Panopticon: ID scanners in Portland bars raise privacy concerns.

[phill4paul]

http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-21979-recording_everything.html


Multnomah County and Portland police this week suspended a new program that supplied data-gathering ID scanners to Old Town bars after WW raised questions about whether it was legal.
The state-funded program allowed Portland police to equip downtown bars and clubs in recent weeks with high-tech ID scanners that captured patrons’ names, ages and photos for upload to a central database, which police could then access.

There’s no indication patrons knew they were being tracked.

“We tried to say ‘no’ at the very beginning, and police strongly encouraged that we should do it,” says Mike Reed, general manager of the Boiler Room and Jones Bar, both located in Old Town. “We don’t want to track people’s every move. We considered that a possible issue.”

Despite his misgivings, Reed gave the scanners a try. So did a dozen other downtown clubs.

With government agencies already surreptitiously gathering information without warrants, the Portland program raised questions about transparency and privacy.

It might also have been illegal.


Straus is referring to a 2009 Oregon law that limits companies’ legal ability to collect, store or share information from ID scanners. Straus says she was unaware Portland bars were collecting such data, or that police could grab it.

“We had wondered, when we wandered around Old Town, whether bars were complying with the swiping law,” she says.

Club manager Reed says police assured bar owners that it was legal to gather customers’ information and to share it with law enforcement.

“To our understanding, we’re doing everything within the law,” Reed says. “Police were definitely the big promoter of the scanners.”


Neither Portland police nor the city attorney was aware of the 2009 law until WW raised the question. “We‘re glad when someone brings this up. We want to do what’s best to protect public safety and protect people’s rights,” Multnomah County spokesman David Austin tells WW.

In 2011, the state awarded Multnomah County a three-year grant to reduce alcohol abuse. Last year, the county gave $60,000 to Lines for Life, a nonprofit that works on reducing substance abuse, to purchase scanners for Old Town bars and clubs.

The bars used the scanners, Lines for Life owned them and Portland police controlled the devices. Police ensured clubs were using them.

“If we don’t use it, they know,” a downtown bouncer tells WW.


“Millennials don’t care,” said Scott Lansing of Portland, standing outside the Rainbow Room as two of his friends wrestled in the snow. “We’ve just been brought up to expect that everyone has access to that information.”

[Danke]

“Millennials" have nothing to hide.

[Anti Federalist]

“Millennials don’t care,” said Scott Lansing of Portland, standing outside the Rainbow Room as two of his friends wrestled in the snow. “We’ve just been brought up to expect that everyone has access to that information.”

This is how tyranny works.

What they don't care about today, will be some new horror thirty years from now that will have them hollering and screaming.

And their kids will be "Meh...who cares".

[DamianTV]

Every single day this country gets a little worse. And remember, YOU are paying for this!

[aGameOfThrones]

"There is value in drivers' information and a market for it," the Justice Department lawyers said. "What the defendants fail to recognize is that there is value in drivers' information whether or not it is actually sold." (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?444019-Remember-that-cop-who-stopped-another-cop-going-120mph-Cops-want-to-be-exempt-from-harrasment&p=5416271#post5416271)

[DamianTV]

This is how tyranny works.

What they don't care about today, will be some new horror thirty years from now that will have them hollering and screaming.

And their kids will be "Meh...who cares".

That will be "The Chip", and it will only get worse from there, if we even last that long.

[Henry Rogue]

I feel sorry for you young ones. With your whole life ahead of you dealing with this crap and it's only going to get worse.

[osan]

This is how tyranny works.

What they don't care about today, will be some new horror thirty years from now that will have them hollering and screaming.

And their kids will be "Meh...who cares".

Having once been a resident of Portland, a city I really love in many ways, I can say that the young people living there are some of the most unimaginably and painfully stupid I have ever had the nauseating discomfort of witnessing in action. I am not even sure I could describe it quite correctly, though I can give one brief example.

One fine summer day I was walking at the waterside in McCall Park, just east of Saturday Market and south of Burnside. As I'm walking I come upon a young woman... maybe 19 or 20, as she was taking her last breaths in a heroin overdose. Her friends were just standing there with their thumbs in their asses, completely lost as to what they should do. The scene was right out of "Idiocracy", only this was the real deal and ten years prior.

