U.S. e-passport plan raises tech, diplomatic hackles

[mumon]

...Foremost among the questions raised by the three-day meeting in West Virginia is whether the world is ready to meet even the extended deadline — a little more than one year from now — that the U.S. government has set for 27 visa-waiver countries to issue biometrically enabled, machine-readable passports if their citizens are to visit the United States.



Acknowledging that two past deadlines were unrealistic, the U.S. House of Representatives last month voted to grant visa-waiver countries — which include most of Europe, Japan, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand — until Oct. 26, 2005, to deploy biometrically enabled passports. ...

The biometric industry aggravated the problem by overpromising its technology amid the national post-9/11 angst. That contributed to unwarranted optimism among U.S. policymakers about the availability of bug-free electronic passports. Vendors eager to win contracts insist on the readiness of their wares, but the biometric products in question have undergone no field-testing. "Without gaining real experience and getting more data, we won't know how far we are and how good we are," said Andreas Raeschmeier, general manager of the financial and ID division of STMicroelectronics.


While it might be a good idea to have better security, the fact is, the technology's not ready, but, like Star Wars, global warming, and other areas, the lack of good science and technology is oblivious to our junta.

Moreover, perhaps this is yet another ploy to isolate the US from the rest of the world, or at least make it really difficult for people to have interactions with "foreigners."
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[mulethree]

1. Do you have a link to the article? what source? n/t

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. Looks like this

http://www.eetimes.com/sys/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=23901849

EE Times - electronics news

[CHIMO]

3. Dead - But Still There

U.S. ditches travel surveillance plan
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security bowed to pressure from civil libertarians, airlines, the travel industry and other nations in deciding to ditch CAPPSII, an air passenger surveillance program that would have given each traveller a green-yellow-red rating based on their perceived security threat
"The government has recognized that this program would have had immense implications for Americans' privacy, while providing little protection against terrorism," said Laura Murphy of the American Civil Liberties Union.
As planned, CAPPSII would have compelled travel agencies and airlines to turn over the full name, home address, telephone number, date of birth and travel itinerary for all passengers. That information was then to have been fed into databases that tap public records and commercial computer banks, such as shopping mailing lists, to confirm a traveller's identity.

http://thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1089929438776&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154


To me it looks like spin. From this article it appears that all travellers would be subjected to the same scrutiny not only those travelling on a passport..