White House Frowns on National ID Card 251
sonic writes "'One security measure that [Homeland Defense Chief] Clarke didn't put much store in, however, was a proposal by some industry leaders, including Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, to create a national ID card.
Clarke said he could not name one official who supports the idea as proposed, though he said the administration does not yet have a formal position on the concept.
"Everyone I've talked to doesn't think it's a good idea," Clarke said. "
Home Land Security Chief (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Home Land Security Chief (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Home Land Security Chief (Score:3, Informative)
Big SNAFU on my part, I was reading another article on Tom Ridge and got mixed up. Considering I have family in his old gubernatorial stomping ground with whom I was JUST discussing Tom's appoinment . . . that's rather pathetic.
My apologies to Tom and Dick.Re:Home Land Security Chief (Score:2)
Unless they quoted your name incorrectly also.
Why we DON'T need a "national" ID card (Score:5, Insightful)
"When ID's are mandatory, it is time to leave the planet."
Re:Why we DON'T need a "national" ID card (Score:2, Informative)
No women (Score:2, Informative)
And secondly, it isn't an ID. People don't ask for selective service ID numbers when you board planes or whatever.
Re:No women (Score:3, Informative)
Age>=18 AND Sex='Male'
Perhaps it should be called the not-very-selective service?
Re:Why we DON'T need a "national" ID card (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Who the hell is Robert Heinlein? (Score:3, Interesting)
Probably the best known of his books is "Stranger in a Strange Land", a book about a human being who was raised by Martians and later brought back to Earth. Martians (in the book) had an activity called "grokking" which was to understand deeply (deeper than the average human being ever does or will do). This is where the term "grok" (as you have probably seen it used here) comes from.
Another one of his books mentioned a lot on Slashdot is "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", which is about a prison colony on the moon (it's actually mainly inhabited by the descendants of the original inhabitants of the prison colony, but they're still treated like prisoners) that revolts to form its own nation, with the help of a self-aware computer.
Heinlen is also known for being rather vocal about his Libertarian views, and this sometimes comes across in his books, such as in "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls".
Whether or not you agree with his political views, you can still enjoy his works, and I strongly suggest that you try them.
Your ignorance is forgiveable. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you remain unable to answer even the simplest questions on your own, how can you hope to even understand the daily news without prior spoon feeding of the history, technology, and other information it depends on? I hope you haven't reached voting age yet.
Disgusting (Score:5, Insightful)
Does the word "vulture" come to mind ?
Re:Disgusting (Score:2)
Insurance (Score:4, Informative)
Anyway, the only data they have to work on are just that: data. Every incident, every occurrence, is fed into the database and correlated with as many factors as possible and realistic. There is a problem when the insurance benefit is high dollar (as æroplane insurance must be) and there is relatively little data to collect. On 11 Septemeber we had four commercial plane crashes. That's probably more than in the continental US in the previous dozen years, and certainly more than in the past half-dozen. Suddenly their actuarial tables were thrown all out of whack. So they corrected them.
The intelligent corporation self-insures as much as possible. When large enough, one may collect one's actuarial data, and put aside as much as one would have put into insurance premiums, and come out ahead of the game. Insurance is a sucker's bet, in the real world as much as in Vegas. Anyone who takes it deserves the reaming he will most certainly receive.
Re:Insurance (Score:2)
What should we do about state mandated car insurance and things like that? Not own a car? I'm really asking, this isn't necessarily rhetorical.
Re:Insurance (Score:2)
What should we do about state mandated car insurance
Complain, insurance should be optional. Good luck convincing anyone of that in todays controll your every step goverments, but that is the theory I belive in.
Even though insurance is a suckers bet, that doesn't mean you dare go without. Odds are I will never have an accident serious enough that I will have to replace my car. (Based on all my accidents in 10 years have been very miner) Doesn't matter, all it takes is one mistake. Paying a couple hundred dollars a year is cheap compared to buying a car worth what my current one is. I can't afford to replace my current car at the same level. So I pay insurance on it. Remember risk always enters in. For me the risk of needing insurance is low, other then what the law mandates since police will stop for something eventially (a broken headlight or something). However the downside of not having insurance and needing it is greater than the loss of paying for insurance.
manditory auto insurance: pay at the pump (Score:2)
There are a number of problems with manditory auto insurance.
One of the largest problems is non-compliance.
