Those are pearls that were his eyes: /Nothing of him that doth fade

OK, Readers True, back to the face.

My niece Ana is an engineering student at Carnegie Mellon. The picture you see at the right is an example of work being done there that has the potential to make fine measurements of different parts of the face and face movement from videotapes.

Other attempts have involved maybe a hundred dots on the face that are monitored by software that measures changes.

There are a number of security companies that are hawking products that are intended to allow videotapes of crowds to pick out criminals. These seem to not to have been particularly successful yet, but the technology continues apace.

I was first exposed to the IDENT system for fingerprints about ten years ago when I started representing people accused of illegal entry into the United States. My first reaction was to have my clients refuse to incriminate themselves. How in the world would they ever prove who this guy was and that he was a Mexican national? Well, as a seasoned Assistant US Attorney showed me, they had solved that problem: Automatic Biometric Identification System (IDENT) using automated fingerprint identification systems (AFIS).

Every illegal alien would get each index finger swiped in a machine that recorded it. This then could be compared against a database (actually several databases) of other fingerprints to see if the alien was a recidivist or had a criminal history.

The old INS had been experimenting with this system in 1994 and by the time I was exposed to it in 1998 it was hot stuff.

Decades of success in just lying about your name and age ran head on into this new technology. (Can anyone imagine the plot of Les Miserable today with IDENT? Jean Valjean would never get the chance to reform and Javert would be replaced by a file clerk).

Now I love cool new gadgets and technology. I try to get the latest stuff whether or not I can afford it or figure out how to use it.

But advancing technology certainly changes old ideas about fresh starts and second chances. It also makes possible crimes of previously unimaginable magnitude.

I am still getting my mind around the complicity of New York based IBM in the holocaust. Without specially New York designed machines and punch cards to keep track of and route Polish Jews. They calculated rate of deaths per square kilometer due to progressive starvation and the number of Jews to be transported to the death camps. They kept tabs on trains dispatched to and from Auschwitz and Treblinka.

Says Robert Wolfe, the foremost expert on Nazi documentation and formerly chief of captured German records for the National Archives: ``For those who have complained that the proof is not there, this new evidence gives refutation. The juxtaposition of all these sources -- the new German documents, Justice Department records, the IBM files and eyewitness sources -- all together indicate it was not just trading with the enemy, not just IBM and the Third Reich. This is the proof that IBM enabled the Holocaust. The connection to New York is now proven.'' (Click on the title for the citation).

IBM ENABLED THE HOLOCAUST! My Sweet Lord. Why isn't this big news and shocking to all? Why isn't this part of the culture of understanding corporate evil? Why hasn't this monster been destroyed by Justice (Department of) or at least by justice? Why has not the wrath of an angry God ripped Big Blue asunder?

So my love of the new technology always comes with a queasy feeling. What is the human cost to the IDENT system alone. One anti-immigrant website argues there are more than 366,000 incarcerated illegal immigrants. http://immigrationcounters.com/

That may be high, because the Justice Department numbers look like they are closer to 200,000. In any case, the IDENT system has enabled a new efficiency that allows incarcerating huge numbers who w0uld previously have been sent back, unidentified.

I am no longer able to hear about or meet people incarcerated for immigration offenses without seeing in my minds eye, also, young wives and children who are now left to destitution. (Little Cosette cannot be saved by Jean Valjean because he is in Three Rivers federal prison). I know about them because they call and write and visit me. They wait out in the hall at court. These, Readers True, are real people and it is hard to meet them and not have the flesh crawl every time one the young men they depend upon gets duck-walked away in chains.

Automated Biometric Identification Systems for the face are now here and will soon be highly efficient. For a while, glasses or a new mustache would fool the systems, but now some of the new 3-D systems claim they can make an identification even with a stocking over the face and sun glasses.

The data bases for Illegal Entries have been collecting photographs from the beginning. But this is a sea change. Soon it will be possible to take photographs of crowds and identify everyone.

It will also be possible to sort these based on age, gender and race, prior criminal history, income level, house value, employment history, disease history, book purchases, credit card expenditures.

It will be possible to correlate the face with automobile ownership and travel history as recorded in GPS systems. And cell phone use as shown by tower locations and with searches of key words used in the conversations. And e-mail communications based on key words used and internet search history.

Also, check another dimension noted by Mr. Kurgan in his blog for today: http://andyoubrutus.blogspot.com/

If the FACS develops to its full promise, it will be possible to pick out who is worried or frightened or angry. And all this from a videotape of everyone at a football game or a protest march.

Just think what the Nazis could have done with this neat technology.

A Scratch, a Scratch: Marry, tis enough.

I did a couple of hours of jail therapy today. That is, I made a couple of long jail visits to clients for interviews to prepare for sentencing.

No matter how wrapped up I am in my silly, little problems during a day, once I have made the trek into the jail and spent an hour with the guys I get a sense that my own problems are, well, little and silly.

Let me tell about Diosdado (not his name as you might imagine). Diosdado, in passing, when asked about his scars, mentioned he had a "little" knife scar on his chest. He then demonstrated about a three inch scar.

(BENVOLIO

What, art thou hurt?

MERCUTIO

Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, 'tis enough.
Where is my page? Go, villain, fetch a surgeon.

