Intellect or Insanity, Jonathan Klinger's Blog

0. Abstract.

[This Wednesday I shall lecture at the LiSS working group conference, here is a draft of my lecture] From 2003, and until today, the Israeli Government has been working diligently in order to legislate the biometric database act and the orders and ordinances according to it. However, This biometric database is not the only biometric database in Israel and is not the only database where government authorities have access to. In my brief lecture, I shall present a different approach, asking whether this database act was actually required and what are the reasons for choosing a legislative act when doing so. When doing so, I’ll have to ask whether the act of legislation was needed because the social contract was broken, or because it was a megalomaniac act made out in will to block any different approach to databases.

1. Database Laws, Privacy.

Let’s first understand how government databases operate. The Israeli Privacy Protection Act does not differentiate public sector databases from private sector ones; moreover, article 23D provides any person the right to know about such database and article 23C provides government bodies the right to request and transfer data from other databases when the action is required by law or by the body’s function. Meaning, if it was it’s desire, the Government could have set up a registered database and operated the biometric database out of such act; but in such case, it couldn’t have mandated the people to provide their biometric information.

So what could it do? It could have amended the Census Act. The Israeli Census Act is the act regulating the management of the Israeli Census (which, as we already know, was leaked to the Internet); article 2 writes down the fields in the database that are required to be listed. In such case, amending and mandating a person’s biometric data under it could have solved the biometric database problem in a 1-line amendment, without requiring massive legislation.

However, The Israeli legislator decided to pass a 30 page long act (PDF), which describes in full the security and use in detail, and allow public debate over it. In order to understand why, let’s understand how other government databases work.

2. Government Databases and legislation.

First let’s see what are the databases which were legislated and which weren’t; Meir Sheetrit, the biometric database’s entrepreneur, said that “Israel has enough [other] biometric databases“. However, if we inspect his claims, we find out a different perspective; the one who says who and when is required to provide his information willfully to the database.

Let’s first inspect what are the databases that were legislated under the Israeli Law: The Israeli Anti-Money Laundering Act, The Israeli Census Act (which actually does not establish a database, but only allows the inquiry of information), The Police DNA Database (The Criminal Procedure Act (Searching in a person’s body and taking of identifying information)), Criminal Records (The Criminal Record Act).

On the other hand, there are quite a lot of databases which contain information which is as personal and as sensitive as the legislated databases, including the migrant workers biometric database, the driver’s license database which includes photographs and according to the Israeli transportation office, does not require legislation in order to retain a database (where the transportation office provides this biometric information at least to the ministry of interior), the unemployed database, which contains fingerprints of unemployed and  the Bus Authority database that contains information regarding passengers and their routes.

3. Why do you legislate databases?

We can see that while some databases were legislated because of their sensitive nature (money laundering, f.e), there is no actual difference between the sensitivity; There is no actual difference between money laundering information or the biometrics of a migrant worker. We can also say that legislation did not come because of the voluntary nature of the database; a person cannot choose to be unemployed or not to travel by car or bus. None of the non-legislated databases are actually voluntary; they just address specific needs and puts the person “agreeing” to provide the information in an inferior place: he is either unemployed, or he wishes to travel to Israeli to work, he may want to drive in Israel or take a bus. These are all daily functions that a person cannot go without.

4. Why Legislation.

Now, let’s go to the theoretical assumption that legislating the biometric database could have been made without any real or substantial legislation; It could have actually just establish a national database by issuing an order of the Passport Act, seeing that most Israelies have a passport, and hold the information in a way that is “required” to issue a passport; he could have went in the same way the Transportation Office went, and required just the issuance of fingerprints. However, the choice to legislate the database was taken. And why?

