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IL EXISTE MILLE MANIERES DE MENTIR, MAIS UNE SEULE DE DIRE LA VERITE.

Le Mensonge peut courir un an, la vérité le rattrape en un jour, dit le sage Haoussa .

Tant que les lions n’auront pas leurs propres historiens, les histoires de chasse continueront de glorifier le chasseur.










Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Australia To Finally Recognize Aborigines As First People


Australia is ready to make some historic changes to its 200-year-old constitution by requesting its citizens to approve a clause that recognizesAborigines as the country’s first occupants.
In a report handed to the country’s prime minister,Julia Gillard, an expert panel made up of 19 indigenous leaders, politicos, entrepreneurs, and legal eagles will review and revamp the document that still contains racist Aboriginal references, even though it had been previously amended back in 1967 when Aborigines were finally recognized as “real citizens.”
Like the Native Americans and other indigenous people, Aborigines were displaced by British settlers. The dispossession and dislocation from their land had devastating consequences to the Aborigines, because land was central to their identity. From that time, the Aborigines have endured a marginalized existence including being victims of racism and discrimination.Consequently, they are one of the poorest, unhealthiest, and most-disadvantaged people, with an average lifespan 17 years shorter than other Australians.
As for the constitution, possible revisions would include a section that would prohibit racial discrimination and acknowledge the indigenous people’s continuous relationship to their traditional lands and waters.
According to Prime Minister Gillard, changing the constitution would recognize the “unique and special place of Aboriginal people and strengthen the identity of our nation,” she told the Associated Australian Press. Gillard has reportedly pledged to hold a referendum on the constitutional changes before the next general election, due in 2013.
Perhaps this recent change to the country’s constitution is finally a step toward reconciliation as Australia strives to improve relations with the Aborigine population.

Wikio

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Israël-Palestine : le rapport français explosif sur la question de l'eau


LEMONDE.FR | 20.01.12 |
La vallée du Jourdain, en Israël. Le Jourdain apparaît comme un objet de tension dans la question du partage des eaux.
La vallée du Jourdain, en Israël. Le Jourdain apparaît comme un objet de tension dans la question du partage des eaux. AFP/JONATHAN NACKSTRAND

Le rapport a été remis en décembre par le député français, mais c'est plus d'un mois après sa publication, avec la traduction de certains passages dans la presse israélienne, qu'il provoque un tollé en Israël. Ce rapport d'information pour la Commission des affaires étrangères de l'Assemblée nationale remis par le député socialiste Jean Glavany décrit la question de l'eau comme "révélatrice d'un nouvel apartheid au Moyen-Orient". "Nous sommes étonnés et indignés par ce rapport de M. Glavany qui a introduit une terminologie extrême dans le document, au dernier moment, sans en informer ses collègues", s'insurge le porte-parole du ministère israélien des affaires étrangères Ygal Palmor, qui dénonce dans Haaretz un rapport"rempli d'un verbe emprunt de propagande vicieuse, bien éloignée de l'esprit critique professionnel".