ROMEO

Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.

MERCUTIO

No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a
church-door; but 'tis enough,'twill serve: ask for
me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man. )

In what type of world is the three inch knife wound only mentioned as an afterthought? Diosdado was born on the Mexican side of the border and carried to West Texas by his Dad at the age of three. When he was about nineteen he was arrested for graffiti. The city fathers of the small city had decided to crack down on gangs and therefore cracked down on tagging. So, an act that during kinder times would have been viewed as a prank and punished lightly if at all, became a felony. Felony probation. Revocation of Probation. Revocation of Permanent Resident Status. Deportation. Illegal reentry. Another felony. Another deportation. Another illegal reentry.

So now after about ten years of incarceration, he is looking at more time. And the instrument of his most serious crime was a can of spray paint.

"My Dad took me to West Texas and all I got was this lousy knife scar."

If You Love Freedom, Thank a Librarian.

I got a ticket from Harlingen in the mail today for $75.00 for running a stop light on March 26, 2008. Of course, I promptly paid it, as I always do during those occasional periods when I have enough cash to pay them. Otherwise I become self-righteous, innocent and decide to demand my Texas Constitition-guaranteed jury trial.

The technology was really pretty cool. It had a picture of my no-longer-new Hyundai with a nice view of dents on in the rear. (It did not, however, catch the dents on the two sides). A tattered red bumper sticker quoting a former pope was stuck to the rear window. The license plate was mine. And you could almost make out the silhouette of the driver.

I say almost, because you see, I was not in Harlingen March 26th. In fact, I struggle not to go north of 802. I've never known anything good to happen that far north. I know Freddy Fender was from San Benito and that pretty well redeems the city, but Harlingen--I just can't think of anything.

I will go to the airport in Harlingen if I am facing really bad news that will make me actually fly somewhere, but I would rather drive a range of about ten hours than get on an airplane, so I do not exactly rack up the frequent flyer miles. In fact, I don't think I've gotten a free airplane ticket in ten years. I'll also go up to Raymondville for jail visits, but I hardly ever leave the main thoroughfares.

Mere work will not force me to go further than Raymondville. We are talking about death, marriage or birth (not mine for any of the three) and not much else.

So you can imagine my surprise to find I had been ticketed in Harlingen. And this on a perfectly good day when I most likely would not have left the house or driven, much less to some frightening northern city.

As you might guess, it wasn't me. Though I have not yet conducted the cross-examination, that week was Spring Break, Kathy was not teaching, her car was in the shop and believe I have some evidence she went to Harlingen to a stained glass shop in my car. She must have also busted a stop light, but since I was not there, it will be hard to argue against this allegation.

OK. Maybe a small thing. My car commits an offense, maybe, when I'm not there and I am responsible for paying the fine. (Anyone who thinks there is a chance that I might suggest Kathy pay the fine has clearly not been married as long as I have).

But where is my culpable mental state? I mean if I commit a criminal act don't all the various theories of law require I know I've committed a crime?

Unfortunately, committing a crime without knowing it is increasingly common. I represented a high school student who got in his Dad's car and drove it to school. The Dad had been repairing the upholstery in the back seat and left an unopened beer on the floor board. Sniffer dogs, parking lot patrols or other devices somehow turned it up while the student was in school. Zero Tolerance!! So the student, though not a great student, but nevertheless college bound, finds himself sentenced to 30 days in an alternative school penitentiary. We sued and then compromised.

Another case involved the dogs alerting to a girl's trunk at school. It turned out she had a sack of dog food in the trunk.

In theory, a Mexican National could be kidnapped and carried in a trunk into the United States and he might be guilt of illegal entry, because the crime may not require a culpable mental state.

I had a client accused of exporting legal cars, but not following the (brand new) regulations governing the paperwork. Knowledge of the law is not required for the crime and some laws are so obscure, no one knows them.

Maybe it's just that I am a relic of past days that make me think we should have some intent to commit a crime before we become criminals. Thirty five years ago, knowing you were committing a crime before you were prosecuted was a clearly defined right. But that's not the way it is now.

When we let rights slip away, they don't come back without a fight. And we just seem to get used to it. I had a friend once who argued that hell was really impossible because the idea of eternal suffering didn't make sense: after a while, you would get used to it.

I remember being shocked when I first got searched before I got on an airplane. Then I was shocked when I first got searched going into a courthouse. These things don't shock me anymore. But then, going on an airplane or in a courthouse was more or less voluntary for me.

What about all those jurors who are required to go by law, but can only go if they are searched? How are they "secure in their persons?"

We now expect to have our phone records given to the government, videotaping anytime we are outside of home, fingerprint taken to cash a check and blood taken if we drive. I know there is a good argument for each of these, doesn't anybody else feel just a little bit violated? Almost anyone in uniform can walk up and demand to see your ID. School lockers and car trunks at school and your car as far north as Sarita can be searched. And that's for the citizens.

Employers demand polygraphs to get or keep your job. Getting a loan, health insurance, a government job can be even worse. "Mr. Jones, ever committed adultery?" "Ms. Smith, ever had an STD?"

I was at a seminar a couple of weeks back and one of the speakers made this point: who can we think of in the last thirty years who has stood firm rather than give up civil liberties? Only the librarians. God bless them.