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One of the newest things is facial recognition software. I saw a profile on its proposed use in Miami, where they were proposing that cameras be installed at the airport and in certain other public places hooked into a central computer with the faces of known, wanted criminals in a database that the computers could use to scan faces in the crowds for.
There were, of course, civil rights objections. I see no problem with a system like this being used for this particular purpose in public places, but somehow I doubt how effective it would be. It would be too easy to hide one's face from cameras using a baseball cap; criminals do this already to disguise themselves from security cameras when committing crimes.
The objection is the slilppery slope argument, which is that once it's ok to scan for this, it'll become ok to track movements of suspects, or track movements of people not suspected of crimes.
The defense was that it's just observing people in public, where it's entirely legal for police to watch anyone, just doing it in a more efficient manner.
I don't know where to draw the line between freedom and security, but I do feel that we're headed in the wrong direction right now.
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I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.
~Steven Colbert
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