CLARKSBURG, W. Va. — The FBI is embarking on a $1 billion effort to build the world’s largest computer database of peoples’ physical characteristics, a project that would give the government unprecedented abilities to identify individuals in the United States and abroad. Digital images of faces, fingerprints and palm patterns are already flowing into FBI systems in a climate-controlled, secure basement here. Next month, the FBI intends to award a 10-year contract that would significantly expand the amount and kinds of biometric information it receives. And in the coming years, law enforcement authorities around the world will be able to rely on iris patterns, face-shape data, scars and perhaps even the unique ways people walk and talk, to solve crimes and identify criminals and terrorists. The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law. ‘Bigger. Faster. Better. That’s the bottom line,’ said Thomas E. Bush III, assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division, which operates the database from its headquarters in the Appalachian foothills. The increasing use of biometrics for identification […]
Washington will join California, Oregon and other states in a lawsuit that seeks to permit automobile emission restrictions that Gov. Chris Gregoire believes are central to efforts to reduce the state’s contribution to global warming. Saying she’s frustrated by the Bush administration’s intransigence in the face of climate change, Gregoire on Thursday denounced the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s refusal Wednesday to grant states the authority to force automakers to build cleaner cars starting with the 2009 model year. The governor called a news conference to announce she has asked Attorney General Rob McKenna to back California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s legal challenge to the EPA’s ‘very unfortunate’ decision, which she also described as obstructionist and a violation of states’ rights. ‘I don’t have much doubt in my mind the states are going to win,’ said Gregoire, who is also a former state attorney general. Her analysis was based on two recent rulings in California and Vermont in which federal judges rejected auto industry efforts to derail the tailpipe rules. The industry says California’s rules would be economically devastating. Besides Gregoire, governors and officials from seven other states also pledged Thursday to support California’s legal battle. ‘It […]
The new law backs ethanol and ignores other alternative fuels. Venture capitalist David Berry talks about what it means for energy innovation On Dec. 19, President George W. Bush signed into law the Energy Independence & Security Act of 2007, a bill that, among other things, raised fuel economy standards for the first time in 32 years and set a Renewable Fuel Standard that will mandate the use of renewable biofuels by energy producers. He defined it as ‘a significant step’ towards energy independence. And indeed, it is progress if you compare it to this Administration’s previous laissez-faire approach to fuel economy standards. But what of energy innovation? The bill’s support of renewable fuels-specifically, a mandate that fuel producers use 36 billion gallons of renewables by 2022-should have sparked innovation in the energy sector. But instead of laying out a vision-ending U.S. dependence on foreign oil and shifting to cleaner fuels-and letting inventors and entrepreneurs develop the technologies that would realize that vision, Washington’s policymakers threw their weight behind one specific alternative fuel: ethanol. Ethanol, and especially the corn-based ethanol that is predominant in the U.S. today, has long been controversial, with critics pointing out that turning […]
SEOUL, South Korea - When Park He-ran was a young mother, other women would approach her to ask what her secret was. She had given birth to three boys in a row at a time when South Korean women considered it their paramount duty to bear a son. Ms. Park, a 61-year-old newspaper executive, gets a different reaction today. ‘When I tell people I have three sons and no daughter, they say they are sorry for my misfortune,’ she said. ‘Within a generation, I have turned from the luckiest woman possible to a pitiful mother.’ In South Korea, once one of Asia’s most rigidly patriarchal societies, a centuries-old preference for baby boys is fast receding. And that has led to what seems to be a decrease in the number of abortions performed after ultrasounds that reveal the sex of a fetus. According to a study released by the World Bank in October, South Korea is the first of several Asian countries with large sex imbalances at birth to reverse the trend, moving toward greater parity between the sexes. Last year, the ratio was 107.4 boys born for every 100 girls, still above what is considered normal, but […]
FRESNO — TIME’S Kristin Kloberdanz sat down with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mary Nichols, chairperson of the California Air Resources Board, in Fresno, California to discuss the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) denying the right of California and 16 other states to set their own fuel emission standards. The Governor was clearly frustrated though he remained genial. Excerpts from the interview: TIME: How frustrating was the EPA ruling? SCHWARZENEGGER: I always start with the positive. I was very happy that Congress and that the President signed into law [an improvement for] fuel efficiency of the vehicles by the year 2020. That is the first time in a long time, which, of course doesn’t say much for the United States…. But it’s good news. So that’s number one. It’s one of those things that you get that news in the morning and then a few hours later, then you get the real bad news. Which is that they don’t believe that we should be controlling our own destiny and cleaning up the air and controlling the tailpipe emissions and all those kinds of things. What this means is, we sued them in order to get the waiver [to set […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
