
Homeland Security’s New Database to Include Faces, DNA, and Relationships - pietroglyph
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/06/hart-homeland-securitys-massive-new-database-will-include-face-recognition-dna-and
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dvdhnt
Faces, DNA, and relationships aren’t particularly new data points. The
government has my passport photo, DNA (military record), and can check out my
tax returns, Facebook, Twitter, etc to see who my wife, children, business
partners, coworkers, and other family are.

The fundamental issue with their new database is that some analysis will be
done on all of that data, along with criminal and public records, to
characterize someone and store the result in the database. At that point,
you’ve been classified and good luck getting out of whatever box they put you
in (just see no fly lists for an example).

Now that you’re on some list, it snowballs. Every encounter with agents, every
flight, every new relationship, any odd transaction will just make it worse
and solidify how much of a threat/person of interest/terrorist/extremist you
are.

Source: I’m a former intelligence analyst.

~~~
stevew20
This post is 100% spot on. Ask the folks at Palantir under what conditions a
person stops being identified as a 'target' in their database... Hint:
everything you do, on a daily basis, can be construed as incriminating.

Source: Worked in an intelligence battalion for 5 years.

~~~
solotronics
yes but what do we do about it? mesh networks? private data security? (GDPR
doesn't apply to police/state security...)

~~~
mirimir
My solution is not attracting attention. Basically through
compartmentalization. My meatspace identity is entirely unremarkable. I'm not
outspoken about privacy. Or about anything, really. I do hit the Internet
through a VPN, but that's fairly common in my country.

~~~
vitno
That's not "not attracting attention", that's called living in fear. I don't
know the particulars of where you live, but it makes me sad you feel this is
necessary.

~~~
mirimir
Maybe so. But fear is rational sometimes. I wouldn't have survived long as an
acid dealer without extreme discretion.

Alternatives include conforming to unjust laws, or violating openly and ending
up imprisoned. Neither sound like fun. Or, yes, going somewhere else. But in
my experience, there's really nowhere to go. So hey.

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Bucephalus355
If the US has this, can you imagine what the Chinese database has?

It’s very probable that the Chinese have a database on _every person_ in the
world. Everything you ever posted, and who knows what else, all sitting on
some server, lying in wait. It wouldn’t take much more than an Oracle DB on a
single Dell server.

The purpose of this would be something akin to the Soviet “sexpionage” of the
60’s and the 70’s. It’s incredible blackmail material. It doesn’t need to be
used now, but as people grow older and move up the ranks of organizations, all
of the naked photos that were swiped from their iCloud account 17 years before
can prove incredibly damaging.

EDIT: Singled out China as an example, but should have said most governments.

~~~
eksemplar
The Snowden leaks showed us that the US already have everything you just
described.

I’m sure China, Russia and others have it as well, but right now, as you’re
browsing HN on the toilet, a NSA agent could be watching you in real time
through the camera on your phone.

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EGreg
They could know exactly where you are in the house and read every one of your
files through back doors. They have all your private keys and sign anything as
you and then incriminate you using it.

~~~
acjohnson55
I think people are so naive to think that crypto keeps them secure.

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wpdev_63
I post it a million times but I will post it again. Please visit
_decidethefuture.org_ and/or _fightforthefuture.org_ and see what your local
politicians stance on data privacy, surveillance, and privacy/data policy.

The best way to protect your privacy and your constitutional rights is to vote
for privacy advocates.

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makecheck
Much like bills in government sessions, naming is everything: bad bills can
have happy-sounding names and receive endless support, and so can government
agencies.

“Homeland Security” is genius naming because you can justify almost anything
with that name. They can always need more money “for security”. They can
always be granted new powers “for security”. Hell, these ridiculous tariffs
are “for national security” because literally nothing else justifies them.

And let’s not forget this is a relatively _new_ government entity: it did not
exist 20 years ago. It was created opportunistically (“never waste a crisis”)
with full knowledge that it would be very hard to eliminate.

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karlkatzke
It didn’t before? I remember crossing the border from Canada to the US after
9/11 but before you had to have a passport (a driver’s license and birth
certificate were sufficient) and I was asked a series of questions. The
questions included a lot of family stuff, like “where does your father work?”
but they also included “what is your girlfriend’s birthday,” which I found odd
because I was dating a lot and didn’t have a steady girlfriend at the time.
I’m not bragging here, but it took me three name/birthday combinations to
guess the one the border agent had on his terminal screen.

