Bloomberg Off-Handedly Suggests Fingerprinting New York Public Housing Residents

What next? Tracking chips?

Credit: © Hans Joachim Roy | Dreamstime.com

Technically, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg suggested putting fingerprint scanners on public housing in the city in order to keep out folks who shouldn't be there. The natural consequence is that this would require fingerprinting all residents of public housing in order to give them access to their own homes. Much like stop-and-frisk searches, the privacy violations are obvious to just about everybody but Bloomberg. From the Wall Street Journal:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg suggested Friday morning that public housing buildings should have locks controlled by fingerprint scanners to keep out non-residents who might be criminals.

"What we really should have is fingerprinting to get in," he said, while talking about how locks on New York City Housing Authority buildings are often broken and his worries that recent court rulings might make it harder for police to patrol them.

The candidates to succeed Bloomberg, all fighting for room on the campaign platform of not being Bloomberg, raced to criticize the proposal:

Two of the candidates vying to succeed Mr. Bloomberg immediately seized on the idea as an example of what they call the mayor's habit of stigmatizing people who live in high-crime areas.

"Just like stop and frisk, this is another direct act of treating minorities like criminals. Mayor Bloomberg wants to make New Yorkers feel like prisoners in their own homes," former city Comptroller Bill Thompson said in a news release.

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio made a similar point in his own news release: "Fingerprinting people just for entering NYCHA buildings will achieve little more than to further embitter tens of thousands of innocent people who have done nothing wrong, and who have earned the suspicion of the police for their trouble."

Both men said the city should instead focus on installing security cameras in public housing.

Beyond the potential privacy violations being visited upon these folks (further privacy violations, I guess), I'm struck by one significant logistical question. If the basic locks on the city's public housing complexes are always being broken, how the bloody hell is the city ever possibly going to be able to maintain fingerprint locks?

Recently from Reason TV — "stop-and-frisk" on trial in New York:

Comments

[Acosmist]

So at this point, we all get that the reason Bloomberg was so popular in NYC is that he kept the minorities out, or made it unpleasant for them to stay, the best he could. Yeah?

[Tonio]

And there is absolutely nothing to prevent people from smashing the new, high-tech locks at even more expense to the city. Also, block open the doors, smash the alarm buzzers, etc.

[AlmightyJB]

The locks were never the point. Getting the finger prints in the database is the point.

[Hugh Akston]

Duh. There's a solution for that too. Put up fences around the housing projects to limit access to the doors, and have the gates guarded by armed personnel. Require anyone who wants to enter the gated are to wear wrist restraints which allow them to activate the biometric locks, but prevent them from using tools to disable them.

[Episiarch]

Or they could turn Manhattan into a giant prison. Let's hope that the president's plane crashes there, and then when Kurt Russell goes in to save him, he just phones it in.

[AlmightyJB]

Then the Warriors could fight their way from one end of the city to the other.

[AlmightyJB]

This is the product of too much time on ones hands

http://warriorsmovie.co.uk/

[AlmightyJB]

remake this year. wow.

[CE]

Or just tear the projects down and sell the land to the highest bidder. And let the people there try to find jobs and apartments they can afford.

[UnCivilServant]

Rent control has rid the city of housing stock, there are no appartments they can afford.

[GPZsug]

public housing buildings should have locks controlled by fingerprint scanners

public
6 a : accessible to or shared by all members of the community
Webster

[Fist of Etiquette]

Who kept voting for this guy?

[Hugh Akston]

Both men said the city should instead focus on installing security cameras in public housing.

::facepalm::

[creech]

J.H. Christ, I think this Bloomberg guy would assign an individual LEO to every New Yorker 24/7 just to control crime, over-eating, wrong eating, turnstile jumping, housing code violations, etc. etc. if he only had the tax revenue to do so. Does he strut around in
cavalry jodhpurs and have trouble controlling his right arm???

[Almanian!]

MEIN FUHRER!!!

*rises from wheelchair and falls forward*

[Almanian!]

Wait! I get it!

Bloomberg wants to play the part of Randall Flagg in the remake of "The Stand", and he's a method actor.

That's it, right?

[ant1sthenes]

What? Flagg was a party guy, that's why he set up shop in Vegas. He's method acting the part of Dr. Raymond Cocteau.

[Stormy Dragon]

"What we really should have is fingerprinting to get in," he said, while talking about how locks on New York City Housing Authority buildings are often broken

Yeah. And I'm sure there will be no problem with keeping the finger print scanners working. It's not like they're delicate technology that is easily broken or anything.

[Alice Bowie]

I don't know if any of you people ever been to the projects. The public phones (back when they existed) where always broke. The doorbell was broke, the elevator is broke.

[Stormy Dragon]

Does accidentally ending up in the scary part of Philadelphia because I made a wrong turn count?

Weirdest part was when I noticed the razor wire ontop of all the building walls was leaning inward as though the person who put it up was worried more about preventing people from getting out then about preventing people from getting in.

[NeonCat]

I think that's to make it harder to throw something over it and pull it down.

[Ornithorhynchus]

I've lived in Public Housing on more than one occasion. I've seen plenty of plumbing problems and cracks in walls and stuff like that, but I've never seen locks that were intentionally broken, or any serious acts of vandalism, or any violent crime.

