Richard,
It's been about 5 months now that I have no useable vision, just light
perception. It's a devastating loss. But there's another loss. Sighted
people can't understand which information comes from our eyes, and which
comes from our brains. So they assume that we don't know what's going on.
Sometimes, that's actually true, but only from short term memory loss.
Anyway, the other day, I went into the kitchen to get a banana. I have a
walker with a tray on which I put things that I want to move from place to
place. I put the banana on a paper towel on the tray, and a napkin, and I
walked back into the large room where I spend most of my time, the room
where the computer Is located. My older daughter was walking through the
front door of the house as I walked into the room and she said, "Mom, you
have a banana on your tray. I just wanted to tell you in case you didn't
know. I wonder how she thought the banana got there. My younger daughter,
when we talk, seems not to remember that I had sight. I was talking about a
time when she was a child and one of our cats used to wait at the door when
he somehow knew that she was about to return from school. She said, "How did
you know he was at the door?" Well I knew because I saw him there, just like
I saw our beautiful flowers and trees in the back yard and the colors of the
clothes I chose to wear each day. It's been less than six months since I
lost useable vision but now in her mind, I've been blind forever. Yes, I had
partial sight, was legally blind, read braille etc. But apparently, with
sighted people, it's all or nothing. And when you lose your sight, you also
lose your mind.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx On Behalf Of R. E. Driscoll Sr
Sent: Thursday, July 11, 2019 3:33 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: And I Thought 1984 Could Never Happen!
Miriam - In my opinion the major problem is the low level of adaptation that
most people have.
Richard
Sent from my iPhone
On Jul 11, 2019, at 10:55 AM, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
contact for 25 years, nor the people to whom you'd given rides who didn't
I don't know what was in the minds of the woman with whom you didn't have
move, but couldn't.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx On Behalf Of Roger Loran
Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Wednesday, July 10, 2019 9:02 PM
To: Carl Jarvis <carjar82@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: And I Thought 1984 Could Never Happen!
Maybe I quit driving before the accident happened, but I was just lucky.
That last drive was really harrowing and, in fact, someone did pass me
and yelled, "You're going to cause an accident." But the aftermath was
harrowing too. I was very used to coming and going as I wanted and
then suddenly I couldn't. I sat around feeling extremely restless
wanting to go out and not being able to. Then there were all the
people who I had been frequently giving rides to. How many of them do
you suppose were available to give me rides? You might say that if I
had been giving them rides then they couldn't give me rides, but that
was not necessarily true. There were three of them whom I taught to
drive, but they were not available for their teacher. One of them was
that certain woman whom I have already told you about who I lost for
twenty-five years until I found her on Facebook. The last time I spoke
to her in person was about three months after I had become blind and
she told me that it was now her turn to drive me around and that we
were going to hang around together just like we used to, but now she
was going to be the driver and she would pick me up. I never spoke to
her again until about twenty-five years later when I found her on
Facebook and I called the phone number she had in her profile. And,
yes, I do attribute my loss of the ability to drive to losing touch
with her. If I had been able to continue to drive I would have been
looking her up. But after losing my eyesight in April of 1988 I spent
the rest of that year doing practically nothing but listening to
talking books until I could get into rehab at the beginning of 1989. I
can assure you that the year of
1988 was a year of extreme restlessness as I wanted to get out and on the
atrocities. ???
---
Voltaire
??? Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit
??? Voltaire,his car, we bought a Subaru.
On 7/10/2019 11:43 AM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
Roger and All Brave Former Drivers,
For those people who are "Personal Auto De pendant", losing their
ability to drive is the single most overwhelming loss, next to life,
itself.
In our 25 years of providing services to more than 3,000 older blind
and low vision clients, the single most difficult loss is the loss of
the driver's license...As an aside, this feeling is a clear
indication of how dependent we have become on our automobiles.
And you, Roger, are in the minority of men who voluntarily give up
driving...before the accident occurs. Pat yourself on the back!!!
Women do better, but the ones who struggle make more noise than any
ten grown men. The folks who have their driver's licenses taken from
them are especially angry. "My daughter is acting like my mother!"
