Technology Application and Government run amok

[Telly]

I found this concept, and it's application disturbing. We'll probably be hearing a lot more about it soon, as more innocent people are snared in it's web. Could be one of us next:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/riskfactor/computing/it/heres-looking-at-you-and-you-and-you-

John H. Gass is still not a happy person. On the 5th of April, he received a letter dated the 22nd of March from the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles telling him that his driving license had been revoked, and that he must immediately stop driving.
Mr. Gass, who had not received a traffic violation for years, was identified by the RMV as a person suspected of having a fake identity by an automated anti-terrorism facial recognition system, an article in the Boston Globe reported. At least 34 other states use the same or similar software, the Globe says, much of it paid for in part by grants from the US Department of Homeland Security.
It turns out that the face recognition software flagged Mr. Gass's picture as looking like another Massachusetts driver, hence the letter from the Massachusetts RMV. The Globe says that it took Mr. Gass ten days of wrestling with the RMV bureaucracy to prove to them that he was indeed who he said he was before he was able to get his license back.

And this official's attitude reinforces the stereotype that many have today of government bureaucrats and their minions:

Mr. Gass, who needs to drive for his job, is now suing Massachusetts for "... unspecified damages and an injunction blocking the Registry from revoking licenses without a hearing."
The RMV Registrar Rachel Kaprielian apparently has little sympathy for Mr. Gass, saying that protecting the public far outweighs any inconvenience Gass or anyone else might experience.

"A driver’s license is not a matter of civil rights. It’s not a right. It’s a privilege,"
​

Registrar Kaprielian told the Globe, and that it is the individual's "burden" to clear his or her name of any mistakes made by the RMV.

Ohhh boyyyyy

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

Welcome to fascist America.

"listen: there’s a hell
of a good universe next door; let’s go"
— E.E. Cummings

 

[Nords]

The Globe says that it took Mr. Gass ten days of wrestling with the RMV bureaucracy to prove to them that he was indeed who he said he was before he was able to get his license back.

That sounds pretty much like what most Americans go through at their state DMVs just to renew their driver's licenses...

 

[braumeister]

[LilyTomlin] We don't care; we don't have to. We're the DMV! [/LilyTomlin]