~~~
ams6110
Those kinds of questions can also be used just to let the border agent
evaluate how you answer them. If they sense evasiveness, they may think you
are worthy of further screening or searches.

~~~
GordonS
I remember going through the border at Houston airport several years ago,
travelling with some work colleagues, one of which was an 18 year old girl who
had never been on a plane before. The border guy was one of the 'little
Hitler' types, and gave her a series of rapid fire personal questions about
her relationship with her boyfriend back home - his overbearing demeanour and
personal nature of the question were completely inappropriate, and my
colleague ended up confused, scared and in tears.

I travelled to the US several times afterwards, landing in either Houston or
Atlanta, and the border crossing was always a _horrible_ experience.
Thankfully I haven't had to go for years now. Worth noting that I've travelled
to many countries, spread over every continent, and never experienced border
guards as nasty and vicious as they are in the US - if anything, they are
generally _friendly_ elsewhere!

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sjg007
I dunno, either the data will be too noisy to make any inferences OR they will
focus on people who have no connections. But the big risk will be the false
positive rate and those who get put on lists and denied travel, entry or jobs.

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makewavesnotwar
I don't want to make this political as I'm unaffiliated with any political
party, but I notice a trend and have a theory.

When Republicans are shaping policy, they tend to target air travel.

The article states that the system gets false denials as much as 1 out of 25
times... 4% is a very high error rate. For DIA alone that would average out to
almost ~6,700 false denials a day. And that's not accounting for people who
have been miscategorized in the system by the threat detection algorithm. It's
another level of worry and potential headache associated with air travel.

Before 9/11, you could arrive at an airport 20 minutes before your flight was
supposed to take off and still make it. After 9/11, to get on a plane you had
to let the government take a nude picture of you, get a dose of radiation, and
expect security lines to take 2 hours or more.

The hassle of flying made the comparative cost of driving places less because
there was so much hassle associated with it.

And that's the basis my theory, the government is trying to dissuade people
from flying in favor of burning through oil by artificially increasing its
cost. Not to mention, like always, lining the pockets of the contractors in
what is likely another no-bid scenario.

When 9/11 happened, public resources were poured into buying a bunch of nude
body scanners that nobody wanted, were unvetted for long-term safety, and were
literally useless for many types of weapons. But the measures were successful
at making flying a nightmare.

Now the goal is to pour public resources into broadening the scope of no-fly
list and implement a broken computer vision system to figure out who to
ground? And for what? Has there been an upswing in terrorists hijacking planes
domestically lately that we're responding to?

To my knowledge there have been 0 incidents of air travel terrorism in the US
since 9/11.

It seems like the Republicans just like to make air travel as miserable as
possible to convince the average American to choose to road trip in the face
of cheap and quick air travel to justify their oil interests.

And with people as irresponsible as the ones who put in the Rapiscan machines
in charge of evaluating threat levels it seem like a recipe for disaster
(unless you are a private prison owner).

Not to mention that with 2012's National Defense Authorization act, America
was qualified as a war zone to justify its indefinite detention clause. I
don't think anyone what's to live in an America where groups of politically
active people could be hauled off as terrorist threats because they didn't
want an oil pipeline polluting the waterways of the natives.

Go to the airport for vacation and end up indefinitely detained as a
terrorist? That would frighten many people out of flying I'd imagine.

DHS is a bad joke that needs to go away.

~~~
stareatgoats
Interesting theory, but I was about to say that oil burned per person mile is
higher for airplanes than for cars. It seems that this is old info however;
since 2005 airplanes have indeed been more efficient, in the US at least. [0]

I should add that I agree that the hassle at checkout is becoming a impediment
to flying, but I still don't believe your theory. I believe the most important
driving force paradoxically may be the airlines (in addition to the
surveillance state), in a drive to give passengers the sense of security they
need to keep flying, it was always a sensitive issue.