The reason is the Israeli Privacy Protection Act, but not the article requiring willful consent, nor the article mandating informing the data subject on its rights, but because of article 23C. Let’s inspect the text:

“Notwithstanding article 23b, providing the information is permitted, if not prohibited by any legislation or professional ethics – (1) between public bodies, if one of the following exists (a) providing the information is in the authority or role of the body who provides the data and it is required to exercise a law or a cause by the authority of the data provider or its recipient; (b) providing the database is to a public body who is allowed to demand such information according to law from any other source; (2) from a public body to a government office or another state establishment, or between offices or bodies as such, if the providing of information is required to exercise any legislation or for a purpose in the authority or roles of the data provider or its recipient …”

Well, we do need to read this carefully: There could have been a state-wide database without legislation;  however, in such case the Police could not have been granted access to the information. And why? because neither article 23b(a)(i) nor article 23b(a)(ii) allow it: The first alternative requires specific authorization under law to disclose the information and the second requires that the police would have been authorized to request the information at source. However, the police are not entitled to coerce a person to give them his biometric information, and the ministry of interior [was] not authorized to specifically assist the police.

Therefore, unlike other databases, the mobility of the information and the detachment between the cause of why it was collected and its use brought the actual need for legislation.

5. Ruling out other factors.

Now, we can inquire about the question of whether this was actually the reason; whether there was a secret hand that required it. The only reason to explain why a 30-page long bill was passed was explained when alternatives were presented to the government. The rejection of the Adi Shamir proposal, for a non-identifiable database, and the choice to store both a person’s facial photo and fingerprint (where such information is not required to maintain a clean database, see Yoram Oren’s statement “if the purpose is to reduce a list, then yes“). Meaning, the legislator was presented with at least two alternatives that allow a secure database that does not allow double-inclusion and does not retain so much sensitive data, but rejected it.

Such rejection may be discussed later in courts when inquiring about the constitutionality of the act, but that’ out of the point. The choice of both legislating and deciding on this architecture was made solely in order to allow surveillance.

6. Summary and Conclusions.

We know that the legislator had other options to legislate a database (or not to legislate it); and that it could have allowed it to be used quicker, without any pilot and even with the coercion against the persons, but in such case, the police and other security authorities could not have obtained access to the database. Therefore, the sole purpose of addressing legislation is in order to allow such access, and unless we can rule this out, this is the true purpose of the database.

Last Thursday marked the final approval of the biometric database regulations and the biometric database order in Israel; the regulations and order were approved by a special panel participated solely by Meir Sheetrit and Abraham Michaeli, where Sheetrit was the initial entrepreneur of the Biometric Database in his position as minister of interior. This marks the end of a two year process that began two years ago when The Knesset approved the biometric bill. The discussions prior to the approval were on who shall be granted access to the citizen’s biometric database (but not to whether it’s really needed). According to the biometric law, any citizen or resident that shall join the database shall have to provide the ministry of interior his fingerprints and a photograph of his face which will be stored in a central database which may be accessible to the ministry of interior, the police and other security services.

Following the public protest, made mostly in the internet, it was decided that the database shall commence with a pilot program which shall be no longer than four years. during this term, which shall commence this November, the necessity   of the database shall be examined (however, recent statements show that the pilot is not actually a pilot). The only way you can help during this pilot is to refuse to provide the government with your fingerprint.

On the actual question why is the biometric database dangerous to you and your country there are numerous answers which were already raised by experts and discussed over and over again. Briefly, the stated purpose of the database is to prevent forgery of identity cards (and identities). However, it order to prevent identity theft and ID forgery there is no actual need for a biometric database and several other methods already exist, including electronic identification cards. However, as we learned from a recently leaked document, the only reason that a biometric database is required was to pass information to the police about the citizens of Israel. We learned so when the police rejected a safer mean of storing biometric information detailed by Prof. Adi Shamir (the S in RSA), claiming that it cannot utilize the database if made in the Shamir method. And yes, the same police that uses extreme violence on protesters from right and left, against Arabas and against social activists.

Another reason to object to biometric identification and the biometric database is that once your biometrics is your unique identifier, then anyone with access to this information could possibly steal your identity. And of course I need not remind you that you leave your fingerprints on any cup of coffee you drink, right?

So, once we passed the “why we detest a biometric database in two paragraphs or less” the question that comes to mind is how you, as citizens, could protest against it. First, you have to understand that the state is going to try as hard as it can to persuade you to provide it with your fingerprints; the bureaucrats and clerks in the ministry of interior are obliged, by the national order, to offer you to join the pilot. Yes, in the same way that your grocery store clerk is obliged to offer you to join their value club, so does the clerk in the ministry of interior have to offer you to join the experiment.

