Declarations

Face-Recognition

“We have a target on our back as an epicenter for terrorism. We need to be leaders in the field.”

—N.Y. Governor David Paterson commenting on a new technology at the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles that uses face-recognition systems to match drivers’ information with police searches. Over 100 people have been arrested over the last six months thanks to the technology, which has helped locate suspects wanted for insurance fraud, and even a mob hit man who sought a new identity a day after he was released from prison.

Workplace Deaths Decline

“While a decrease in the number of fatal work injuries is encouraging, we cannot – and will not – relent from our continued strong enforcement of workplace safety laws. A single worker hurt or killed on the job is one too many.”

—Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis, commenting on a new report that showed a decline in workplace fatalities in 2009 compared with 2008. Last year, 4,340 workers died from work-related injuries, down from a final count of 5,214 fatal work injuries in 2008. The 4,340 workplace fatalities recorded in 2009 was the smallest total since the Bureau of Labor Statistics first began tracking the data in 1992. The agency says high unemployment and layoffs in more dangerous industries like construction played a major role in the decrease. Workers on average logged 6 percent fewer hours last year than in 2008. Employees in construction worked 17 percent fewer hours in 2009 than the previous year.

In The Dark

“It is not a radical concept for a customer to know how (his insurance agent) is being compensated, so that any potential or actual conflict of interest may be properly evaluated. The insurance industry is virtually unique in the financial services markets where the consumer is kept in the dark about the source, nature and amount of compensation that the consumer’s representative is receiving.”

—N.Y. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, responding in legal filings to a lawsuit by agents in New York over a regulation that will require them to disclose their commissions to clients.