So I stood there awhile. I was oddly unmoved by the fact that she had just died before my very eyes and found I could have cared less. But what DID get to me was how bottomlessly stupid these people were - in their 20s and completely inept. That bit was at first almost staggering, and trust me when I say that I am not easily impressed in either direction with events. By the time I came around a brief moment later, their rank stupidity triggered something of a profound annoyance in me and while I still felt nothing that the girl was dead, I just wanted to stuff my foot up every ass there that was not my own. How in hell do people THAT stupid breathe without the help of an iron lung?

Anyhow, I finally decided enough was enough and and pointed out the EMS station across the street, staring them in the face. They still didn't get it. I actually had to instruct one of those blithering imbeciles to run as fast as he can and get the EMTs to come and to be sure to tell them the victim had just died from a heroin overdose.

EMTs showed up immediately and brought her back. She was dead perhaps 3 or 4 minutes - pupils fixed and dilated (I checked). I left shaking my head in profound disbelief that so many young adults could be so utterly devoid of the most basic sense and intelligence. It still leads me to some cognitive dissonance when I think of it as I now do. I can hardly imagine how any of them are still alive. I figure that young woman probably died long ago from an OD... perhaps the next day... these sorts do not learn.

THAT is how stupid the young adults are in PDX. I would also note that culturally, the masses are VERY progressive. The government very conservative. Every Thursday there is a protest by the hippies and every Thursday they are met by mounted police, usually champing at the bit for an opportunity to club or shoot one of them.

[DamianTV]

Having once been a resident of Portland, a city I really love in many ways, I can say that the young people living there are some of the most unimaginably and painfully stupid I have ever had the nauseating discomfort of witnessing in action. I am not even sure I could describe it quite correctly, though I can give one brief example.

One fine summer day I was walking at the waterside in McCall Park, just east of Saturday Market and south of Burnside. As I'm walking I come upon a young woman... maybe 19 or 20, as she was taking her last breaths in a heroin overdose. Her friends were just standing there with their thumbs in their asses, completely lost as to what they should do. The scene was right out of "Idiocracy", only this was the real deal and ten years prior.

So I stood there awhile. I was oddly unmoved by the fact that she had just died before my very eyes and found I could have cared less. But what DID get to me was how bottomlessly stupid these people were - in their 20s and completely inept. That bit was at first almost staggering, and trust me when I say that I am not easily impressed in either direction with events. By the time I came around a brief moment later, their rank stupidity triggered something of a profound annoyance in me and while I still felt nothing that the girl was dead, I just wanted to stuff my foot up every ass there that was not my own. How in hell do people THAT stupid breathe without the help of an iron lung?

Anyhow, I finally decided enough was enough and and pointed out the EMS station across the street, staring them in the face. They still didn't get it. I actually had to instruct one of those blithering imbeciles to run as fast as he can and get the EMTs to come and to be sure to tell them the victim had just died from a heroin overdose.

EMTs showed up immediately and brought her back. She was dead perhaps 3 or 4 minutes - pupils fixed and dilated (I checked). I left shaking my head in profound disbelief that so many young adults could be so utterly devoid of the most basic sense and intelligence. It still leads me to some cognitive dissonance when I think of it as I now do. I can hardly imagine how any of them are still alive. I figure that young woman probably died long ago from an OD... perhaps the next day... these sorts do not learn.

THAT is how stupid the young adults are in PDX. I would also note that culturally, the masses are VERY progressive. The government very conservative. Every Thursday there is a protest by the hippies and every Thursday they are met by mounted police, usually champing at the bit for an opportunity to club or shoot one of them.

Is it possible those other kids that saw the one die were also high out of their fucking minds?

Im not sure. I've seen examples of both extreme ignorance and impressive intellect from people. Unfortunately the former appears far more often than the latter. I met a girl recently that did not know that phone numbers that start with 555 in movies are FAKE! I've met people who think that their Turn Signals were not working because they were literally out of "Blinker Fluid". I think osan believes me, but if you dont, try asking some obvious trick questions to people. What color is Yellow? How many Moons does the earth have? Who is the Vice President of the US right now? Things we take for granted, many lack the mental capacity to comprehend. Truly saddening. Then, think about the types of answers these people will give when its up to them to decide your FATE in Court! To decide on the Next Law that rules your life! To decide whether or not you should be allowed Privacy! Maybe ask them how much an Ounce of Gold is worth? I weep for the future and only see doom over the horizon.

[osan]

Is it possible those other kids that saw the one die were also high out of their fucking minds?

I did not get that impression at all. They seemed pretty much sober as I recall, but I may have mismeasured that.

[tod evans]

Every single day this country gets a little worse. And remember, YOU are paying for this!

But, but, just think how safe the children are.............