However, one of the criteria set in the pilot is how many people did not join the database out of the entire population; these people have to be you. Beginning November first it is your civil duty to go to the ministry of interior’s offices and have new, non-biometric, cards, so that your refusal to enter the pilot will be counted and in two years time, when the pilot shall be examined, the parliament shall find out that no one wants it.

If you will not do so, then you will find yourselves in two years with a biometric database, that like any other database held in Israel, makes us forfeit our privacy.

[Originally published in 972Mag]

0. Abstract
Could a state with no secrets function better when protecting national security than a state that keeps information away from the general public? In this brief article, we will inspect the reasons for keeping classified information, what they are meant to protect and how they protect national security. We will present the method used by Israel, which is similar to most states. Israel’s approach, which is to keep all the information from the public, failed in general and caused nothing but costs on privacy, freedom of expression and national budgets.

Following our review, we will compare the classified information model to a model in information security, called Security through Obscurity and present how this model was perceived as flawed. Against it, we will present the Open Source Model, which creates transparency towards the general public, allowing it to inspect the security flaws, and therefore creates stronger protection.

Our conclusion would be that better national security could be reached by removing all classified information and disclosing all information to the general public. We believe that by making the information public, the cost of the censorship apparatus will be eliminated. We also believe that by adopting a ‘no classified information’ approach, governments may improve physical security when they rely on the foundations of open source security as detailed herein.

In my brief argumentation I will use the Israeli law, but provide some examples from other cases.

1. Classified Information and what it Protects.
Every state has its secrets. States choose, in certain cases to classify information from the general public. Classifying information goes back as far as Greek times, and goes under the standard four categories: Top Secret, Secret, Confidential and Restricted. Israel has four apparatuses which are in charge of Confidential information: The Information Security Department, whose goal is to prevent classified information from leaking from the army, The Military Censorship, which operates under the Defense Ordinance (Time of Emergency), 1945, that controls media publication and telecommunication, and has authority to refuse the publication of any information that has any relation to national security, the General Security Service (Shin Bet) that acts according to the General Security Service Act of 2002, where clause 7(2) allows the service to classify documents and determine how to handle such documents and the Director of Security of the Defense Establishment, which is in charge of security in military industries, research facilities and other national security industries.

Some authorities in classifying information do not appear to exist in laws, and some operate under the vague and broad exemption added in the Freedom of Information Act, 1998. Clause 9 to the Israeli FOIA exempts disclosure of any information which may harm national security, foreign relations, public safety or a person’s well-being. Even in cases where classified information was disclosed, the courts still allowed the security agencies broad discretion as to what to blur out (HCJ 258/07 Zehava Galon v. The Governmental Committee for Inspecting the Battles in Lebanon 2006)

But what constitutes as confidential information? There are no actual guidelines for applying what is confidential and how confidential specific documents are, and every document that contains ‘information’ as defined in the Israeli Penal Code, in part II, chapter 7, the Penal code provides a broad definition, inflicting legal sanctions on disclosing any information to an enemy where it might be useful to him (clause 111). Confidential Information is defined as any information where national security requires keeping it secret, or information relating to any matter that the government, with the consent of the parliament committee for foreign relations and security, declared as confidential. Critics to this arrangement offered an amendment, but following the Parliament’s research center’s comments, these amendments were not implemented.

The burden of proving what constitutes non-confidential information lays on the defendants in cases (see, for example, CC 1055/01 State v. Yacov), in Yacov, the court explained that while “the military censor is qualified to strike out information which is most-likely about to severely damage national security”; the penal code is wider, and applies to cases where national security requires keeping it secret.

