Ellison's ID Card Plan Gets More Attention 701
fredbox writes: "A Mercury News article reports Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and John Ashcroft have been meeting to discuss creation of a national ID database including fingerprints, facial scans, etc. Other supporters include Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy. They claim these cards would be 'voluntary', much as the act of leaving your home or purchasing groceries are voluntary activities." Update: 10/18 01:48 GMT by M : Hah! btempleton writes: "Here is a prototype of Larry Ellison's new national ID card."
Re:Too hard to keep up with... (Score:1, Informative)
we have 2000 years of prophecy to live up to.
mark of the beast, anyone?
How do we build a 'negative' database? (Score:5, Informative)
The basic premise of 'National ID' systems is that if we build a database of all law-abiding trustworthy citizens, anybody who does not exist in this database must be a 'prohibited person'.
This premise is also one of the biggest dangers of a national ID, and the primary objection raised by civil libertarians and the ultra paranoid.
The 'Brady Bill' background check law was written with a safeguard- all records of 'successful' checks were to be deleted. In reality, the Clinton administration ignored this limitation, holding records indefinitely.
The same sort of behavior can be expected regarding any safeguards built into a 'National ID' system.
Re:Hmmmm, SO? (Score:0, Informative)
Re:What the hell for? (Score:4, Informative)
Feeling better is not the same as being better (Score:3, Informative)
No Larry, I would not feel better. I might feel safer, but not by very much. Besides, is what we want to feel better about flying, or do we want to feel safer about flying? Or do we want to actually BE safer while flying?
How about that for a novel approach? Instead of trying to get the public to be willing to board a plane, why not improve safety for real? Put those National Guardsmen to work checking bags.
Do you realize that STILL, 9 out of 10 checked bags are placed into the cargo compartment of commercial jets, without so much as a passing glance? It's true.
You can also STILL check a bag on a flight, and then not get on that flight, and your bag will be carried anyway. You think we were caught with our pants down on 9/11? What will our leaders tell us about air safety when the next attack is a classical bomb-in-checked-bag-but-terrorist-missed-flight, like the Lockerbie disaster?
Re:driver's license argument (Score:3, Informative)
Uh, no. That's unconstitutional, directly contradicting Article I, Section 9 of the United States Constitution regarding Congress:
No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
and Article I, Section 10 of the United States Constitution regarding the States:
No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility.
Look up "ex post facto" if you haven't learned what it is in 11th grade Government class yet. I'm sure you completely hate Ashcroft and will criticize everything he does, but don't falsify what he wants. He's not out to throw out the Constitution. I don't always agree with what he says (I absolutely abhor the idea of a national ID card), but saying a remark like that is just ridiculous.
Re:Hmmmm, SO? (Score:1, Informative)
We don't need governments having 1 Database to track people...
Oh dear lord. (Score:1, Informative)
Okay, first of all, Cities facing terrorist threats: All of them. So what we should be afraid of is that just to enter any large city we'll have to show our ID. If they put a chip in them (like a fastpass) this doesn't even require slowing down much.
Gee, Schwarzy, you haven't lost any legal rights, but you've lost ability to get around them even if they are stupid. Making it harder to get around oppressive laws is the first action of a dictatorship seizing the reins. Also, your military ID is functionally just another state ID, except the information is even less readily available. It's not at all the same thing.
Section 656 was repealed (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.fairus.org/html/09179911.htm
ID Card FAQ (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.privacy.org/pi/activities/idcard/idcar
Re:driver's license argument (Score:5, Informative)
Uh-huh, right after the war on drugs.
Americans and History (Score:3, Informative)
And what's worse, is an even larger number of people in America don't even bother to learn history, believing it to be completely irrelevant to their lives. So, they trust these people on TV (Whether some so-called intellectual, or the reporter) because they must know what they're talking about, they don't interview the clueless. So they are led like sheep-- straight into a mistake centuries old, known and documented.
I truly do pity people who somehow believe that 'humanity has evolved' since then. The only thing that's changed is the technology-- but people still do the same rotten things to each other, for the same reasons, and use the same sad excuses. (Kill your neighbor, terrorize the town, and claim it's 'god's will' that these things be done.)
No religion can claim to be exempt from this; saying that your deeds are "gods will" is as old as any concept of religion. And religion is not the only scapegoat used to hide behind.
Take "National Security" for example. Such things as an ID card may actually help; but at what cost?
And, finally, some forgotten massacres in history that many "intelectuals" choose to forget, ignore, and then eventually fight to allow in the name of peace:
13 Million Armenians: The Turks roughly during the peroid of World War I (Who still talks nowdays of the extermination of the Armenians? -- Adolf Hitler)
6 Million Jews, 6 Million additional "unwanted" others: Nazis during World War II.
Up to 40 Million (estimated): Stalin and Soviet Union's hospitality.
Between 32.25 and 61.7 million people --Mao Zedung (or whatever you spell it like) According to a 1971 report by the US Judiciary Comittee. (estimate started in 1949) Current estimates are higher.
8 Million Cambodians: 1975-1979. Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge. After the Vietnamese chased Pol Pot & Co. to Thailand, many western contries (Including the US, Canada, and Japan) supplied the thugs with food, shelter, and health care.
500,000 dead Hutus: Killed by the Tutsis starting during 1971 in Rwanda and Burundi. It took 15 years for anybody to give it much attention.
Croatia and Serbia -- No complete record exists.
Pacifists and intellectuals will gloss over these, and lie to try to convince you to join their cause. It's the same old story. It's happened before. It will happen again. Humanity has not evolved.
Just as some are trying to convince you that a National ID is a 'good thing', people have made very similar arguments for the massacres listed above.
Learn history for yourself, and do what you can to educate others. Please.
Re:huh? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:ID cards in Europe inefficient against terroris (Score:1, Informative)
What is more worrying is that the UK government is planning to make incitement to religious hatred a crime. At least us Jedis will be protected. [slashdot.org]
Ellison Editorial in the Wall Street Journal (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Ashcroft & Fienstien like it? (Score:2, Informative)
> > records when it comes to undermining the Bill
> > of Rights than those two.
> Oh that's easy: Joe McCarthy and J. Edgar
> Hoover. But I'd be hard-pressed to come up with
> another two.
Well, here's one: Franklin D. Roosevelt. Or have you forgotten about all the Japanese-Americans he had interned? In my reading on the subject, I was very surprised to find out that Hoover was actually on the right side of this civil liberties issue. He opposed the internment of Japanese-Americans, and told FDR that he had found no evidence of subversive activity among them. So FDR is double-damned -- he KNEW there was no danger from the Japanese-American community.
Re:huh? (Score:2, Informative)