BERLIN (Reuters) - The European Union should move toward forming a common army, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a newspaper interview published on Friday.
Asked how she saw the EU developing in the next 50 years, Merkel told daily newspaper Bild: "In the EU itself we must come closer to a common European army."
Germany holds the EU's rotating presidency for the first half of this year.
Last year, Polish President Lech Kaczynski said his country wanted a new 100,000-strong European Union army created to work with NATO in trouble spots in the world or to defend Europe.Reuters Pictures
Merkel is hosting a summit this weekend in Berlin where the bloc will celebrate its 50th anniversary and unveil a declaration setting out its values and achievements.
Merkel hopes the so-called "Berlin Declaration" will be a springboard for her revival of the European constitution, rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005.
Merkel told Bild the EU's 27 member states often spent too long grappling with issues under the bloc's existing structure.
"To change that, we need the EU constitution, which suits the decision mechanism of the larger EU," she said.
Germany has vowed to present a "road map" for ...   more »

Students at Philadelphia's sixty high schools issued contactless campus ID cards
Access, attendance tracking, lunch programs drive the implementation provided by Scholarchip
Andy Williams, Contributing Editor
Colleges have been using campus card ID systems for years. But with increasing security concerns, similar products are moving into public schools. One example: Philadelphia, Penn.’s school system where high school students at 60 schools have been provided a contactless ID card needed to gain admission to school property, track attendance, and, in some cases, buy lunch in the cafeteria.
"We have 56,000 high school students and we wanted a better handle on (them)," said Patricia DiLella, senior project manager for Philadelphia School District’s Office of Information Technology. "Before, everyone was assumed present until marked absent. We needed something to track students. With this new system, everyone is assumed absent until they tap (their card) and have physically been seen by school personnel."
Via a request for proposal process, the district selected ScholarChip Card LLC, a seven-year-old organization whose origins date to higher education and has since incorporated K-12 schools in its lineup. While ScholarChip had been conducting a pilot program in two of Philadelphia’s middle schools, it landed the five-year contract because it ...   more »

Monday, March 12, 2007
By Tim Webb
Paying for goods with notes and coins could be consigned to history within five years, according to the chief executive of Visa Europe.
Peter Ayliffe said that, by 2012, using credit and debit cards should be cheaper and more convenient than cash.
Some retailers could soon start surcharging customers if they choose to buy products with cash, because of the greater cost of processing these payments, he warned.
Visa Europe briefed the British Retail Consortium last month on new " contactless" cards that can be waved in front of a scanner to make small payments.
However, the consortium dismissed this vision and claimed that card processing fees, which regulators are investigating, are still too high.
One member of the consurtium said that the estimated "interchange" fee charged to retailers amounts to some 4p for each transaction.
Nick Mourant, treasurer at Tesco, said: "There is a duopoly between Mastercard and Visa in the UK. Their setting of fees is anti-competitive."
Original Source

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Ever get the feeling you’re being watched?
J. Craig Anderson, Tribune
It’s not just paranoia. You are being watched. The period following Sept. 11, 2001, has been a technological Renaissance Era for agencies and companies that monitor, track and record the activities of everyday people.
By comparison, the legal system charged with regulating these new surveillance systems is still in the Dark Ages, critics say, with technology outpacing lawmakers every step of the way.
Low-cost digital video cameras, Internet monitoring software and myriad consumer tracking systems that convert behavior into data have raised new questions about how far a society should be allowed to go in scrutinizing its members.
In short, when innocuous surveillance becomes ubiquitous, does that make it insidious?
Police organizations stress the benefit of increased surveillance in solving crimes, but others say the loss of privacy to law-abiding citizens has been too great.
“Do we want to live in a place where every move, every action, every thought, perhaps, is monitored and regulated?” said Torin Monahan, an Arizona State University professor researching the effects of surveillance on communities. “Do we want to live in a society that is totally devoid of trust?”
THE SURVEILLANCE AGE
Take a ...   more »

British citizens who refuse to provide personal details for the planned "voluntary" national identification card have been told they will be denied passports and be unable to leave the UK.
James Hall, CEO of the Identity and Passport Service, the agency charged with running the National Identity Scheme to provide ID cards to all residents of the UK, confirmed many privacy advocates' fears this week when he revealed those who opt out of the program will be unable to obtain or renew travel documents.
Hall made the revelation during a national "webchat" where questions were submitted by the public.
In response to a questioner asking what would happen to those who refused to join the nearly $11 billion program, Hall answered, "There is no need to register and have fingerprints taken - but you will forgo the ability to have a passport."
According to a government website:
The National Identity Scheme is an easy-to-use and extremely secure system of personal identification for adults living in the UK. Its cornerstone is the introduction of national ID cards for all UK residents over the age of 16.
Each ID card will be unique and will combine the cardholder's biometric data with their ...   more »