90 Miles From Tyranny

Saturday, December 31, 2022

In 2023 It Will Be Nearly Impossible to Avoid Facial Recognition in the U.S.

As more airports in the United States adopt facial recognition technology, the privacy of Americans is once again threatened.

In early December, The Washington Post reported that the U.S. Transportation Security Administration is beginning to test new facial recognition tools at 16 major domestic airports. The WaPo reported:
The Transportation Security Administration has been quietly testing controversial facial recognition technology for passenger screening at 16 major domestic airports — from Washington to Los Angeles — and hopes to expand it across the United States as soon as next year. Kiosks with cameras are doing a job that used to be completed by humans: checking the photos on travelers’ IDs to make sure they’re not impostors.
TSA representative Jason Lim told the Post that “none of this facial recognition technology is mandated.” Passengers choosing to opt out of the face identification will still need to present their ID. The TSA also said there are supposed to be signs around informing you of your rights.

The report goes on to inform the reader that although you technically don’t have to participate in facial recognition at the airport, “whether you’ll feel like you have a real choice is a separate question.”

Albert Fox Cahn, founder of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, or STOP, told the Post that he believes there is “no place more coercive to ask people for their consent than an airport.”

“What we often see with these biometric programs is they are only optional in the introductory phases — and over time we see them becoming standardized and nationalized and eventually compulsory,” Cahn said.

Cahn’s statements ring true in light of previous TSA programs which start out as optional before becoming mandatory, including taking your shoes off at the airport and choosing between walking through the body scanner machines or an invasive pat down.

The TSA’s facial recognition works by having passengers step up to the travel document checker kiosk while they scan their identification card. Then passengers are expected to stare into a camera for up to five seconds while the machine compares the ID to the new photo. This is known as a “one to one” verification system.

The Post notes that the TSA’s facial recognition pilot began at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) in August 2020 based on alleged concerns of transmission of COVID-19.

While the TSA claims they do not use facial recognition for law-enforcement purposes and are not building a “new national database of face IDs,” they also acknowledge that the agency can hold data for up to 24 months to “evaluate the system’s effectiveness.”

Unfortunately, the introduction of facial recognition tools is not new. The Biden admin’s current expansion of facial recognition in the U.S. is a continuation of policies set forth by the Trump administration.

The TSA Is Not the Only Agency Using Facial Recognition

In late December 2020 — as Biden was set to become President of...

WATCH: Huge Crowd Attends Reading of Faith-Based Children’s Book Despite Library’s Attempt to Stop Event

Adults and children filled the Indianapolis Public Library’s main branch on Thursday to hear actor, writer, and film producer Kirk Cameron read his recently published children’s book, As You Grow.

The library organization initially denied Cameron the opportunity to read the book for its story hour but later caved and allowed the event to happen.

A video recording shows a long line of people walking into the building, and photos capture families sitting on the floor and standing against the wall.

“This was the largest event held at the library in its 137 years of existence,” Zac Bell with BRAVE Books, who is with the book’s publisher, commented. “The turnout was phenomenal! We were blown away.”

Cameron’s book centers around a tree’s growth and teaches children about family, faith, and biblical wisdom.

According to Bell, the Indianapolis Public Library “originally denied us the ability to book the reading. We sent them a letter that threatened legal action and they backed down.”

Meanwhile, Cameron and his publisher recently criticized libraries that will not allow a public reading of his book but offer “drag queen story hours” for children...

Visage à trois #686

Three Videos For Your Viewing Pleasure:

Three Additional Bonus Videos:

Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #864

Iran’s Nuclear Holiday Gift to al-Qaeda

America is vulnerable. Thanks to the Biden Administration, an al-Qaeda dirty bomb attack may be coming sooner than we realize.

As the rest of the world prepared for the Christmas celebrations this year, gathering gifts and goodies of all shapes and sizes to share with their friends and families, in the al-Bayda region of Yemen, al-Qaeda was preparing to receive an unintended radioactive gift from Iran: weapons-grade uranium for making a nuclear weapon.

A History of Violence

Since the outbreak of the Yemen Civil War in 2014 (itself a result of the failed foreign policy of former President Barack Obama), the two largest Muslim powers in the Middle East—the Sunni-dominated Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Shiite-controlled Islamic Republic of Iran—have jockeyed for influence and control in the divided nation of Yemen.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has labeled the Yemen Civil War the worst human rights catastrophe in the world, as of October 2022. As both Iran and Saudi Arabia fight for control over the nation, the two rival Muslim powers have enlisted the help of local militants to serve as their proxies. The Shiite Islamic Houthi Rebels are aligned with Iran while Saudi Arabia has had to rely on a hodgepodge of Sunni extremist groups, including al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, to serve their interests on the ground in Yemen.

Since the outbreak of the civil war, given Yemen’s geostrategic location along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden, and just south of Saudi Arabia, Iran has desired to use the broken nation as a place from which it can threaten its rival, Saudi Arabia, for regional dominance. The Houthis have proven to be a valuable ally to the Iranians—so much so that the Iranian regime has spent millions of dollars and many years training the rebel fighters, giving them critical intelligence on their Sunni rivals, and even supplying them with a sophisticated, increasingly dangerous weapons to use not only in Yemen but more troublingly against Saudi Arabia.

In 2018, for example, advanced Iranian drones were piloted by the Houthi Rebels and struck against the Abqaiq oil refinery in an attempt by the Iranians and their Houthi allies to drive up the price of oil on the international market and to slow the flow of critical oil supplies from Saudi Arabia to the rest of the world. Thankfully, the plot did not work. But the threat should not be ignored. Eventually, the Iranian-backed group will hit its mark.

This is all the more likely if reports from the week of December 12 about Iran’s attempt to hand over weapons-grade uranium to the Houthis are true.

A Dangerous Turn

As part of yet another Iranian weapons transfer to the Houthis, Israeli sources discovered that a shipment of weapons-grade uranium was being shipped from Iran to the rebels in Yemen. Fortunately for the Saudis and the rest of the region, the shipment was intercepted before it...