From:	Matt <mosbun@******.CC.PURDUE.EDU>
Subject:	Re: More on Big Brother in Shadowrun
Date:	Mon, 21 Mar 1994 15:32:08 -0500

>The writer apparently had to agree with Evans not to raise privacy and
>security issues in the article, it says, since first they have to show the
>technology works. But even it raised questions:

>- The technology could be a powerful weapon in a "big brother"
arsenal,
> with cameras in front of many stores and street corners, scanning for
> criminals or anyone on the government's watch list?

You don't honestly think they would be able to do that, do you? Right or
wrong, no one would stand for it.

>- Does the government have the right to randomly photograph people for
> matching them against a criminal database?

Criminals would certainly think not. After all, they might get caught. As
long as the system works, and all activities of non-criminals are kept
private, I don't mind.

>- What guarantees do we have that thermographs are actually unique for
> every person, or that the system is foolproof?

What gaurentees does the layman have that the same can be said for
fingerprints?

>- What is the potential for blackmail, with thermographs to prove people
> were in compromising places and positions?

Extremely high. Then again, what was the schmuck doing screwing up/around
anyway?

>There are also my own points.

>- While this can be used to protect nuclear power plants against
> infiltration by terrorists (as one example it gives), what is to stop it,
> for example, to be used to find (and silence or eliminate) critics and
> dissidents? I wouldn't give China 30 seconds before it would use
> something like this to capture critics such as the victims of Tianamen
> Square.

Are we debating its legality in the USA or in China? Anyone have any proof of
the same type of critic supression tactics used in China being used here?
If the government killed off critics like that, Rush Limbaugh would have been
long silenced... :)


>- Long history indicates that better technology is not used to improve
> capture of criminals who violate the lives and property of other private
> parties, it is used to go after whatever group the government opposes.
> That's why people who defend themselves with guns against armed
> criminals in places where gun controls are in effect, can expect to
> be treated harsher than the criminal would have been. Existence of
> criminals supports the need for more police and more police-state laws;
> defending oneself against criminals shows the ineffectiveness of those
> laws.


More police-state laws? Like being able to moniter and instantly ID people
in sensitive areas?

Matt