This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Joe Biden's administration is pushing forward on a scheme to impose facial recognition scans on travelers coming through 430 "federalized" airports across the United States, despite bipartisan opposition in the U.S. Senate.
The operations being pursued by the Biden Transportation Security Administration are detailed in a substack report from Leo Hohmann, a widely known investigative reporter and commentator.
His reporting explains the TSA has begun the work with "enhanced Credential Authentication Technology devices" in an upgrade that started with a pilot program at 30 airports.
The scanners are known as CAT-2 units, and will "incorporate facial recognition technology by capturing real-time pictures of travelers and comparing them against their photo IDs," the report said.
Already deployed at 30 airports, they will be installed at the other 400 soon, the report said.
The opposition in the Senate was in legislation from Sens. John Kennedy, R-La., and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., whose plan would ban the TSA from using such scan tech.
Their plan is called the Travelers' Privacy Protection Act.
The report explained facial recognition screens supposedly are "optional" at this point, but confirmed, "but there have been countless firsthand accounts from airport passengers who have indicated that they were not given any option by TSA to reject the face scans."
Hohmann explained, "Michele Bachmann, a former Republican member of Congress from Minnesota who ran for president in 2012, contacted me this past weekend to inform me of a recent experience encountered at a U.S. airport."
She wrote "I walked up to the agent at security in Norfolk; rather than handing her my ID she told me to put it in a card-reader machine. Then she said, ‘look into the camera.’ Before I could respond, the camera had taken my picture. She told me the camera matched my face with my ID! “There was no choice."
The report cited TSA assurances that the images would not be archived, or used, but that doesn't address other federal agencies that may.
Hohmann commented: "This is part of the 'two Americas' system that is taking shape in this country. One set of standards applies to foreign nationals and another to U.S. citizens. Two Americas — often operating within the same jurisdiction within a two-tiered system of justice which they refer to as a 'democracy.' Any U.S. citizen who complains about this system, or even questions it, risks getting placed on a government watchlist of persons considered to be, as described by the globalists who run the government and media, 'a threat to our democracy.'"
