NOS

* FERET overview John Paul Jones, July, 2001 FERET, a Department of Defense project initiated in 1993 and completed in early 1998, entailed the disbursment of public funds into three main areas: 1) research grants to universities; 2) development grants to private corporations that used the publicly funded research to implement the technology; 3) government-sponsored testing wherein the publicly funded but privately owned corporations competed for development grants. Thus, from start to finish, the face scan technology appears to have be funded primarily with tax-payer money and designed to meet criteria established by the federal government. Once developed, the technology was primarilly bought--again with tax-payer money--by state and federal government agencies of the United States, as well as foreign governments, e.g., communist China , interested in the control and tracking technology. The Department of Defense is now scurying to improve the existing face scan technology through a 50 million dollar extravaganza of compassion and control called the HumanID project. Once again, the DoD is funding university research with the goal of identifying people 500 feet from a sensor in a variety of lighting and background situations, according to Wired Magazine, March 14, 2001, which fact can be verified by visiting the Department of Defense CounterDrug Technology Development Program Office web site, where you can read about the new Facial Recognition Vendor Test 2000. The following corporations submitted systems for evaluation in the FRVT 2000: Banque-Tec International Pty Limited C-Vis Computer Vision and Automation GmbH, eTrue (formerly Miros), Lau Technologies, Visionics Corporation. (Note: That this technology was purchased primarilly with tax-payer money can be verified by looking at the list of Viisage and Visionic Corporation's first customers, as of 01/20/2000: U.S. Federal and State agencies: NSA, DoD, INS, DARPA, NIJ (National Institute of Justice) Army Research Labs, ARKANSAS, MASSACHUSETS, FLORIDA, NEW MEXICO, CONNETICUT, ILLINOIS, WISCONSIN, ARIZONA, NEW JERSEY Foreign Governments: Communist China Eastern Europe Philipines Isreali Ministry of Defense (MOD)

"Does the Brotherhood exist?" "That Winston, you will never know. If we choose to set you free when we have finished with you, and if you live to be ninety years old, still you will never learn whether the answer to that question is yes or no. As long as you live, it will be a riddle in your mind." -- 1984 by George Orwell