[0]
[http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/business/the...](http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/business/the_juice/2014/07/140715_JUI_AirplanePollutionChart.png.CROP.original-
original.png)

~~~
makewavesnotwar
Yeah, I'm definitely not saying people should be flying or driving as much as
they do (the time-convenience or price of air travel may cause people who
wouldn't otherwise travel to go for it - I've definitely hopped a plane back
to CA just because Frontier was offering flights for $20 each way). And the
use of cost functions in terms of the dollar rather than thermal / fuel
efficiency do result in a lot of poor decisions by airlines based on
maximizing profit.

But in terms of the financial impact on the 1% and their incentive to try to
shape policy, there are a mountain of reasons for them to want people to use
cars rather than planes.

For one, there are some ultra rich people that own a bunch of gas stations and
the attached convenience store. People flying over middle America hurt their
bottom line, and they get to cry foul on the basis of it killing "small town
business."

Next, regarding thermal efficiency, planes operate at 35,000 ft (this may be
less now as I notice low-cost airlines like Frontier tend to fly lower) but
the thing is, the less atmosphere you have above you, the less insulation you
have for the heat to be retained inside the atmosphere and the more cooling
you have from the cold of space.

Driving on the other hand generates enormous amounts of heat on the surface of
the planet. Both with the gasoline burning, but also with the road network.

If you've ever ridden a bike on a hot day and crossed from a concrete to black
asphalt, you probably noticed a rather substantial temperature change. Black
asphalt, in addition to being yet another way to sell a petroleum product to
the masses, is more black than pretty much any naturally occurring substance
on the planet and as such generates more heat. And unlike other black
substances like volcanic rock, asphalt traps heat (I've definitely had my feet
scorched while running across blacktop).

This surface heat generation has a compounding effect for the 1% as America
has an unhealthy obsession with climate control and by generating more surface
heat, they are essentially selling more coal to power the air conditioning
units (places like Arizona where heat is the worst are not even mildly
interested in ecologically responsible power generation - the retirees living
there by and large support Trump who's putting through legislation like PV
tariffs). And any heat is good in the eyes of a coal tycoon because it creates
a positive feedback loop - the hotter it gets the more coal they get to burn
and the hotter it gets.

Plus the hotter it gets, the more people can make an excuse to drive their air
conditioned car to their local whatever rather than riding a bike or walking
because "it's just too hot" or "it's unsafe to be out in this heat."

So I guess I'm just saying that I think air vs car travel has a much bigger
impact on the bottom-line of the 1%ers than most people account for.

To your point of average BTUs, I think you also have to average out passive
BTUs generated by all cross-country roadways against cross-country travelers
to get an accurate number and a multiplier effect of coal & gasoline fueled
climate control (I assume fuel efficiency with driving goes way down when high
temperatures cause people to blast their AC), and also account for added
thermal efficiency of air travel in terms of how much of that energy is
actually captured by the atmosphere and how much is negated by space cooling.

There's also the point of average environmental cost vs marginal environmental
cost to the consumer. The average cost might be really high if my $20 flight
was under-booked and there were only 40 passengers onboard. But if that flight
were going to happen anyway because the airline had already passed the
threshold to justify not cancelling it, then the marginal environmental cost
of me flying is low. I'm essentially just a 200 pound weight on a 135,000
pound machine. Fuel efficiency-wise for the plane, I am equivalent to a ~3 lb
weight in a 1 ton automobile.

Interesting graph, though also curious that it would appear that the
intersection point of the airlines incrementally improving efficiency trend
line and the auto's relatively stable trend line appears to have happened
around 2000/2001 right around the time of the 9/11 attack. (Not that I'm
suggesting anything nefarious, but Ooooooo....)

And agree to disagree on the airlines being the driving force for these
measures (or any related measures like the travel ban).

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chiefalchemist
This should be of no surprise.

Any data available from data brokers is available to gov agencies. It's being
obtained via legal means, and therefore (afaik) is not covered by privacy law
and other legal protections.

~~~
cat199
> therefore (afaik) is not covered by privacy law and other legal protections.

if it goes beyond legal mandate and the framework for that agencies
legitimacy, collection method is somewhat irrelevant.

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TACIXAT
I realize this is a silly idea, but would forming a religion around privacy
ever provide protection from this sort of thing?

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jliptzin
It would be easier to vote out the asswipes who promote this kind of agenda.

~~~
wu-ikkyu
That's one of the reasons many people voted for Obama. It didnt work.

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Dowwie
Is there a DHS scorecard? How well has it succeeded at its mandates?

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mLuby
I'm sure they can't divulge that information because "national security" —__—

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transfire
And yet national ID cards are still out of the question.

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chirau
What's the argument against national IDs?

~~~
mirimir
There's this fantasy in America that, in some existential crisis, one can just
go somewhere and start a new life. It's like an understood aspect of the Bill
of Rights.

~~~
cat199
this is somewhat of a gross oversimplificiation. Agreed disappearing is not
really possible these days, but there are also philosophical underpinnings
about the federal govt being a 'federation of independent states' rather than
a distinct authority over-and-above the states, which factors in here, among
other things.

~~~
mirimir
True. But that's the states' rights thing. This is the individual rights
thing. The stand that the nation is a federation of individuals. There were
diverse individual autarchic influences. From the French (as we all know) and
the Russians (blending individualism with collective effort). Similarly, the
Religious Society of Friends (albeit involving Christ). And ironically, the
Iroquois League. Plus the settler vibe.

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salawat
What. The. Hell.

This is getting out of hand. Bad enough bloody Facebook has entire continents
of social graphs. Governments DEFINITELY DO NOT NEED THIS.

This is how you erode or work around legal protections for your citizenry.
Once one country starts, others will implement the same, then the information
sharing starts.

NO. Just NO. The cat is probably already well out of the bag, but the world
really doesn't need this.

~~~
siruncledrew
This is already stuff the Department of Homeland Security is doing - this is
like an action plan for "future releases". The government (and the people who
are involved in it) willfully want to do this and have decided they will start
doing it. It makes me think of the teenager who gets caught smoking by their
parents, is told to stop because it's bad, then sneaks out at night and smokes
anyways because they wanted to and came up with some reason to justify it.

On another note, I can only imagine what some of the less-accountable
governments would to do with this information if they looked at the DHS as an
example. Any authoritarian government wanting to maintain their position above
the public would love to have complex PII available at the execution of a
query.

~~~
UncleEntity
No reason to imagine, just look at what the soviet states got up to and adjust
for modern data theory.

Been rewatching _Person of Interest_ lately and kind of think that's Homeland
Security's wet dream...