In another interesting case, the widow of a person who worked in the nuclear research facility requested to receive the results of an epidemiological survey between the facility’s workers which the facility took. The State declined to provide the information by explaining that it relates to national security. However, when the court rejected the state claims, it expressed criticism over the state’s conduct: “the state wiggles in its arguments and cannot point to a normative authority where it draws the classification of the information. It is, according to the state, basic foundations, but these basic foundations have to be applied by the General Security Service Act, 2002, and the rules according to it (which are classified, so the state cannot disclose them to the court, but as a graceful act the state is willing to summarize them)” (CA (Tel-Aviv) 2571/01 Hanna Hizi v. State ); the court itself explained that it cannot understand classification, and the state has to acknowledge the differences between confidentiality and classification. Classification does not create basis for exclusion of evidence, and unless the state decides to exclude an evidence by means of national security according to the Evidence Act, 1971. However, in cases where the court finds the evidence may have had something to assist the party who wishes to submit the evidence, then the state shall default (OCR 2489/09 Zeev Braude v. State).

The Israeli Supreme Court deal with the question of what constitutes classified information in Vanunu (CA 172/88 Mordechai Vanunu v. State); in Vanunu, a former worker of the nuclear research facility was charged for espionage when he disclosed information regarding Israel’s nuclear activity to press agents in the UK. The supreme court decided to convict Vanunu for collecting and disseminating information to the enemy. The court analyzed this clause and explained that “He who provides information to the enemy; meaning, any information, even if it is public information arising from the press, his activities fall into clause 111”. Therefore eliminating classification need at all.

What Does Classified Information Protect? The question of what classified information protects is a difficult one to answer. Some claim that the purpose of classifying information is withholding it from foreign agents, and explain that when many people have access to certain information, it harms national security. Classifying information makes it harder for counter intelligence and foreign military forces to obtain information regarding a state’s forces, and allows it to operate where the other party does not know its rules of engagement, its powers, officers, or even defense mechanisms.

But the real question is how much this information, used by foreign intelligence,  endangers national security , and does the burden of protecting this information overcome the value of keeping it secret or not.

When the classified information is the actual secret (e.g the actual location or time of a specific operation) then it is assumed (though not significant) that information about the operation that becomes available to hostile forces may lead to less successful results, at least. There are specific sets of information that are considered confidential and are not pieces of information that have (statistically insignificant) connection to current, ongoing operations or other information that if leaked may cause damage to national security.

For example, the actual existence of a specific weapon or the location where a missile fell after an air-strike cannot be considered a state secret for several reasons: the first is that it is not kept away from the public; as what the general public sees cannot be considered national secrets. For example, during the 2006 war, the military censorship requested Tapuz, Israel’s largest forum operator, to censor posts made by civilians about where Hizbullah missiles fell. Another case  where information that is in the public’s plain view was considered confidential was when Parliament Member Yossi Sarid threatened that he may disclose information about weapons used by the IAF after the IAF killed and wounded dozens of Palestinians, including civilians, in weapons that were allegedly in plain view.

Another case where public plain viewed information was considered confidential was when Israel denied using phosphorous during the Cast Lead Operation of 2009, where the evidence was left in the Gaza Strip, which allowed the Goldstone committee, which inspected Israel’s activity following the operation, to find that Israel’s denial was false. So, in this case, how could the use of phosphorous be considered confidential information where there is evidence in plain view regarding the use?

Therefore, confidential information could be considered confidential as long as no public information regarding it exists. For example, the location of specific military or nuclear facilities that are located close by to cities and have road signs directing to them, could not be considered confidential information. Israeli Blogger Ido Kenan points out that Israel has a policy of withholding this confidential information in road signs presented in Arabic, and leave the confidential information only in Hebrew and English.

In conclusion, classified information in Israel is defined in an overbroad manner, containing information that may be considered in plain view and known to the general public. By acknowledging this flaw, we may understand the basis of information security and examine the weak points of such method of information security.

We believe that there has to be a difference between the classification of security mechanisms by themselves and information (data) which relates to specific, mission critical, information that is classified. The difference is between information regarding the existence and functions of a specific unit, its weapons , its history, and current plans regarding  an operation.