DE L'UTILISATION DU MOT "APARTHEID"
Interrogé par Le Monde.fr, Jean Glavany nie avoir ajouté le terme d'"apartheid" au dernier moment, mais l'avoir fait en connaissance de cause "je savais que cela ne leur ferait pas plaisir (...) mais à force de ne pas vouloir braquer, on laisse faire", réagit le député socialiste qui affirme être "un ami d'Israël" et souhaite parler "du fond et pas de la forme du mot". Sur la méthodologie, le député dit s'être rendu "une petite semaine" avec d'autres élus français dans la région – Liban, Jordanie, Isarël, territoires palestiniens – et avoir rencontré "les ministres israélien et palestinien de l'eau, des diplomates et des ONG". "On n'a pas fait ça depuis notre bureau à l'Assemblée nationale", affirme le député en réponse aux critiques. Dans sont point à la presse du mercredi 18 janvier, le ministère des affaires étrangères décline toute réaction, arguant "nous n'avons pas l'habitude de commenter le contenu des rapports parlementaires".
Sur place, précisément, loin des bureaux de l'Assemblée nationale, Gidon Bromberg, directeur israélien de Friends of the Earth Middle East – une ONG qui rassemble Jordaniens, Israéliens et Palestiniens pour la promotion de la paix et du développement durable dans la région – évoque la question "historique" de l'eau pour dans la région. "Israël ne partage pas l'eau de façon équitable avec les Palestiniens", commente ce spécialiste des questions d'eau et de sécurité. "Les Israéliens considèrent l'eau comme une question relevant de la sphère militaire, ce qui rend presque impossibles les débats ou les projets innovants et équilibrés qui restent dès lors relégués au second plan", analyse de son côté Pierre Berthelot, chercheur à l'Institut français d'analyse stratégique, dans l'édition janvier-février de la revue "Questions internationales".
Situation géographique de la bande de Gaza et de la Cisjordanie
Situation géographique de la bande de Gaza et de la CisjordanieLe Monde.fr
La question épineuse de l'eau faisait ainsi partie des accords d'Oslo II, en 1995, qui n'ont pas été renégociés comme prévu en 2000 avec l'éclatement de la seconde Intifada. Si experts et ONG s'accordent pour considérer l'eau comme "un outil militaire", à l'instar de l'expression utilisée par Mark Zeitoun, chercheur à l'université d'East Anglia en Grande-Bretagne, c'est sur la forme et l'utilisation du mot "apartheid" que le rapport est questionné.
Pour Mark Zeitoun, spécialiste des questions de gouvernance environnementale, "si l'on définit 'apartheid' comme une discrimination réalisée sur la base de la race, alors on peut parler d'apartheid de l'eau". Gidon Bromberg, lui, déplore l'utilisation de ce terme : "ce mot, ça n'aide vraiment pas, ça braque les gens", explique-t-il en allusion à la réaction du gouvernement israélien.
"CE SONT LES ISRAÉLIENS QUI DÉCIDENT"
Pour les Palestiniens, la problématique du partage de l'eau se traduit de façon différente en Cisjordanie et à Gaza. Il s'agit tout d'abord d'une question géographique : Israël est située en aval par rapport à la Cisjordanie, tandis que Gaza se situe en aval par rapport à Israël. La définition du prélèvement des eaux a donc été un point crucial des accords d'Oslo II, qui encadrent le forage des sols : en Cisjordanie, tout forage doit faire l'objet d'une autorisation du Joint WaterCommittee, un comité mixte, composé d'Israëliens et de Palestiniens. "Dans la pratique, ce sont les Israéliens qui décident et en général, c'est à la faveur des demandes israéliennes, pas palestiniennes", souligne Stéphanie Oudot, adjointe au département eau et assainissement à l'Agence française du développement. Cette spécialiste des questions d'eau a travaillé pendant sept ans comme chef de projet dans la région.
