This pigheaded scheme, which hopefully is unimplementable in the Indian context, is evidently a huge invasion against privacy, and liberty, of individual citizens, life since being always under the hawkish watch of the Big Brother/Sister, as the article reproduced below has argued.
And there is also the danger of identity theft. Real "terrorists" would always find out ways and means to dodge. But the country would turn into a large prison house. But what is even more disturbing is that, in the specific Indian context, a large section of the population being in abject poverty, without any permanent roof over the heads and appalling lack of education and awareness, they would be perpetually criminalised - for not being able to produce such ID cards at command - and thereby remain utterly vulnerable to petty state officials extracting money, and also sexual services, and just out to satisfy their sadistic urges. The remedy proposed is going to be far worse than the disease itself. This needs be opposed tooth and nail. Sukla http://www.strike-the-root.com/columns/Rain/rain1.html *What's Really Wrong with National ID Cards* by Jack Rain The national ID card threat is in front of us. I have not yet seen a strong enough assault on this extremely dangerous idea, so I will face the challenge myself. The national ID card concept is not just bad on some theoretical level as an invasion of privacy. It has the potential to become an incredible source of power, more restraining than the strongest of handcuffs and leg chains. But first a word about its intended purpose, "to help fight terrorism." Bunk. Some of the terrorists used fake ID's. So what? As generals always fight the last war, politicians battle the last terrorist attack. Politicians banned guns on planes. They put cement barriers in front of buildings to prevent car bombings. (Both the Pentagon and the World Trade Center had these cement barriers in front of them.) But the events of 9-11 certainly showed that the terrorists figured out angles to defeat these "protections." So don't even try to tell me that the terrorists won't find their way around national ID cards. But I will tell you what a national ID card will do, it will track you and me. The national ID card system will be designed to track people and their movements every time you are required to show it. Otherwise, it will not serve any purpose for the government. When we are required to show the card it will be logged into a national ID super computer. This is the key to understanding its danger. It will track us. We won't have the time, the money or the underground contacts that will enable us to defeat the system. Only terrorists and crooks will be able to do that. With a national ID card, when we fly, where we fly, what hotel we stay at, it will all be tracked. Where we bank, what doctors we see, will be tracked. In back channel ways, what meetings we attend, where we shop and what we visit on the Internet will be tracked. Yes, you may agree that this will happen, but you will argue that it happens now. Credit card companies collect and sell data about us. Hotels sell our data and some web sites track where we are going. But the key to all this is that it is not a national ID card system. There is no national supercomputer where all this data is collected in one place. And we still have the option of easily circumventing any private data collection system. If I want to check into a hotel, I can pay cash and tell them I am Christopher Columbus Jr. Most hotels will take the money (Interestingly enough, most of the "better" hotels ask fewer questions than your average Red Roof Inn). If I want to surf the net anonymously, I can do that by taking a few precautions. I can travel now under any name without a national ID card (Trust me on this--you can travel under any name. Just ask any illegal Mexican you see and he will tell you how to get a very good quality "Government issued ID" in any name you want within two hours). But a national ID card will be different, it will have our names and some type of biological imprint--i.e., fingerprint, eye scan, hand scan, etc.--and it will record everything in the supercomputer whenever we are required to show it. So what's the problem, if we are law abiding citizens? The problem is a national ID card will create a vast source of power. It will record where we go and what we do. It will all be in one computer, humming away in some bombproof shelter outside Washington D. C. Information is valuable and powerful. I am aware of instances where even small amounts of information are bought and sold now. I have an acquaintance who works for a very large utility company. Slip him $50 and he will get you the phone number of any person in his state--unlisted or otherwise. You see, most people who sign up for electricity, even those concerned about privacy, don't even think of the privacy they are giving up. They readily provide their number to the utility. Two private investigators have my acquaintance on the payroll, so to speak, and there are obviously people out there willing to hire detectives to find out unlisted numbers. I once ran into an individual who worked for American Express. He had a lot of fun telling me how much Charlie Sheen puts on his American Express card every month. It's guys like these that often provide info to the rumor sheets like National Enquirer. But these guys have small time bits of information compared to the tracking