Another problem is the fact that insurance rates are calculated by time period (monthly, quarterly, yearly) instead of by the distance driven. Someone who drives five thousand miles a month is more likely to be in an acident than their neighbor who drives fifty miles a month.
Both these problems would be solved by requiring that insurance be included in the price of gasoline. Everyone who drives would be insured, and people would pay insurance based on the distance they drive.
Motorists who get good gas mileage would get a small break on their insurance costs, which would provide incentives that would please the environmentalists.
Police and the court systems would spend less time pursuing charges of driving without insurance.
New drivers could avoid the catch-22 of needing an insured car to get a driver's licence, and needing a driver's license to register a car.
There wouldn't be so many advertisements for auto insurance.
Re:Insurance (Score:2)
True, but the real point is that insurance customers would do considerably better on the average if they put the premiums into safe investments in their own names and paid the cssualty losses themselves out of the accumulated deposits + interest & gains. However, since when, and in some cases whether, these losses occur is unpredictable, there would be no assurance that you personally would have enough saved up. This is most clear with something like fire insurance -- most people don't have one house burn down in their lifetime, so the lifetime accumulation of one family's fire insurance premiums + interest is less than the value of their house. And it just might burn down the day after you signed the mortgage...
So you pay for risk reduction. That shouldn't be too strange of a concept -- it's also why the interest on bonds and other loans increases with the risk of the borrower going bankrupt, and why the average gain on stocks is much higher than on bonds.
Auto insurance is mandatory, not for the sake of the idiot that causes an accident, but to ensure that there is money to compensate his victims. If you've got enough cash, you should be able to "self-ensure" by putting it in an escrow account, and you are almost sure to come out ahead in the long run. (You aren't paying for insurance company personnel, offices, computers, and profits, just for the accidents.) But most people don't want to wait until they've saved $50,000 or more _plus_ a car downpayment to start driving...
Term life insurance is another example. The risk you are insuring against is dying too soon, leaving spouse and children without adequate income. Most people would wind up with more money if they invested instead of buying life insurance, and be able to cash in the investments while they were alive to spend it -- but dying young would leave your family broke.
However, there are "insurance" policies that mix other things in with the risk reduction. Whole life policies combine coverage against dying too young and a (rather poor) long-term investment plan; buying term life only while your kids are young and investing the difference will probably build a larger retirement account... Medical insurance normally covers both catastrophic illnesses that many people never have, and routine (and not overly unpredictable) procedures like physicals, vaccinations, and treatment for the sniffles. About half of medical premiums go to pay the bureacracy to track and authorize all of those minor expenses. If you actually pay the whole cost of your medical insurance, you can do a whole lot better by buying just major medical coverage (deductible of $5K, say), and budgeting for everything else. But most people don't directly pay their entire premiums, and even those that do get tax deductions for them, so the real costs are hidden. (Because of employer-paid premiums, you get paid less and pay more for your purchases; because of tax deductions on one thing, you pay more tax otherwise.)
Re:Insurance (Score:2)
Just wait (Score:3, Insightful)
They certainly don't have to pay for it.
When a company like MS eventually gets Hailstorm rolled out, they will have a database of a large sector of the country.
Which they will then "share" with the government for free.
Or at least to get out of anti-trust difficulties.
Paranoid?
Maybe. for now.
Re:Just wait (Score:2)
Oracle, aka Larry Ellison comes out and recommends that the Government use Oracle software to create a national ID database system. This way Oracle software can be used to track everybody in the country, their comings and goings... where they live, whatever.
Did I mention this is Oracle that suggested this?
And how does the typical
Did Microsoft suggest this? No.
Does Microsoft's Passport system accomplish anything even remotely close to what this National ID database would be in terms of invasion of privacy? No. Passport is used to authenticate you to certain websites. Websites that you probably have a username/password to anyway, like oh say... slashdot. But Passport doesn't track your comings and goings, who you are, who your parents are, when were you born, what blood type are you... etc.
Did I mention that Larry Ellison wants to use his database software for all that stuff I just suggested Passport not do?
Again, did I mention that it is Oracle who was going to provide the technology?
You want to talk about intrusive, you want to talk about "evil", you want to talk about lack of privacy?
Need I remind you that Larry Ellison is the man who decided he wanted to spy on Microsoft and so paid some janitors a large sum of cash so he could get access to some trash cans?
It's just so bloody amazing. Blame Microsoft about some grand conspiracy that can't be substantiated... and let Larry Ellison off the hook who has proven he can't be trusted on matters of privacy.
