happened periodically throughout our nation's history.''
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Was it Benjamin Franklin who said something to the effect of:
"A people who will sacrifice their freedom for safety deserve neither"?
:
No libertarian can seriously say that a private transaction that happens between the airline and the passenger is a matter of rights.
You are right except their policies are driven by law (atually regulation, but that is another story). The airlines should also have the right to allow armed passengers, and place any restrictions on them they see fit. Instead, the government puts the restrictions on them and they have to go along.
Your disavowal of the ostrich mentality of the Lew Rockwells and Harry Brownes
among us libertarians is indeed on target.
Well done, Annalex.
The word for tulip -you know, the flower-- was a confusion with the word for the turban. Confusions like that happen. We are too easily led by premature conjectures. God help us all.
I saw the film Ghandi three times, in the theatre. Was Gahandi libertarian? Maybe an ostrich libertarian?
A not insignificant correction:
America used to be uniquely dedicated to the proposition of individual freedom.
and
Any impeding of the government's warmaking function is an assault on individual rights.
That may be the case today. Time will tell if abuses of liberty, in the name of liberty, will be forthcoming.
If Airline B also allowed competent citizens to travel armed; Airline B.
That's because he knows he'll make millions more from the support and services end of the deal.
The firest line is too absurd to even make a comment about. The second assertion is bogus inasmuch as Clinton is as much a stooge to the NWO as Bush is. His "blunders" were cold, calculated acts meant to demoralize and demonize, no different than Bush's actions against Saddam.
The cold war was an invention of the money power to ensure a raison d'etre for high taxes, inflation and the continued participation of the USG in "foreign entanglements".
Set aside the patriotic emotions sweeping the country and you are left with a lingering suspicion that not all is as seems. if those of us who listen to subtle undertones of glabalism that underscored Bush's speech with reservations and suspicion are silenced then the only tune playing is that of the NWO piper.
America was NOT invaded, it was attacked. The invasion has been in progress for a long time, and it can be directly attributed to INS policies that have been in place for years. The WTC suicide attack marks the absolute failure of the federal government's first and foremost obligation to defend our shores and our people. The hubris of action and financial handouts following in it's wake is the actions of guilty men, covering up their "incompetence". Or was it?
Flame away war-mongers.
That is true. The level of government has always been the sticking point. They should have as much power as necessary to defend our rights and curtailed in their ability to usurp them.
Well done, Annalex.
I second these thoughts.
Rights do not come from government but exist. I would still have a choice-- and the responsibility that comes with my choice.
If he gets his way, he will become richer (despite his claim to give away the software) and all the rest of us will be in a more dangerous position then we already are. The terrorists will have won even if we kill every last one of them.
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