Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Complete Control

Europe and the United States are fighting over who can be more totalitarian. According to a draft proposal expected to go before the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, non-Europeans would need to submit biometric data like fingerprints and facial scans before being allowed to enter Europe.

“It’s the only way to be really sure about identifying people. With biometric data, it’s much easier to track people,” an unnamed European Commission functionary told the Washington Post.

“Not only do we support these measures, we applaud them,” Russ Knocke, spokesman for the U.S. Ministry of Homeland Security, told the Washington Post. 

Derrick Jensen explains in Welcome to the Machine: Science, Surveillance, and the Culture of Control:

Funny, even if the technology were available to those of us in the outer ring of the Panopticon, we don’t see how using high technology to “authenticate a person’s claimed identity from his/her previously enrolled pattern” will do anything for us. We already have our own technologies for doing this: they’re called eyes, ears, memory, discernment, and a process called “getting to know a person.” We can see, however, how mechanical (and thus far less sophisticated) technologies would be useful for those running a massive prison.

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