"You don't have any privacy anyway. Get over it."
- Scott McNealy, another defender of privacy in the face of the evil Microsoft.
Sheesh
Re:Just wait (Score:2)
I just said the government doesn't have to pay Oracle to do get what they want.
Or were you just being a typical reflexive anti-typical Slashdotter?
Pot. Kettle. Black.
Re:Just wait (Score:2)
But no, instead of responding to that you went off on your wild conspiracy theory about Microsoft?
Why? Because you don't know any better.
How about Oracle and Sun? (Score:5, Insightful)
At best,
Oracle and Sun on the other hand decided to use the an incident that involved the most deaths by violent means on American soil in over a century as a chance to hawk their fucking software. People on Slashdot like the bash Microsoft because their software is buggy and they put a couple of greedy startups out of business yet when people sink so low as to use the deaths of their fellow citizens as a cheap and guady way to make more money WHERE THE FUCK IS THE OUTRAGE?.
Here's my take on it...Prototype of US National ID Card Unveiled [kuro5hin.org]
PS: What's interesting is that besides being one big ad for Oracle and Sun products not one person has shown how a national ID card would have prevented the acts of September 11th. Heck, it isn't like teh airlines weren't already asking for ID before people boarded the plane or are Ellison and McNeally suggesting racial profiling where all foreigners fly on seperate flights from God Fearing Americans?
Re:How about Oracle and Sun? (Score:2)
Reutors story about Sun's support for National ID (Score:2)
Sun Micro CEO Sees More Support for National ID [yahoo.com]
Not out of the woods yet... (Score:3, Insightful)
Does
Anyhow, my point: this would be a good time to write to your representative. Tell him/her/it that the White House's reasons may not be the same as yours or your rep's, but that the Congress should stand behind this "frowning."
After all, "frowning" is hardly a policy decision. A few campaign contributions from major software companies and Bush will change his mind. Now is the time to say NO and make it stick.
Re:Not out of the woods yet... (Score:3, Funny)
Does /. have a split personality today?
What probably happened, is that CmdrTaco saw the original story, noted that it was put out by the Bush whitehouse and so he rejected it in order to maintain his anti-Bush-at-all-costs stance. Then Hemos came along and posted it, not understanding that /. is a liberal-biased publication that isn't supposed to say bad things about Sun and Oracle.
just a little too late (Score:5, Interesting)
Regardless, this is a good sign. I also think one of the reasons that politicians are backing down on earlier proposals is because the public isn't as furious anymore. Wait about 3-6 months and few will care; wait a year and it'll be thrown in the back of society's minds. (Note: I don't mean to downplay the attacks by any means; all I'm saying is that it's human nature to get over things in about 3-6 months, of course, not including the people who were directly affected by it.)
Anyways, now that society's not as angry anymore, people are becoming relatively sane again. And in another year, we'll be back where we started.
Re:just a little too late (Score:3, Informative)
While it's true that the effect of the attacks will diminish in our collective consciousness, don't forget that all kinds of laws are on the books because some mother of a victim (real mother, not like the "mother of all victims") wouldn't go away until somebody ramrodded a law through that could make her feel that her loss was not in vain.
It's later than you think. (Score:2)
They allowed that, then mandated it, several years ago.
If you didn't have to provide your SS number the last time you renewed, expect to have to produce it next time.
Re:It's later than you think. (Score:2)
They allowed that, then mandated it, several years ago.
Nope -- I have a number on my (VA) license that has no connection to my SSN.
What happened [govtech.net] is that 1)Rep. Lamar Smith pushed through a bill that would have mandated that the driver's license become a de facto national ID card bearing the SSN, 2)Rep. Smith in particular and Congress in general caught hell, 3)Some members of Congress (notably Rep. Ron Paul) are trying to repeal the original bill; failing that, they've pushed back the deadline and/or forbidden the spending of any money on the program year after year.
National ID Cards (Score:1)
Sounds like another waste of government money, another public nuissance, and another think to install the illusion of safety.
What's the problem... (Score:2, Troll)
Just our crime rates are lower, our economic wealth is greater and people may drink alcohol on the streets.
The US is in fact criminals paradise without any decent resident laws (you must register where you live at the local public authority). Swift moving around, never be caught. There might be reasons for this but they belong to the 18th century not to the 21th.
Re:What's the problem... (Score:1)
Re:What's the problem... (Score:1)
They also allow teenagers to drink alcohol in the streets of Mexico...