But the projects I lived in were in a city of around 50 000, and a tiny town of around 580.

[My Dog Bites Better Than Yours]

Well, the obvious solution is to ban hammers and pointy rocks from the City.

See how easy that was?

[Alice Bowie]

I think we should fingerprint everyone and make all public access bio-metric. The subways, the project, and yes the condos.

Privacy is GONE. Gone Gone Gone Gone Gone.

There was a murder in my sisters building in the Bronx on Marion Ave (a gem of a neighborhood). The crooks were real smart. They knew about the cameras in the building so they wore masks. They forgot or didn't know about the million cameras outside the building where these smarties took of their masks and simply went home. There were over 70 photos of these guys.

[Calidissident]

Poe's Law?

[Agammamon]

I'm not sure what's worse - having a loved on killed and the killers never being found or having a loved on killed by a group of morons.

[Art Vandelay]

Did one of them play for that Patriots?

[Ken Shultz]

"Bloomberg Off-Handedly Suggests Fingerprinting New York Public Housing Residents"

Somebody needs to lock this senile old man up in a home somewhere, so he won't be a danger to himself or others.

[1955]

A UWSer who is "very active in liberal politics," on why Manhattan should keep Stop-and Frisk and not other boroughs (maybe keep in the Bronx). "You cant expect us to live by the same rules we dictate to others people for heaven's sake, just because people like me are against stop-and-frisk in place like Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island doesn't mean we don't want to continue in place like Manhattan. Manhattan is special. Let's put it this way: we are New York! Brooklyn and Queens and Staten Island, I....I don't even like talking about those kinds of places!"
http://vimeo.com/72502225

[The Late P Brooks]

Ear tags.

Chips.

Facial bar code tattoos.

Or, that old tried and true method, numbers tattooed on the forearm.

[Hyperion]

The locks were never the point. Getting the finger prints in the database is the point

Exactly this. Bloomberg is just like so many other statist politicians. He believes there should be 2 distinct classes of people. The ruling elite class, of which he is a member. And the peasants, who should be equally poor, and who are only allowed to exist because of the benevolent generosity of the ruling class. Of course that generosity requires that every peasant be completely subject to the dictates of the ruling class, right down to the most minute detail. Otherwise, the peasants could be using up too many of the important peoples resources and we can't have that.

That is the way these people really think. They are the sickest, most deranged, and downright evil members of society and unfortunately, they are always the ones who end up in power.

[Alice Bowie]

That's silly.

The Ghetto areas of NYC do need help with policing, education, housing, etc.

The fact is that the wealthy are the ones significantly contributing via taxes for the funding all of this.

[Hyperion]

You are free to continue with your blind faith in big government and politicians as the solution to all things.

I will continue to believe that they are the source of most of the problems they try to solve, and never do, in the first place.

[The Late P Brooks]

Both men said the city should instead focus on installing security cameras in public housing.

Fucking freedom- how does it work?

[CE]

Oh, I don't know -- no government housing, no government surveillance cameras, no mandatory government fingerprinting, no government goons arresting (stopping) you on the street and searching you, no government rules against eating tasty food or serving sufficiently large drink portions?

[The Late P Brooks]

Bloomberg is just like so many other statist politicians. He believes there should be 2 distinct classes of people. The ruling elite class, of which he is a member. And the peasants, who should be equally poor, and who are only allowed to exist because of the benevolent generosity of the ruling class. Of course that generosity requires that every peasant be completely subject to the dictates of the ruling class, right down to the most minute detail. Otherwise, the peasants could be using up too many of the important peoples resources and we can't have that.

It's Philip K Dick's nightmare; we're just living in it.

[Mr Whipple]

Well, there's no doubt in my mind any longer. He's a fucking Nazi bastard.

Prepare the gallows.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMSyGlCLru0

[Wintermute]

Hey, if the residents don't want free or highly subsidized housing from the taxpayer, they can move out and not fingerprint and pay their own damned rent.

[Calidissident]

SLD I'm against public housing. That said, the welfare state should not be used to justify the expansion of the police state. Not to mention, this just sounds like an expensive program that wouldn't really solve anything.

[CE]

Shouldn't this guy already be locked up, for everyone's good? I'm glad I don't live somewhere that people think a wannabe tyrant is the best choice to rule them. Oh wait, I live in California.

[MappRapp]

I personally think its a great idea. ALL of the welfare rats should be fingerprinted!

http://www.Global-Anon.com

[AlmightyJB]

I'm pretty sure theres a number of peoe in those projects who can't wait to steal and sell those fingerprint scanners.

[ant1sthenes]

"Technically, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg suggested putting fingerprint scanners on public housing in the city in order to keep out folks who shouldn't be there. The natural consequence is that this would require fingerprinting all residents of public housing in order to give them access to their own homes."

Well, no, technically the consequence is that it would require fingerprinting them to give them access to the government's homes. Cuz, you know, public housing. Can you actually get into public housing without the government knowing your identity? And if it wants to keep tabs on your comings and goings, it's already perfectly free to cameras on the grounds.