La colonie de Givat Zeev, en Cisjordanie. "Il faut savoir, par exemple, que les 450 000 colons israéliens en Cisjordanie utilisent plus d'eau que 2,3 millions de Palestiniens" écrit le rapport de M. Glavany
La colonie de Givat Zeev, en Cisjordanie. "Il faut savoir, par exemple, que les 450 000 colons israéliens en Cisjordanie utilisent plus d'eau que 2,3 millions de Palestiniens" écrit le rapport de M. GlavanyREUTERS/BAZ RATNER
Le rapport Glavany évoque ainsi un fonctionnement "sur le mode du consensus, ce qui donne de facto un pouvoir de veto à Israël". Dans la zone C (voir le deuxième encadré de bas de page), les autorisations doivent en outre être approuvées par l'armée israélienne, encore plus réticente à les accorder. "Il faut savoir, par exemple, que les 450 000 colons israéliens en Cisjordanie utilisent plus d'eau que 2,3 millions de Palestiniens", note encore le rapport de M. Glavany. Mark Zeitoun relève en effet que chaque année, "les Palestiniens utilisent environ 70 millions de m3 d'eau contre 222 millions de m3 pour les colons Israéliens".
Dans le détail, le rapport évoque la destruction "systématique" par l'armée israélienne des puits construits "spontanément" par les Palestiniens. "Les puits sont souvent détruits s'il n'y a pas eu de permission", nuance Gidon Bromberg. Pondération similaire sur ce point du rapport par Stéphanie Oudot, qui note que la construction de ces puits, "essentiellement agricoles", n'est "pas systématique".
"GRAVES PROBLÈMES SANITAIRES"
Le directeur israélien de l'ONG Friends of Earth Middle East évoque ainsi de"graves problèmes sanitaires". Face à l'absence de ressources, les Palestiniens doivent acheter de l'eau municipale qui "est bon marché mais limitée", explique l'expert sur les questions d'eau. Les habitants se tournent alors vers l'approvisionnement privé. Selon la Banque mondiale (PDF), les Palestiniens vivant en Jordanie dépensent 8 % de leur revenu en eau. Pour l'eau non municipale, "il n'existe pas de contrôle : [l'eau] peut être contaminée, avec les conséquences que l'on connaît : douleurs abdominales, diarrhées". De son côté, Stéphanie Oudot décrit cette image : "des piscines et des jardins arrosés du côté des colons, tandis qu'à côté, les Palestiniens se rendent au puits avec un seau".
Corollaire de la question de l'eau, celle de l'assainissement. Les eaux de Cisjordanie s'écoulent en effet vers Israël, or "il n'existe qu'une seule station d'assainissement, en Cisjordanie, à Ramallah, et les besoins sont considérables", note Stéphanie Oudot. Des eaux usées s'écoulent ainsi vers Israël, qui accuse les Palestiniens de ne pas agir contre la pollution de l'eau. "Du fait de la domination israélienne, les Palestiniens ne sont pas encouragés à traiter les eaux qui sont donc contaminées", explique Gidon Bromberg. "On considère aussi que 30 % à 40 % de l'eau sont perdus par des fuites non réparées dans les canaux" côté palestinien, poursuit Gidon Bromberg, qui souligne cette situation paradoxale : "en l'absence de coopération avec les Palestiniens, Israël dessert ses propres intérêts".