a modern day national ID system computer would have. Can you imagine the power of someone who could look at that info? But getting back, for a minute, to the small time bits of info collected on us by private industry. It is still possible to do some things or all things quite anonymously if you use cash and never ever give out your home telephone number (just give out a voicemail or pager number, if it is required). With a national ID card that information will be recorded, and even if your life is a total open book with nothing to fear from the computer that logs your every breath, there are two very important reasons to fear. The first reason is the rule of large numbers and coincidences. If a national ID card is issued and raw data on individuals is thrown into a large computer, thousands, and over time, millions will be harassed because of coincidence. Considering my own life, I think back and realize that I was outside the New York City Public Library some 20 years ago when a small pipe bomb, placed by Puerto Rican terrorists, exploded. If that happened during a period when national ID cards existed, wouldn't police round up and log into a computer, for future reference, everyone's national ID card number who was at the scene? A few years later, I happened to arrive at the scene in New York City at the same time as the police when mob boss Paul Casstellano was rubbed out by John Gotti's hit men. Again, another entry into the national ID card computer for me. I once stayed in a hotel at the same time President Clinton was at the hotel. This certainly would get another mention in the national ID computer. A couple of years later I was in the same hotel as the Prime Minister of Canada. More recently, just a week before the Attack on America, I was at LAX airport in Los Angeles. There obviously was some kind of very high alert that day (This was the Thursday before Labor Day). I noticed police cars and police everywhere. That afternoon, I did have to show my ID a number of times (It was the highest security up until that time that I had ever seen at any airport anywhere). I am sure I would have received a special notch on my national ID card for traveling on such a high security day. (Note: It was a short trip. I was back the next day, and the security was back to normal, but the police definitely were reacting to some big time tip on Thursday.) There are probably other instances that would make my national ID card stand out that don't come to mind right now, but judging from the sketchiness of the direct links to bin Laden as the mastermind of the Attack on America, this would be enough in the computer to besmirch my reputation or worse, if someone wanted to. You know, newspapers could have a field day. "Jack Rain is believed to be a terrorist hit man with sympathy towards Puerto Rican terrorists. Through national ID card data, it has been determined that he has been present or in the vicinity of pipe bomb attacks by Puerto Rican terrorists, high-level mob hits, high security days at airports and has been checked into various hotels at the same time as the president and other world leaders." Who knows what coincidences lurk in your background ready to be yanked at a moment's notice by some super national ID card computer? But aside from the danger of someone leaking specific data on individuals and aside from the possibility of coincidences everywhere because of so much data being collected, here is the biggest danger. Can you imagine former President Richard Nixon or someone like him in power at a time national ID card computers are humming? Who knows who will gain the White House in the future? F.A. Hayek, in The Road To Serfdom, has a brilliant chapter titled, "Why the Worst Get on Top." It is a compelling argument that I urge everyone to read. The argument in that chapter alone is reason enough why a national ID card should never be issued. Ruthless rulers do sometimes rise to the top. A ruthless ruler (or anyone else with access to such a computer) would be able to track anyone. He would know where they were going and who they were going to see. How, just how, would we be able to ever organize against such a ruthless ruler if he knew where all his key opponents were and knew every move his opponents were making? Talk about valuable, extremely dangerous information. It will all be there in the supercomputer. With any national ID card program, that powerful computer will be in the hands of any potential ruthless ruler. He wouldn't need handcuffs and leg chains to keep us from meeting with those who might want to vote him out of office. The very fact that he would be able to track our every move and punish us if we were to meet with others he would not want us to me with would very often be deterrent enough. If we allow a national ID card to come into existence, we are placing handcuffs and leg chains on ourselves and we are counting on very benevolent governments and leaders in the future that we hope will not turn the locks and throw away the keys. Perhaps it is much wiser that we fear what kind of evil resource such a national ID computer will prove to be for the next Nixon, or still worse a Stalin or Hitler. September 27, 2001 Jack Rain is a traveler and observer of world events. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send email to greenyouth@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to greenyouth+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
