Monday, September 04, 2006

Disney and fingerprinting

Another reason to avoid the over-priced rides, junk food and crowds of Disneyland: Disney now fingerprints visitors to their theme parks.

Their excuse for doing so is that it is necessary to prevent ticket fraud and resale of tickets. That's nonsense. You don't need to fingerprint buyers to prevent fraud, and as for preventing resale, that goes against everything that the free market stands for. What does Disney care if I buy a valid ticket and sell it to somebody else? They got their money, what I do with the ticket -- use it, burn it, eat it with ketchup, sell it for ten times the price -- is none of their concern and not their business.

Cory Doctorow writes:

For me, the worst part of this is that it conditions us to get used to being treated like crooks. If you were asked for a fingerprint when you bought a doughnut, you'd rightly leave the store. Why should an amusement park get a walk?

Also in Doctorow's post is one of the best quotes I've seen for a long time:

Our national immune system has begun to attack us in a terrible anaphylactic spasm -- indiscriminate NSA wiretaps, meaningless TSA security theater, secret aviation rules and no-fly lists, "free speech zones," suspension of habeas corpus and all the rest.

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