Pour gérer les eaux usées provenant de Cisjordanie, les Israéliens construisent en Israël des stations d'épuration et "réutilisent ensuite ces eaux pour leur agriculture",relève Stéphanie Oudot. Israël amortit ensuite la construction et l'entretien de ces stations d'épuration "en ne reversant pas les taxes dues à l'autorité palestinienne". Depuis un an ou deux, note la responsable à l'Agence française du développement, les demandes émises par l'autorité palestinienne de construction de stations d'épuration sont davantage accordées, peut-être une concomitance avec ce rapport de 2009 de la Banque mondiale, qui dénonçait le contrôle de l'eau par Israël en Cisjordanie, relève l'experte. Outre les nappes partagées, Stéphanie Oudot évoque également la question du Jourdain, détourné en amont par Israël, "ce qui rend les Palestiniens très dépendants d'Israël en eau potable".
Le partage des eaux en Cisjordanie est déterminé par les accords d'Oslo II de 1995. Des accords "respectés", souligne Mark Zeitoun, mais "asymétriques" et"faussés" : le texte devait être "temporaire", mais n'a jamais été renégocié, mentionne le chercheur. L'accord ne tient en outre pas compte des besoins en eau d'une population qui a doublé depuis 1995, selon les estimations de la Banque mondiale.
"A GAZA, C'EST ENCORE PIRE"
"A Gaza c'est encore pire ; la qualité de l'eau y est épouvantable", témoigne Gidon Bromberg. Contrairement à la Cisjordanie, les Palestiniens peuvent y forerlibrement. "Des milliers d'habitants y creusent leur propre puits", poursuit Gidon Bromberg. Israël étant en amont, "[les Israéliens] pompent comme des fous de leur côté, il y a donc une surexploitation réelle", signale pour sa part Stéphanie Oudot. Dans une région surpeuplée, où les habitants pompent de l'eau rare, c'est donc de l'eau salée qui sort de terre. "Les Gazaouis ne peuvent plus boire de l'eau du robinet," témoigne Stéphanie Oudot, qui alerte sur une "situation humanitaire d'urgence". Selon la Banque mondiale, à Gaza "seule 5 % à 10 % de l'aquifèrecorrespond aux standards de qualité".
Ruines d'une maison de Khan Younès détruite lors de l'offensive israélienne dans la bande de Gaza, menée de décembre 2008 à janvier 2009. Selon le rapport Glavany, "les réserves d'eau ont été prises pour cible en 2008-2009 par les bombardements".
Ruines d'une maison de Khan Younès détruite lors de l'offensive israélienne dans la bande de Gaza, menée de décembre 2008 à janvier 2009. Selon le rapport Glavany, "les réserves d'eau ont été prises pour cible en 2008-2009 par les bombardements". REUTERS/IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA
A Gaza, le rapport parlementaire estime que "les réserves d'eau ont été prises pour cible en 2008-2009 par les bombardements". "C'est impossible à déterminer",temporise Mark Zeitoun. Encore plus nuancée, Stéphanie Oudot souligne le fait que les bombardements ont épargné la digue de Betlaya qui retient un vaste lac d'eaux usées. L'assainissement des eaux représente toutefois un problème central dans la bande de Gaza, avec un manque criant d'infrastructures.
Dans ce territoire palestinien, l'enjeu crucial est le dessalement des eaux. Mais cette technologie est extrêmement coûteuse. Dans le même temps, Israël consolide son indépendance "en dessalant l'eau elle-même sur la côte méditerranéenne", relève Gidon Bromberg. Une indépendance qui, estime Mark Zeitoun, devrait mécaniquement "permettre aux Israéliens d'être plus ouverts aux négociations avec les Palestiniens". Le chercheur craint qu'à l'instar de précédents rapports sur l'eau, le rapport Glavany "fasse du bruit (...), mais qu'une fois que l'attention du publique sera retombée, la politique reste la même". "La situation changera lorsqu'Israël reconnaîtra que la sécurité de l'eau pour tous passera par un partage équitable et juste de l'eau", note le chercheur. Gidon Bromberg estime, lui, que l'eau peut "justement représenter un vecteur très solide pour construire la confiance" entre Israéliens et Palestiniens.
Flora Genoux