No Big Brother in Europe? (Score:2)
> brother in sight.
You [legend.org.uk] don't? [siliconvalley.com] Are [freerepublic.com] you [guardian.co.uk] sure [slashdot.org]?
Re:What's the problem... (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, try a search for "id card" [bbc.co.uk] on BBC news [bbc.co.uk] and you will find quotes such as: "widespread repugnance at the prospect of the police
I found this interesting. I live in Italy, where we are so accustomed to the idea of ID cards and lots of other documents, that recently someone talked about taking fingerprints to all the population (no joking) and it seemed nearly normal. The problem with "safety" and police measures is that once they are in place, after a while you forget it is NOT normal, they become invisible in a sense. I suspect this is also the way not-so-nice police states are created. Also called the "boiled frog" procedure (erode rights in many nearly-invisible increments and no one will notice).
Re:What's the problem... (Score:2)
The European cards also keep your souffles and softdrinks from going flat as well as purify the air you breathe. Amazing....
Most European countries have far stricter immigration laws, are smaller than many states in the US and there are a host of other differences that make your comparison an apples/oranges kind of thing. As for the greater wealth, I'm not even going to bother....
Re:What's the problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
"no big brother in sight"
And then we see...
"national ID cards"
"you must register where you live at the local public authority"
Perhaps you need to try opening your eyes... or at least learn what is meant by "Big Brother:" a government keeping an eye on its citizens for little reason beyond "their own protection."
As for some of the other more interesting one-liners...
"our economic wealth is greater"
By what measure? I'm assuming it's not by GDP (in which caes you're blinder than I thought), but even if you go by GDP-per-capita, we've got every major western European country beat by about $10,000.
Belgium - $25,300
Denmark - $25,500
Finland - $22,900
France - $24,400
Germany - $23,400
Italy - $22,100
Netherlands - $24,400
Norway - $27,700
Portugal - $15,800
Spain - $18,000
Sweden - $22,200
Switzerland - $28,600
UK - $22,800
USA - $36,200
The only European country I could find that beats the US is Luxembourg with its $36,400 per capita. Even CANADA and its $24,800 manages to beat all the G8 members in that list.
"There might be reasons for this but they belong to the 18th century not to the 21th."
The reason is "decentralization of power due to distrust of authority." And several European countries through the course of the 20th century have had very good examples of why authority shouldn't be trusted.
And since I'm going to get modded down to Offtopic/Flamebait anyway...
The EU and its member states are already giving examples of the abuse of power and trampling of personal rights this early into the 21st century. New York City and Washington, D.C. were attacked, and yet its the European politicans that are talking about shutting down mosques and denying entrance to their countries to any and all Arabs...
The EU used to make me laugh. Now they're frightening me. In my opinion, "The Europeans are doing just fine with it" is an argument against the US doing something, not for it.
Re:What's the problem... (Score:2)
Open your eyes. There, see him?
Re:What's the problem... (Score:2)
Somewhat apropos...
A Swedish government official, in praise of Sweden's socialist government, said to Milton Friedman, "In Scandanavia, we have no poverty."
Milton Friedman replied, "That's good. In America, among Scandanavians, we have no poverty either."
It all depends on the color of the glass through which you look.
Re:What's the problem... (Score:2, Informative)
We have ID cards since WWI (as far as I know). They are issued by the local authorities where you must register your residence.
Back in the seventies the ID was a little grey book with many pages. Every 10 years you had to renew it. If you moved, you had to walk to the town hall to have your new address manually entered. People in the crime business could do this by themselves with a potatoe and blue ink.
Blank IDs were kept in store at local authorities, whose remises where usually poorly protected against theft. This applied also to blank passports. Because this was how our local terrorists supposedly obtained forged IDs, it was decided at the beginning of the 80s to change procedures. Since then, ID and passport blanks are printed at the Federal Printery. The local autorities pass your personal data to the printery, and they send back the ID card with your photo and name on it.
They are made of bank note paper welded into plastic. It was stated that the new IDs are machine-readable, while the old ones were not.
I did not like the new cards so I did not apply for one. So I had none for 10 years or so. I did not run in any trouble. Now I have one because it is easier to open a bank account etc.
There remained one problem: the address. ID cards can not be reprinted every time you move. So your address is applied on the outside of the ID card with an adhesive sticker, which always goes off (at least in my wallet). This sticker is produced by the local autority. So when you have moved, you walk to the town hall and get a new sticker. Or, you get adhesive paper and a laser printer to forge one (for criminals only).
