Wednesday, June 06, 2007
 
Also, Your Dogs Must Now Be Trained To Sniff Explosives
Everything you own, citizen, is at the government's leisure and at its disposal. Or some government officials think:
    American cell phones can already check e-mail, surf the Internet and store music, but they could have a new set of features in coming years: the Department of Homeland Security wants them to sense biological, chemical and radioactive material.

    Putting hazardous material sensors in commercial cell phones has been discussed in scientific circles for years, according to researchers in the field. More recently, the idea gained support among government agencies, and DHS said publicly in May that it wants businesses to start coming up with proposals.
No doubt the wireless carriers are all behind this proposal because they'll have an excuse to make everyone upgrade to new, more expensive phones and to charge all customers new monthly fees to support the mandatory program.

Not to worry:
    Like the built-in GPS function many cell phones now offer, customers would have the option of turning the sensors off, McGinnis said.
Got that, citizen? For marketing e-mail, you have to expressly opt-in, but for intrusive government surveillance programs, you have to expressly opt-out, with that opt-out no doubt going to a database of people who suspiciously opted out.

I have no problem if this becomes a netcentric program like SETI At Home, but the government and its cronies in corporations don't play like that. Because the government knows what's best for you!


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:26 PM
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To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."