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Ali still the Greatest as he celebrates 70th

"Rumble, young man, rumble," used to be his battle cry.
But Muhammad Ali is an old man now, ravaged by his years in the ring and his decades of braving Parkinson's disease. The voice that used to bellow that he was "The Greatest" is largely muted now, save for those times in the mornings when he is able to whisper his thoughts.
The face, though, is still that of the most recognizable man on earth. Maybe not as finely chiseled as it was in his prime, but close enough.
"It's not like he doesn't look like himself," said his oldest daughter, Maryum "May May" Ali. "It's the same face, the Parkinson's hasn't affected that.'"
Ali turns 70 on Tuesday, giving Baby Boomers who grew up with him one more reason to reflect on their own advancing years.
He's fought Parkinson's the way he fought the late Joe Frazier, never giving an inch. But it's a fight he can't win, and nearly 30 years of living with it has taken a heavy toll.
His days at home with wife, Lonnie, in a gated community near Phoenix, generally follow the same routine: He gets out of bed and takes a shower before easing into his favorite chair for long hours at a time.
Sometimes he will watch videos of his old fights. The hands will move, eyes will twitch, as he remembers the magnificent fighter and physical specimen he once was.
"I always say the only person who likes to watch old Muhammad Ali fights more than me is him," said John Ramsey, a Louisville radio and television personality who has been a close friend of Ali's for more than 30 years. "His memory is better than mine and he's very sharp. His sense of humor is still there, too."
Through it all he remains a proud man. There are no complaints. No time spent bemoaning his fate.
It is, the devout Muslim would say, God's will.
"He would always just say to his family, 'These are the cards I was dealt, so don't be sad,'" Maryum Alisaid. "He never played the victim. There was never any 'Woe is me.'"
That he is still alive so long after being diagnosed with the degenerative disease may be a tribute to the athleticism and inner strength that helped him stop Frazier on a brutally hot morning in the Philippines and helped him knock out the fearsome George Foreman in Africa. Among the heavyweights of his generation he was a big man, standing 6-foot-2 and usually weighing in at around 210 pounds.
He's stooped now and weighs much less. But his arms are those of a younger man, and his body still shows signs of the magnificent sculpting of days gone by. Every Sunday, his doctor in Phoenix makes a house call to make sure he's doing OK.
There are medications to help relieve his symptoms; thereis no cure for Parkinson's.
"The Parkinson's has affected him a lot, one of things he has is a lot of difficulty speaking," said Dr. Abraham Lieberman, director of the Muhammad Ali Parkinson's Center in Phoenix. "But he's never downbeat about it. He's a tremendous inspiration to everyone."
In November, a few days after he traveled to Philadelphia to say goodbye to Frazier, Ali was rushed to a Phoenix-area hospital. His family later brushed it off as nothing more than dehydration.
The fact he was quickly back resting at home didn't surprise those who really know him.
"Ali was always at his best when things were the worst," said Gene Kilroy, his former business manager and good friend. "It's the kind of man he is."
Ali, his daughter says, is in the late stages of Parkinson's now, a time when doctors say patients are particularly susceptible to things that can kill them.
Pneumonia is the leading cause of death among Parkinson's patients, who are also at constant risk for other infections. The increasing inability to swallow can be fatal, and falls are always a major concern.
"He's had a very visible and courageous fight against this disease. He has not given up," said Dr. Blair Ford, a professor of clinical neurology at Columbia University, who specializes in Parkinson's research. "Three decades of Parkinson's is devastating. This is a tougher opponent than anyone he's faced."
How Ali got the disease will never be known, because not much is known about the cause of Parkinson's — other than it is characterized by increasingly severe tremors and periodically stiff or frozen limbs. What is known is that patients gradually lose brain cells that produce dopamine, a chemical key to the circuitry that controls muscle movement, and the treatment is generally dopamine-boosting medication.
Ali once calculated that he took 29,000 punches to the head in a career that spanned more than two decades. He fought without headgear as an amateur, and never backed down while trading punches with brutal sluggers like Frazier, Earnie Shavers and Foreman.
