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from the you-can-check-out-any-time-you-like-but-you-can-never-leave-♩♩♬♪♫ dept.
Proposed legislation just passed out of committee has the stated goal, “to require the Secretary of Homeland Security to gain and maintain operational control of the international borders of the United States.”
Down inside the "Secure Our Borders First Act" is a clause which calls for a biometric data exit system, (mentioned briefly here).
From this news item:
The Secure our Borders First Act would require full implementation of a biometric exit data system, which would require persons heading from the U.S. to Canada to not only be stopped and interviewed by Canadian authorities, as they currently are, but also by U.S. authorities, which has never been the case. This would require billions of dollars of plaza expansions on the U.S. side of the border, and new Customs and Border Protection officers to staff these currently-nonexistent booths and gates.
Elsewhere, biometrics were defined as fingerprinting or retina scan.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 25 2015, @02:54AM
Does anyone still live under the illusion that the US isn't just an oligarchic police state?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Sunday January 25 2015, @03:14AM
Welcome, to the USA - world's largest open-air prison. Here's your shopping bag. Why not head to the mall?
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by TheGratefulNet on Sunday January 25 2015, @03:30AM
I prefer to think of us as 'free-range inmates'....
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by davester666 on Sunday January 25 2015, @07:19AM
Unconvicted criminals living in the community!
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Sunday January 25 2015, @06:07PM
Free range sounds too healthy and implies we are free to roam about. First off we eat the worst foods available; high sugar and animal fats. We can freely roam about but are limited by our wages. Many people make a slave wage that they can barely survive on. They are slaves to both the paycheck(s) and their bills. They can only afford to go between work and home and maybe a little extra for drowning their despair in alcohol and/or drugs on a weekend.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Sunday January 25 2015, @10:11AM
The problem with everybody constantly throwing around the word "oligarchy" is that if you define the term broadly enough, every country on earth with more than 1 citizen is an oligarchy.
Monarchy? Well, I'm sure the king has at least one or two advisers he listens to, so there's more than one person in charge.
Representative government? The representatives are a group a lot smaller than the number of citizens.
Direct democracy? Socialism? Oh right, those don't actually exist anywhere.
Just say "people in charge I don't like" and stop being pretentious.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 26 2015, @12:00PM
"Oligarchy" is hipster cool. Users think it makes them sound profound and that their opinion should weigh more than the highschool level of political analysis that it is.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 25 2015, @11:02AM
Yes.