2. Security By Obscurity, A Problem
2.1 Security By Obscurity
When trying to protect information in a digital environment, there are two popular methods used by Information Security experts. The first is Security through Obscurity: this method, which is quite similar to the Israeli Classified Information method or approach, hides all information related to security from plain view and classified it as confidential; by using this method, “a system relying on security through obscurity may have theoretical or actual security vulnerabilities, but its owners or designers believe that the flaws are not known, and that attackers are unlikely to find them”. The model bases itself on the fact that others are unaware of the activities taken and that most confidential activities could be disguised from plain view.

However, the flaws of this model are that the secrecy of the information is exactly what lets security flaws to remain secret as well. For example, GSM encryption was hacked during 2003, and again during 2009. These hacks were published to the public because they were a part of academic researches; however, in certain cases the hacker may not be so eager to publish its research. In some cases, employees or contractors may sell known exploits which were not taken care of and criminals may sell unknown exploits either to other criminals or to the company itself. Moreover, relying on a sole provider to fix the security breach could sometimes cause more problems.

The main disadvantages of Security through Obscurity may be summed up to: (1) few people inspect the system for flaws, and sometimes actually inspecting the system may be considered illegal; (2) hostile entities reviewing the security of the system do not disclose their results; (3) dependency on one vendor/provider to review and fix security breaches.

2.2 The Open Source Model.
In contrast to Security through Obscurity, Open Source advocates rely heavily on Security Through Transparency, using this method, the algorithms and software used to encrypt or protect information are known to the public, providing the public an efficient way to report security vulnerabilities, and even to propose bug-fixes. The more people have the chance to inspect the security mechanism, the safer they will be.

For example, Security firm Secunia found that more security flaws were found in the Open Sourced Firefox than in proprietary code browsers, but the number of Zero-Day unpatched flaws was significantly lower and so was the time that it took to fix any flaw. By making all of its information public, a software vendor may create better security and allow any researcher to discover flaws. Moreover, transparent security mechanisms may also deter hackers from looking how to circumvent zero day flaws in fear of being caught (See aso, David Wheeler, “Is Open Source Good for Security?”).

The Open Source Model does not ignore the basic concepts of information security, but it acknowledges their flaws and attempts to build better models.

3. Could Building a Transparent State Solve National Security?
Could we imagine a state where all public information could be deemed as non-confidential, security mechanisms would be public and open for scrutiny and confidential information would be reduced to a minimum? We believe so.

Currently, a state like Israel has to operate counter intelligence just to solve the problem of collection of plain-view information and to protect from hostile action. When operating an open source model, counter-intelligence could be abandoned and replaced with crowd sourced models, which will help to build stronger mechanisms of protection.

Moreover, removing the ambiguity relating at-least to nuclear weapons in Israel would assist deterrence and strengthen national security. Weak points  in Israeli theoretical protection would be visible to the public and could be fixed quickly; moreover, the actual items that require protection could receive the needed funds and resources to protect them.

3.1 What is there to lose from revealing all classified information?
While we do not necessarily wish to reveal all information, certain information relating to means of operation and security regulations have to be declassified. For example, both the General Security Services Act and the recent Inclusion of Biometric Information and Data in Identification Documents and Database Act of 2009 state that all regulation and orders will be classified, as well as any information regarding security breaches. Moreover, when discussing the act in Parliament, security experts raised concerns over the database possible flaws, and the Minister of Interior, Eli Yishai, ordered to open the security protocols for discussion, but such discussion was never made. Keeping the database, as well as security guidelines and notifications of security breaches secret seems good in the eye of a person who thinks that an enemy may abuse such faults; however in the eyes of a security researcher, these allow zero day flaws and known vulnerabilities to be used against the database  (see, for example) and allows a false feeling of security.

The only thing that may be lost when protocols, orders or regulations that remain secret are disclosed is the misconduct of an authority or its acts against the law; for example, as a result of Israel’s Freedom of Information Movement’s appeal, it was revealed that the cellular companies were required to adhere to secret regulation regarding cooperation with intelligence agencies and disclose subscriber information.

Therefore, when the governmental default approach is that there is no need for privacy unless a person has something to hide from the government (which seems to be the default approach when discussing the Israeli government, as the Biometric Database Act, the Criminal Order (Submission of Metadata) Act of 2007, and other statutes turning Israel into a surveillance state) then the default approach towards the government should be that all its secrets are meant to cover up unlawful activities.