By the final stages of his career, he was slurring his words. Not long afterward, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's.
Lieberman says he doesn't believe Ali got Parkinson's because of repeated blows to the head because he doesn't have classic Dementia Pugilista, which afflicted the late Jerry Quarry, whom Ali defeated twice. Ali is coherent and his thought process is still intact, though the Parkinson's forces him to communicate more with gestures and actions instead of words.
Daughter Maryum believes her father's choice of profession had something to do with his fate.
"In my heart, I think it was a combination of Parkinson's and trauma to the head," she said. "He got hit a lot and he fought for a long time."
Indeed he did. Ali's fights often went 15 rounds and he would often stick his head out and dare opponents to land punches just to respond with some flurries and, on a good night, perhaps even do the Ali shuffle.
The stories of his legendary battles with Frazier and Foreman are etched in the fabric of the times, monuments to a sport that has never been the same since he retired. His fights were so big they had names like the "Thrilla in Manilla" and the "Rumble in the Jungle."
Back then, no one could have imagined the Ali they see now. He was a towering figure who won over a country with his mere presence when he fought Foreman in Zaire. Bombastic on the stage, he taunted opponents and teased world figures, once telling Philippines president Ferdinand Marcos: "I saw your wife. You're not as dumb as you look."
"He was brash. He could shoot off his mouth. He could do things a lot of people want to do but couldn't do, and he backed it up with his fists," said Ed Schuyler Jr., who traveled the world covering Ali's fights for The Associated Press. "He was Muhammad Ali. There will never be another like him."
Other stories came later. Foreman tells how he tenderly helped Ali button his shirt as they prepared for a dinner honoring them in London. It was early in the progression of his disease, and Ali didn't appreciate his old foe having to help him get ready, challenging Foreman to another fight.
Later the world would be shocked at the sight of Ali trembling almost uncontrollably as he stood for what seemed like forever while lighting the Olympic flame in 1996 in Atlanta. It's a moment indelibly etched in time, and it helped turn the final sentiment of public opinion — some resented his refusal to be drafted — in his favor.
More recently, Ramsey tells the story of going with Ali to visit a dying boy in the hospital, something Ali has done with regularity since his championship days.
Then, as before, the rule was no cameras, no press. Just Ali and the boy in the room together.
"He just held the boy's hand for a long time and they stared in each others eyes," Ramsey said. "He didn't say a word, they just connected."
Today, Ali still goes to occasional sporting events, where he is invariably greeted with warm, standing ovations. His oldest daughter joined him last September for one, sitting with Ali and his wife in the owner's suite at Angel Stadium for a baseball game. Ali was taken to the suite in a golf cart, waving and shaking hands as he slowly went by.
"His eyes were bright and he was really enjoying himself," Maryum Ali said. "Lonnie says he functions better when he uses his mind, and I know it makes him feel good when people remember him."
His 70th birthday will be celebrated with a party at the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, followed by a Feb. 18 bash at the MGM Grand arena in Las Vegas, where celebrities and former fighters like Foreman, Ken Norton, Leon Spinks and Roberto Duran will pay tribute to him. Manny Pacquiao may sing a song, and millions of dollars will be raised for brain research.
People will be come because he's Muhammad Ali. But they'll also be there because of the person he is — the kind of person who never turned down an autograph. The kind of person who tried to help the less fortunate or the sick. The kind of person who never gets down because he wants to keep those around him up.
"I would ask him how he stays so positive," Ramsey said. "He would say, 'I've got the best known face on the planet. I'm the three-time heavyweight champion of the world. I've got no reason to be down."
"He just has a good heart. He doesn't believe in being mean to people," his daughter said. "If someone was in need, he would always help them without even thinking about it."
Maryum Ali said her father knows he didn't lead a perfect life. But he takes comfort in his religion, and he accepts everything he's been given.
That goes for the Parkinson's, too.
"He would always say I'd rather suffer now than in the hereafter," she said. "That's just who my dad is."
____
Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write him at tdahlberg(at)ap.org or at http://twitter.com/timdahlberg