And my favorite, "I'll know when it's time to quit!" Yup. Right
after the sickening crunch. We do our best to "encourage" folks to
play it safe and leave the driving to others, but if the DOL has
issued them a license, and especially if their doctor will not sign
off on the danger of this person driving, then there's nothing we can
do. So we try to scare the Hell out of them. And after 25 years we
have a big time collection of horror stories to "share".
But those are tales best held for another day.
So Roger, a final salute to you, and as a reminder, never get in a
car driven by someone who uses a magnifying glass to see how fast
they're going. Yes! Such a woman does exist. So does the lady who
asked us if they made magnifying windshields. And the very angry
woman whose two daughters stole her driver's license and car keys, "I
only need the car to drive back up the hill to my house." Hmm...and
just how did she plan to get the car down the hill?
We may chuckle over some of the stories, but they are never funny to
the teller of the tales.
Carl Jarvis
on 9/19, Roger Loran Bailey <rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx> wrote:
I carry a non driver's ID now, but having to give up driving was
agonizing for me. The last time I drove the trip should have taken
about forty minutes, but turned into about two hours. A lot of that
time was taken up by pulling over to just collect my nerves. The
trip back was a lot faster because it was done at about three in the
morning without glaring sunlight and with sparse traffic, but I
realized that would have to be the last time I drove.
---
Voltaire
??? Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit
atrocities. ???
??? Voltaire,
On 7/9/2019 6:24 PM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
Back in my life as a sighted man...sort of...I did have a learner's
permit and took drivers Ed in high school. But I quickly realized
that I was crazy if I thought I could drive under normal conditions.
So I obtained a Washington State Identification Card. Like the
driver's license, it bore my most unflattering photo. At one time
I did not need to renew it for 7 years. I believe it's fewer years
now, but I just reapply through the mail.
My first wife, Judy, and I were married ten years and never owned a
car. At barely four feet eleven inches, and uncertain regarding
her own driving abilities, we rode with other folks...some of whom
should not have been allowed behind the wheel.
My second wife, Trish, and I stored her brother's car while he and
his wife worked in Alaska. Bill, her brother, said, "Go ahead and
drive it anytime you want." It was a Gremlin, a piece of tinfoil
wrapped around a scooter motor. But one day I said to Trish, "I'll
bet I can teach you to drive." And I did! I don't brag about
this, since she turned into one wild and crazy driver. But we used
to laugh about the thought of a cop pulling us over, and him
yelling at her, "you blind, or something?" And we'd say, "No, but
my teacher is." It was illegal as all Hell, but when Bill reclaimed
happen."Brand new for just over $5,000. That was 1972.
Carl Jarvis
On 7/9/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
One advantage of being blind, you can't drive a car. But if you
get a non driver's license for ID purposes, I guess it's no advantage.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Tuesday, July 09, 2019 4:17 PM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] And I Thought 1984 Could Never Happen!
Ah, but I do miss the innocence of my youth. Those were the days
when we thought our biggest fear was contacting a case of the Clap.
How little did we know.
Carl Jarvis
Subject: [EXTERNAL] FBI, ICE Using Facial Recognition To Bulk-Scan
DMV Photos In "Unprecedented Surveillance Infrastructure" | Zero
Hedge
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-07-08/fbi-ice-bulk-scanning-dm
v -photos-facial-recognition-unprecedented-surveillance
FBI, ICE Using Facial Recognition To Bulk-Scan DMV Photos In
"Unprecedented Surveillance Infrastructure"
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) along with Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been using state driver's
license databases to run photos of millions of Americans through
facial-recognition systems without their knowledge or consent,
according to the Washington Post.
inline-images/racial%20rec
block quote
Thousands of facial-recognition requests, internal documents and
emails over the past five years, obtained through public-records
requests by Georgetown Law researchers and provided to The
Washington Post, reveal that federal investigators have turned
state departments of motor vehicles databases into the bedrock of
an unprecedented surveillance infrastructure.
