Saturday, January 29, 2005

America's Iron Curtain continues its rapid fall

The US Department of Homeland Security has decided to trial RFID tags in an effort to make sure only the right sort of people get across US borders.

The controversial US-VISIT scheme for those visiting the US from abroad already fingerprints holidaymakers on their way into the country and is now adding RFID to the mix in order to improve border management, the department said.

The trials will start at a "simulated port" in the spring and will then be extended to Nogales East and Nogales West in Arizona; Alexandria Bay in New York; and Pacific Highway and Peace Arch in Washington by the end of July.

The testing phase will continue until the spring of next year. The exact way RFID will be used with the travellers is not yet known.

RFID chips will be used to track both pedestrians and vehicles entering the US to automatically record when the visitors arrive and leave in the country.

So far, over 400 people have been turned away from the country or arrested as a result of US-VISIT checks.

US Under Secretary for Border & Transportation Security, Asa Hutchinson, said in a statement: "Through the use of radio frequency technology, we see the potential to not only improve the security of our country, but also to make the most important infrastructure enhancements to the US land borders in more than 50 years."
  Silicon.com article

When I was in elementary school, we used to be scared on a regular basis with these words: Without constant vigilance, you could go to sleep one night free and wake up the next morning taken over by Communists.

While watching over our left shoulder for a Communist take-over, we neglected the coup coming from within our country over our right shoulder.

Seymour Hersh: "We've Been Taken Over by a Cult"

THE TAKING OF AMERICA, 1-2-3 by Richard E. Sprague Originally published 1976, Updated 1985

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