3.2 What is there to gain from revealing all classified information?
First and foremost, the Israeli Government may regain public trust by disclosing all activities. The Israeli public, for example, strongly believes that the Biometric Database will leak, mostly due to the fact that quite a lot of sensitive data has  already leaked from Government databases and that 70% of the general public does not trust database protection in Israel. A different survey by Symantec found that 60% of the people do not trust the government with their private or personal information.

The feeling of misused trust may be healed and cured when disclosing information regarding data breaches and information security to the public. But more than that, apart from public trust, the government may gain better protection of its classified information. The Israeli government may adopt what computer giants like Google and 3Com already did, and that is to pay for every security breach found.

Currently Israel has many unknown security flaws, which remain confidential until a hacker gets caught. For example, Israeli white-hat hacker Moshe Halevi (Halemo) was charged for hacking when he used a pre-paid credit card to show that the Israeli Fines and Fees Center had a bug in the URL handler that allowed resetting a person’s fines. In a detailed case (C 9497/08 State v. Moshe Halevi) Judge Avraham Tenenbaum explains why Halemo’s activity was not hacking, but was solely security checking (a similar case, CA 8333/03 State v. Mizrachi, explains that port-scanning cannot be criminal if done for a cause of security inspection). Therefore, we can argue that the state has a compelling interest to discover flaws.

3.3 The state’s approach to security flaws.
However, we see that in most cases the state prefers to withhold information from the public regarding security flaws and to litigate against persons discovering such flaws. Moreover, when flaws are found, usually adopting the Security through Obscurity approach shows that the way the state fixes the vulnerability is not only insufficient, but negligent.

In one case, white-hat hacker Halemo discovered that the Israeli Court System’s website discloses Judge’s ID Numbers (equivalent to Social Security numbers). The way it disclosed them was that the URL Source of the Judge’s page in the website was his ID number. After the flaw was exposed, the state went to fix the flaw, and replaced the ID with a Base-64 representation of the number.

However, if we require the state to disclose its means of security it would have to disclose how the judges ID numbers were encrypted or protected, and therefore every person would have understood that neither plain-text nor base-64 are good enough mechanisms to protect sensitive information.

4. Applying Software Solutions to State Secrets: A Conclusion.
We believe that not all information has to be public. There are things that are better off secret. However, if we learn from information security methods, we must acknowledge that better security could be achieved when disclosing more information to the public. Applying the open source model of information security allows transparency in decision-making, better algorithms, less resources on counter-intelligence and more resources to allocate to what is mission critical information.

Moreover, better trust could be gained between governments and citizens, reinforcing the social contract and allowing better results in political participation.

Currently, governments over trust security through obscurity when operating mission critical processes, and therefore, when flawed, the flaws and results are enormous. Utilizing open source models could prevent mishaps such as Israel’s phosphorous use, George Bush’s Weapons of Mass Destruction lie and Israel’s racial profiling in Airports as a mean of security.

Israeli racial profiling is such a great example, as it is highly efficient nowadays and even better than the US TSA guidelines but bases itself mostly on the assumption that Jewish nationals may not be considered a threat to national security but Arabs may (HCJ 4797/07 The Israeli Association of Civil Rights v. The Terminal Security Authority, Pending decision). As long as the security guidelines were secret, it seemed amazing that no security flaw occurred. However, now, that the guidelines are known and understood, it is easier to design a mechanism to circumvent them. Therefore, even adopting new guidelines will be useless, as they are inefficient (unless based, again, on racial profiling).

Therefore, in order to regain national security, Israel will have to change its approach to the Open Source Model before a major security event occurs that will make it understand that this is the only option. Staying in a Security through Obscurity approach could protect confidential information, but it cannot protect national security.

[Partially based on my Hebrew Post]. The assasination of Mahmood Al-Mabhouh is still a mystery, though many links point to the Israeli Mossad as responsible, and security cameras show a general operation, some might understand that biometrics played an important part in the game, as both The Biometric Architect, Meir Sheetrit stated that the biometric database would have prevented the identity theft and we, as opposers, stated that the biometric database allows the Mossad and other security agencies unlimited access to personal information.