Police have long had access to fingerprints, DNA and other
???biometric data???
taken from criminal suspects. But the DMV records contain the
photos of a vast majority of a state???s residents, most of whom
have never been charged with a crime. - Washington Post block
quote end
Disturbingly, neither Congress nor state legislatures have
authorized this type of system, and none of us agreed to it when
we obtained licenses.
"They???ve just given access to that to the FBI," said Rep. Jim
Jordan, ranking GOP member of the House Oversight Committee. "No
individual signed off on that when they renewed their driver???s
license, got their driver???s licenses. They didn???t sign any
waiver saying, ???Oh, it???s okay to turn my information, my
photo, over to the FBI.??? No elected officials voted for that to
said
"Law enforcement???s access of state databases," and in particular
those of the DMV, is "often done in the shadows with no consent,"
added House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD).
And as has been reported for some time, law enforcement has been
relying on facial recognition technology as a routine
investigative tool for years
-
and it's going to get worse.
block quote
Since 2011, the FBI has logged more than 390,000
facial-recognition searches of federal and local databases,
including state DMV databases, the Government Accountability Office
last month, and the records show that federal investigators have
forged daily working relationships with DMV officials. In Utah,
FBI and ICE agents logged more than 1,000 facial-recognition
searches between 2015 and 2017, the records show. Names and other
details are hidden, though dozens of the searches are marked as
having returned a ???possible match.??? - Washington Post block
quote end
Also disturbing is the fact that law enforcement often uses facial
recognition to investigate low-level crime, with searches "often
executed with nothing more formal than an email from a federal
agent to a local contact,"
according to the Post.
"It???s really a surveillance-first, ask-permission-later system,"
says Project on Government Oversight watchdog lawyer Jake Laperruque.
"People think this
is something coming way off in the future, but these
[facial-recognition] searches are happening very frequently today.
The FBI alone does 4,000 searches every month, and a lot of them
go through state DMVs."
Targeting illegals with licenses?
The Post also brings up the fact that undocumented residents who
obtain driver's licenses in states which allow this may be subject
to immigration enforcement due to the facial recognition
technology.
block quote
Though Utah, Vermont and Washington allow undocumented immigrants
to obtain full driver???s licenses or more-limited permits known
as driving privilege cards, ICE agents have run facial-recognition
searches on those DMV databases.
More than a dozen states, including New York, as well as the
District of Columbia, allow undocumented immigrants to drive
legally with full licenses or driving privilege cards, as long as
they submit proof of in-state residency and pass the states???
driving-proficiency tests.
Lawmakers in Florida, Texas and other states have introduced bills
this year that would extend driving privileges to undocumented
immigrants. Some of those states already allow the FBI to scan
driver???s license photos, while others, such as Florida and New
York, are negotiating with the FBI over access, according to the
GAO. - Washington Post block quote end
"The state has told [undocumented immigrants], has encouraged
them, to submit that information. To me, it???s an insane breach
of trust to then turn around and allow ICE access to that,"
according to Georgetown Law Center on Privacy and Technology
senior associate Clare Garvie, who led the research.
block quote
The FBI???s facial-recognition search has access to local, state
and federal databases containing more than 641 million face
photos, a GAO director said
last month. But the agency provides little information about
when the searches are used, who is targeted and how often searches
return false matches. - Washington Post block quote end
When asked about the surveillance, the FBI told the Post to refer
to last month's congressional testimony from Deputy Assistant
Director Kimberly Del Grecco, who said that facial recognition was
necessary "to preserve our nation???s freedoms, ensure our
liberties are protected, and preserve our security."
Racist technology?
Civil rights advocates have decried the use of facial recognition
technology due to the fact that it is far less accurate when
trying to identify people of color. According to the report, "The
software???s precision is highly dependent on a number of factors,
including the lighting of a subject???s face and the quality of
the image, and research has shown that the technology performs
less accurately on people with darker skin."
Whatever the objection, we're now at the point where our ability
to drive a car or enjoy the out-of-doors is subject to constant
electronic surveillance of varying accuracy.