Local terrorism has ceased to exist, for various reasons, but not because of security measures of any sort. Our police autorities so far failed to intrude into terrorist networks of the seventies and eighties. Crime rate is still on the increase (although on a much lower level than in the US). The new IDs did not help a thing. Police have still no ID reading machines. Like in the old days with the little grey book, they use their radio equipment to communicate your name to somebody in headquarters, who checks if you are on the wanted list. This takes several minutes. The original idea was that one police officer could check the IDs of, for example, 100 train passengers in half an hour.
Did the IDs reduce civil liberties? I think not. I hardly ever have one with me. On average, I am asked to identify myself every 3 or 4 years (I live in a big city, white male with local accent). The police officer then tells me that I have to have my ID card with me. I tell him that this is wrong, the law only says that you have to identify yourself, by whatever means. So I display my gym member card, or something with my name on it. Either s/he believes me or not; but this applies also if I had the ID card, because they can be forged. So far I was always believed.
Years ago I had two appartments. One was my main residence, the other one for weekends. Then I gave up the main and moved into the other. I had to have it registered at town hall. I got a new sticker but they failed to enter me into the resident list: too complicated. This was revealed at the next election when they refused to allow me to vote: I were no resident of the area. I said I would object to the election result if I was not allowed to vote, and prevailed. Indeed there are estimates that up to 20% of citizen registry entries (which are kept by local authorities, there is no central [federal] citizen list) are outdated or wrong. Many people are registered where they do not live or vice versa.
When you move and trot obediently to town hall for your new sticker, they want a confirmation of your landlord (they have forms for that). Once I had a landlord who was not willing to give me one, so they refused to register me. Unfortunately I needed my passport renewed. So I insisted and argued that my relationship to the landlord was none of their business. The law actually says you are obliged to register where you live. Nothing is said about landlords. They refused nevertheless, and I went to a court and got a court order. I was back after 2 hours and got my registration and my passport renewed. That was cool.
Now they are about to introduce new ID cards with a finger print on it. The fed gvt says this would link the ID to its owner better than a portrait. One of the WTC terrorists lived in Hamburg and had several IDs. Ok, in the future he would have several IDs with his thumb print. - I wonder what they will do when I will refuse to have my prints taken.
Conclusion:
- ID cards do not increase security. The whole system of IDs and registration is full of flaws, one can easily overcome it.
- ID cards do not put civil liberties at risk. The whole system of IDs and registration is full of flaws, one can easily overcome it.
Re:What's the problem... (Score:2)
But you still have to change the address on your driver license, right?
And you must tell a lot of other people you are moving, so why not the police.? Think: assurance company, phone company, electricity company, gaz, TV, DSL, Frequent Flyer programs, Credit Cards, Online ECommerce sites, and so on... So why not the police?! At least they can find you if one of your relatives is involved in something bad (fatal car accident, anyone?)
Why wait the time making these damn thing? (Score:2)
what we need to do is moniter who is in this country better.
1) do extensive background checks on visa applications before they are allowed in.
2)when they get here, they must register with some agency (INS?) giving their name address and phone number of the place they will be staying at.
3)have interviews every 2-3 months to make sure information is updated.
4)have the states issue diffrent drivers licences/ state ID cards to aliens
5)make the states issue a uniform and permanent number to all state ID cards (in my state you get a new number every time you buy a new card)
this may make it a pain for people to come a d do business here but tough....give the aliens a harder time than the citizens.
Re:Why wait the time making these damn thing? (Score:2, Insightful)
How extensive of a background check should we do on a foreign tourist coming to the US for a two-week vacation in New York? There's been a lot of talk about closing loopholes in the student visa process, including tracking down people who overstay them. But as any potential terrorist can come in on a tourist visa, I don't really see the point.
Re:Why wait the time making these damn thing? (Score:2)
Re:Why wait the time making these damn thing? (Score:2)
ROFLMAO!
We can't get the INS to answer mailed letters or to answer the phone under any circumstances. The phone just rings nonstop or kicks us into "on-hold" hell. Letters, included those sent certified, are unanswered.
We'd LOVE having an interview with the INS so we can demand the return of several one-of-a-kind documents that they insisted upon having the originals of (with a bullshit legal promise that they would be returned).
I'd kind of like to get our marriage license back, along with a couple of birth certificates and other miscellaneous documents.
