Public library to use fingerprint scanners to verify identity

So we thought the whole thing about public libraries providing free internet access is a pretty great idea — lowering the digital divide and all that. Too bad it's going on lockdown in Naperville, Illinois, where library officials are implementing a system that requires authentication by fingerprint scanner before you can sit down at a public terminal and fire up that browser. There's some mumbo jumbo flying about how your fingerprint scans can't be reverse engineered by evildoers, and how the data can't possibly be cross-referenced with other more notable fingerprint registries kept by the FBI and state police — but we and the ACLU know the fishy whiff of privacy invasion when we smell it. Yeah, call us paranoid if you must, but it just seems like overkill to have to submit to a fingerprinting before being able to check email in a public library.