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

5 Things You Should Know About the FBI's Massive New Biometric Database


By Tana Ganeva, AlterNet
Posted on January 8, 2012, Printed on January 10, 2012
The FBI claims that their fingerprint database (IAFIS) is the "largest biometric database in the world," containing records for over a hundred million people. But that's nothing compared to the agency's plans for Next Generation Identification (NGI), a massive, billion-dollar upgrade that will hold iris scans, photos searchable with face recognition technology, palm prints, and measures of gait and voice recordings alongside records of fingerprints, scars, and tattoos.
Ambitions for the final product are candidly spelled out in an agency report: "The FBI recognizes a need to collect as much biometric data as possible within information technology systems, and to make this information accessible to all levels of law enforcement, including International agencies." (A stack of documents related to NGI was obtained by the Center for Constitutional Rights and others after a FOIA lawsuit.)
It'll be "Bigger -- Better -- Faster," the FBI brags on their Web site. Unsurprisingly, civil libertarians have concerns about the privacy ramifications of a bigger, better, faster way to track Americans using their body parts.
"NGI will expand the type and breadth of information FBI keeps on all of us," says Sunita Patel of the Center for Constitutional Rights. "There should be a balance between gathering information for law enforcement, and gathering information for its own sake."
Here are 5 things you should probably know about NGI:
1. Face Recognition
This month, the FBI is giving police departments in 4 states access to face recognition technology that lets them search the agency's mugshot database with only an image of a face. Police can repay the favor by feeding the FBI mugshots they collect from local arrests, bulking up the agency's database with images of more and more people.
The face recognition pilot program is supposed to expand to police departments across the country by 2014. When it's fully operational, the FBI expects its database to contain as many records of faces as there are fingerprints in the current database -- about 70 million, reports Nextgov.com. The agency's optimism seems warranted. If most local police departments are agreeable about information-sharing NGI can vacuum up images from all over the country.
The problem with that, civil libertarians point out, is that anyone's picture can end up in the database, regardless of whether or not they've committed a crime. Mug shots get snapped when people are arrested, and unlike a fingerprint -- which requires either arrest or consent to a background check -- a face could potentially be captured and fed into a database from anywhere.
"Anybody walking around could potentially be entered," Jennifer Lynch, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, tells AlterNet. "Just the fact that those images can be taken surreptitiously raises concerns. If someone takes your fingerprints, you know. But in the face recognition context, it's possible for law enforcement to collect that data without knowledge." The millions of private and public security cameras all over the country would certainly provide a fruitful source for images, Lynch points out.
Going out in public naturally entails the risk that someone will see what you're doing or take your picture. Law enforcement officials angling for looser surveillance rules often deploy the argument that what people do in public is inherently not private. (It's also been used in recent debates over whether it's legal for police to put a GPS tracking device on someone's car without a warrant.) But privacy advocates counter that modern surveillance technology goes so far beyond the human eye, which obviously has neither the capacity to track someone's location for days (GPS) or store their image in a database (video surveillance, face recognition) that traditional distinctions between public and private don't really apply.
An agency powerpoint presented at a 2011 biometrics conference outlines some of the sophisticated technology in the FBI's face recognition initiatives. There's software that distinguishes between twins; 3-D face capture that expands way beyond frontal, two-dimensional mugshots; face-aging software; and automated face detection in video. The report also says agencies can ID individuals in "public datasets," which privacy advocates worry could potentially include social media like Facebook.
Meanwhile, existing laws are rarely up to speed with galloping technological advances in surveillance, say privacy advocates. At this point, "You just have to rely on law enforcement to do the right thing," Lynch says.
2. Iris Scans
Iris-scanning technology is the centerpiece of the second-to-last stage in the roll-out of NGI (scheduled for sometime before 2014). Iris scans offer up several advantages to law enforcement, both in terms of identifying people and fattening up databases.
The pattern of an iris is so unique it can distinguish twins, and it allegedly stays the same throughout a person's life. Like facial recognition, iris scans cut out the part where someone has to be arrested or convicted of a crime for law enforcement to grab a record of their biometric data.
"This capability has the potential to benefit law enforcement by requiring less interaction with subjects and will allow quicker acquisition," reads a CJIS report to the White House Domestic Policy Council.
In fact, being in the same place as a police officer equipped with a mobile iris-scanning device is all it takes. Last fall, police departments across the country got access to the MORIS device, a contraption attached to an iPhone that lets police collect digital fingerprints, run face recognition and take iris scans. (Over the summer, the FBI also starting passing out mobile devices to local law enforcement that lets them collect fingerprints digitally at the scene, according to Government Computer News.)
3. Rap-Back System
