Independence Day

And the part that bothered me about the article wasn't even the part where Big Brother was watching people as they walked around -- it was the part where someone said, "If you're not doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about."

What kind of rights are those?

It occured to me that this attitude might be directly or indirectly related to September 11th, but I couldn't remember exactly when the facial scanning program had generated so much controversy, so I went back and looked it up.

Turns out, it was at the Super Bowl, in January, 2001, when all the audience members were scanned without their knowledge. It supposedly found 18 known criminals in the crowd, although it wasn't immediately clear whether they were caught and prosecuted at that point. And when word got out in February that this had happened, the reaction was almost entirely negative, at least as I remember.

Of course, nothing now is the same as it was in February of 2001. We've grown more paranoid as a nation, more uncertain of our relative safety. But does that really account for the fact that fewer people mind that the government could potentially maintain records of our biometric facial structures and compare us to a database of known criminals when we walk unsuspecting through a shopping mall or stadium?

What kind of liberty is that?

Happy Independence Day to you too.