However, we could be certain, without a shadow of a doubt, that no matter who is right, some problems arise from the definition of the access to Israel’s biometric database.

It doesn’t matter if MI6 was tipped by the Mossad about the assasination or not; as under the new Biometric Database Act passed in Israel, the Mossad and Shin-Bet would have unlimited access to the biometric database. In such case, and as the biometric data encrypted in passports is only Facial, they could attempt to find persons with double citizenship, let’s say, both Israeli and Irish, and use their original documents, making forgery of Biometric passports irrelevant.

The current law allows them Access, without explaining what is access. During the discussions over the biometric bill in parliament, I tried to ask the Secret Service’s representatives what does this access mean; this is how the conversation was listed in the 20.07.2009 official protocol:

Chair Meir Sheetrit: Ok, the sunlight does not apply for secret things.
Jonathan Klinger: what is ‘pass information from the database’? it could be from the entire database
(…)
Parliament Member Eitan Cabel: Mr. Geva is still in the midst of his matters, afterwards we shall relate to it, as my mind is not at ease.
Danny Geva: This clause was phrased after all the other possibilities were examined and in order to allow us to tolerate our needs. What I want to say is that what we create here, with the issuing of the new biometric cards and the database is something new that did not exist before. This new situation has to allow us to continue to act in order to fulfil our role and destination.
Nira Lamay: When they say ‘allow them access to the database’, they mean that they could just enter to the actual place… will they have permissions in the database? when they say ‘allow them acces’, it is not just to convey them -
Chair Meir Sheetrit: Not through communication.
Nira Lamay: So what is ‘allow them access”?
Nissim Alyasaf: They could come to the database and obtain information.
(…)
Nissim Alyasaf: The database will not have communication.
Chair Meir Sheetrit: So why won’t you change the word ‘Access’?
Nira Lamay: So what is access?
Danny Geva: it doesn’t matter what access is, the word access has to stay because we inspected all other possibilities -
Chair Meir Sheetrit: do explain.
Danny Geva: Sir, there are things I cannot explain.

Now, you may understand that no matter what, Sheetrit’s statement that “Effective use of biometric data could have prevented the apparent theft of Anglo-Israelis’ identities” is incorrect; had the Mossad wished to do so, it could have just as easily found the people it needed in the database and use the government’s own facilities to issue original biometric passports.

The other point of failure is the ease of stealing Israel’s biometric database; as I explained briefly in a Round-Table held at the Israeli Democracy Institute, more than 30,000 People would have access to the biometric database. This number constitutes around 0.5% of the Israeli population. No secret is secure enough when so many people have access to it.

We are turning more and more into a surveillance society, this has to be stopped before we lose ourselves.

0.
We lost the skyline. The parliament approved yesterday Meir Sheetrit‘s proposal to establish a biometric database. After a few months of delay, including endless discussions in parliament trying to persuade Sheetrit not to go with the database, we lost. It didn’t matter that we brought Two Nobel Prize Laureates and many other professors to explain the dangers, Sheetrit just explained that they don’t know a thing and that they do not represent the best minds in the field. It doesn’t matter that the Israeli census leaked or that the company who is meant to issue the biometric ID cards is the one who was in charge of the census: the Parliament Members just don’t get it.

CC-BY-SA Tomer Lichtash

1.
A biometric database is not something to be taken lightly. While Sheetrit claims that other states have a biometric database, we know he lied. A research by Karine Barzilai-Nahon showed that a biometric database is something unprecedented in the entire world, at least if we think about biometric databases that are used with census data. Even that controversial Dutch database is not as extensive as the Israeli one. The UK ID initiative was not as comprehensive as ours, and yet was not as popular. When we try to understand where we went wrong, I think that it was the international aspect.

2.
We blogged in Hebrew, twitted in Hebrew, interviewed in Hebrew and lobbied in Hebrew. The holy language was not as holy when it involved legislation. We can try the International human rights courts, we can try to petition to Israel’s supreme court, but nothing is as fine as international pressure. It didn’t even hit the international press, only our local Jewish Ghetto.