A lot of the action in the FBI's fingerprint database is in background checks for job applicants applying to industries that vet for criminal history, like taking care of the elderly or children, hospital work, and strangely, being a horse jockey in Michigan. As Cari Athens, writing for the Michigan Telecommunications and Law Review points out, if a job applicant checks out, the FBI either destroys the prints or returns them to the employer. But that's no fun if the goal is to collect vast amounts of biometric data!
Through the "Rap-Back" system, the FBI will offer employers another option: the agency is willing to keep the fingerprints in order to alert the employer if their new hire has run-ins with the law at any point in the future.
"The Rap-Back Service will provide authorized users the capability to receive notification of criminal and, in limited cases, civil activity of enrolled individuals that occurs after the initial processing and retention of criminal or civil fingerprint transactions," reads the FBI site.
4. Data Sharing Between Agencies
The roll-out of NGI advances another goal: breaking down barriers between databases operated by different agencies. One of the directives of the billion-dollar project is to grease information swapping between the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Defense. The DOJ and DHS have worked toward "interoperatibility" between their databases for years. In 2009, the Department of Defense and DOJ also signed on to an agreement to share biometric information.
All of these agencies have been busy ramping up their collection of data. The Department of Defense's ABIS database has archived fingerprints, images of faces, iris scans, and palm prints in Iraq and Afghanistan and have started collecting voice recordings. They claim to have 5.1 million records, with 49 percent coming from Iraq, but efforts in Afghanistan are ramping up, according to a DoD powerpoint. (Biometric information gathered in Iraq will not be relinquished with our pull-out, as Spencer Ackerman reported.) The Department of Homeland Security biometric database (IDENT) grabs the fingerprints and a photo (searchable with facial recognition) of visitors to the US through a program called US-Visit. Through the Secure-Communities program, meant to reveal the immigration status of people booked in local jails, (more on that below) both IDENT and the FBI collected biometric information from local law enforcement.
A DHS powerpoint about Secure Communities promises that "Under NGI, law enforcement agencies will have the option to search multiple repositories." FBI reports detail how NGI will promote smoother swapping of more and more detailed biometric information: "NGI will increase information processing and sharing needs of the more than 18,000 local, state, federal, and international agencies who are our customers." It's not clear which international agencies will be able to tap into NGI.
The advantages of collaboration are clear, but it's not without some potentially nasty consequences. When that information includes private identifying data, like the unique pattern of an iris, fingerprint or face , civil liberties advocates see likely privacy breaches.
"With more people having access to data, you don't know where data is going, who's using it against you." says EFF's Lynch. "Particularly when you're talking about surreptitious collection like facial recognition, the government has the ability to track you wherever you go. Data sharing between agencies presents the possibility for constant surveillance."
Sunita Patel points out that cases of mistaken identity can be infinitely complicated when the information flows through multiple government agencies. If you're mistakenly flagged by one agency, she says, how would you go about scrubbing the false record whenever your fingerprint or Iris scan gets pinged by a different one?
5. NGI and Secure Communities (S-Comm)
One recent test run in interagency data-sharing has not gone particularly well: Secure Communities, a DHS program that lets local law enforcement officials run the fingerprints of people booked in jails against the IDENT database to check their immigration status and tip off ICE to undocumented immigrants.
Like many policies targeting America's immigrant population, Secure Communities (S-Comm) -- pitched as protection against violent criminals -- devolved into dragnets and mass deportations, with people getting dragged in for minor offenses like missing business permits and even for reporting crimes. In one incident a woman called the police about a domestic violence incident, only to be ensnared in deportation proceedings herself. As Marie Diamond points out in Think Progress, DHS's immigration databases have so many errors that the program "routinely flags citizens as undocumented immigrants."
To complicate matters: activists at the Center for Constitutional Rights argue that the documents they obtained after an FOIA request and lawsuit show that the FBI saw the program as a great opportunity to start beefing up NGI and pushed reluctant local police departments to participate in the program.
An CJIS/FBI guide instructing officials how to pitch S-Comm to local law enforcement explains that, "Ultimately, LEA participation is inevitable because SC is simply the first of a number of biometric interoperatability systems being brought online by the FBI/CJIS 'Next Generation Identification' initiative."
The document lays out strategies for dealing with resistant police departments, including, "Deploy to as many places in the surrounding locale, creating a 'ring of interoperatability' around the resistant site."
"It's a way of operationalizing wide-sweeping intelligence gathering," Sunita Patel of CCR tells AlterNet.
What could possibly go wrong?
Advancements in the collection of biometric data are double-edged: there's the threat of a massive government surveillance infrastructure working too well -- e.g., surveillance state -- and there are concerns about its weaknesses, especially in keeping data secure.
A breach of a sophisticated, multi-modal biometric database makes for a nightmarish scenario because the whole point of biometric data is that it offers unique ways to ID people, so there's no easy fix -- like a password change -- for compromised biometric data. Pointing to the dangers of identify theft of biometric data, Patel observes that, "Unlike a password, the algorithm of an iris can't be changed."

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