3.
Now we have two years of an experiment. Let’s see how it goes.

0.
Sometimes, when discussing the US-Israeli relations, we need to see the broader picture. Things like the Palestinian conflict are just a minor issue in relation to the economy. As most of the English Readers of this blog [this was originally posted in Hebrew, sorry for Hebrew links, but use Google Translate] may not know. Israel had a major crisis around 1985, banks collapsed and were bought by the government. Then, in order to save the economy, our late minister of treasury, Yitzhak Modaey, along with the former prime minister, Shimon Peres, had an initiative. Their plan was to save the economy by a what the former Attorney General (and supreme court justice) Yitzhak Zamir called a historic mistake. Our Omnibus Statute was meant to save the economy by amending a few statutes and giving the government a way to deal with the crisis. The statute was a mean to implement emergency policies in order to save the economy. Along the years, though, the government used the omnibus law, which passed from year to year, as a mean to implement reforms and force economic policies without a real debate about them.

1.
When time came, a petition against the law was submitted to the supreme court as the “Quantity became Quality” (playing on justice Aharon Barak‘s words in HCJ 3267/97 Rubinstein v. The Poultry Farmers Union). The Poultry Farmers petitioned to the supreme court, stating, amongst other things, that there was no real discussion and debate about the Omnibus Statute that year, and while justice Dorit Beinish refrained from striking the statute, she warned the parliament before the quantity becomes quality:

Indeed, this is a legislation process that makes a sufficient and deep discussion hard, and which tempers the decisionmakers in parliament and government ability to gather an established opinion. Let us remind that one of the purposes in the Parliament’s regulation about legislation processes is to allow the parliament members to gather their opinion about every legislation that stands against them (…) and it’s hard to see how the legislation process in the Omnibus Statute allows that purpose” (HCJ 4899/03 Poultry Farmers Union v. The Israeli Government)

2.
Twenty-three years later, and our big Uncle Sam has the same issues. Because of historic mistakes that were caused by a capitalist policy to encourage consuming, Mortgage Banks collapsed since they incenticised high risk loans, as a chain reaction, the US stock indices fell and billions of theoretical dollars were lost. Not too much later, the US Government decided to nationalise several banks and an FBI inquiry regarding AIG’s conduct began.

3.
Right, Israel’s bank crisis of 1985 began because banks loaned people money in order to purchase the ever rising bank shares, which drove the bank shares even higher, until one day people understood that it was worth nothing. Billions of theoretical Shekels were lost. But the same mistake was made in t he US in the mortgage market. Allowing bubbled loans and leverage of real-estate was what made the real estate market bloom, till it exploded.

4.
Well, like in Israel, fast legislation processes were needed. However, the Congress first rejected the Wall-Street Bailout, which caused a major decline in stock indices. Therefore, gently, the government formalised a more serious plan that imploded from the original three pages to one hundred and ten, and then to four hundred and fifty one. 451 pages of tax reforms that most likely will never be read and will cause tax exemption for wooden arrows for children.

5.
And if we’re still with the great Uncle Sam, I am quite troubled by the great endeavours burned in order to assist the Israeli government implement Biometric Identification. This time, our minister of internal affairs Meir Sheetrit, claims that Israeli citizens will not be required a US visa if the biometric database will be approved. The subtext, of course is “if the biometric database will be approved and conveyed to the US authorities”, since without that, the US government has no mean to confirm their identity. What Sheetrit forgot to tell us, being a minister with formal micro-biology education (which the government thought was relevant when they approved his offer for biometric IDs), is that Biometric Passports are easy to fake or copying in a manner that allows Identity theft.

7.
But Sheetrit won’t be blurred by the facts when he will be speaking in front of the Knesset about the biometric identity statute. He’ll explain to the parliament members that the government already signed an agreement with HP to issue the IDs and that the US insists that we have such a database. Our Knesset Members, being so reasonable and have to consider every proposal, will do the right thing and vote seriously, of course. And that’s only if the Omnibus statute won’t be the statute that approves the Biometric Database.