I want it! (Score:1)
If i did not have to worry about crime i would love an ID card. However, if i did not need to worry about crime i wouldn't need an ID card. I still want one nonetheless, because i bet it would be cool looking!
Just my $0.02.
AJ
another waste of energy and money (Score:1)
The additional cost of that new card to those who can't get it legally won't generate enough spending to solve the lack of buying in this economy either.
Tattoos. (Score:1)
Re:Tattoos. (Score:2)
Now, as much as I personally would like to see this particular individual holed up in a bunker, far away from yours truely, I have an inkling that the whole tattoo thing might be a bad idea to implement (and that's without the Nazi, THX-1138(?), cattle, etc. baggage taken into account).
Still, I really do like the DNA crosscheck idea.
Are you nuts?!? (Score:2)
Barcode tattoos on peoples' forearms?!? That's a ridiculous idea!
The tattoos should be on people foreheads. That way a computer can scan a crowd of people rapidly, provided there aren't too many hats. Forearms aren't nearly as visible.
Governing by Polling (Score:1)
Richard Clarke stressed Wednesday that the nuisance of online vandals and the occasional hacker should not be used as a yardstick to measure the threat of terrorism to cyberspace.
So they waited for the polling data to come back before they wrote the response. Frowns, my ass. They found out the average joe is not that much of a sheep. Uh-oh, time to duck and cover
1Alpha7
White House opposes... UK Government all for it... (Score:2, Informative)
Prototype of the National ID Card: (Score:1)
There's a nice prototype of the national id card.
Homeland Defense chief? (Score:1)
Why is it a bad thing? (Score:1)
Everyone seems to say that one of the main problems wiht a National ID card is identity theft.
It is my beleive that if the system was implimented properly it would make identity theft so hard it is almost impossable.
Think about it, when you call a bank to do phone banking or walk into a bank, you are identified by a a serious of numbers and/or signature. If you know the numbers OR you know how to fake the signature then you are who you say you are.
BUT, what if you had to present a ID card which contained a photograph of yourself (hard to fake), and also had biometric ID terminals: present thumb here for thumb scan, etc.
This could be taken to the next level in the future with devices that can plug into your computer or telephone to do the same thing. If you log onto your banks web site, they say "insert your thumb into your thumb print scanner now" - Your thumb print scanner then transfers the encrypted data to the bank for verification against a database.
Re:Why is it a bad thing? (Score:4, Interesting)
Because DMV employees were being bribed--as much as $5000 per license.
See, the thing is, if such a card is so powerful, then there will be a justification in getting a fraudulent one. Before photos were added to licenses (not all states require the photo incidentally) no one faked a license...because it couldn't do crap. No one bribed a DMV official for a license--they just drove the car. After the photo was added, then the license became a powerful document--now I can cash out someone's bank account, or write bad checks...et cetera.
And in the instance in California above--the criminals didn't even mess about trying to fake the card--they just bribed a DMV official. A biometric card wouldn't prevent this...because clearly the card would be made correctly--it's just representing the wrong identity. And if this were a national card, then there would be millions of cards made per year by thousands of government officials--all you have to do is find one to bribe (and it's easy...they don't make that much money ya know.)
In computers, they say that your security is as good as your biggest weakness. Consider the California driver's license--it's got microprinting and holograms and all that silly stuff. That's not the weakness of the card--the weakness is that it's issued to 30 million people by thousands of DMV employees and is verified at tens of thousands of different places. I don't care if you required DNA to issue such a card, the numbers just don't make it that secure.
Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
WHATS the point of ID's? We have drivers licences and passports and state ID's and All this other stuff. We also must remember that we are at war with terrorists. They kill themselves while they kill others. They don't care if you know who they are/were. Matter of fact, they probably prefer that you DO know.
This has a way of being inevitable... (Score:5, Informative)
Here in Australia we had a proposal for the `Australia Card' -- basically the same as this proposal, only not as technologically sophisticated. It was put to the people's vote (referendum or an election issue? I don't remember) and the people's response was to tell the proposers how to fold it into sharp corners, and where to stick it afterwards. That's Ok, though, because then they introduced the Tax File Number, which is a wannabe SSN -- you need it to earn an income (failure to provide a TFN is not illegal, but automatically results in you being taxed at 49.5%), to open a bank account, or just about anywhere else where you are using money in a non-trivial way.
The TFN was possible because we (the Australian population) had just fought furiously and won against a more draconian scheme, and were tired. Also, this almost slipped under the radar without comment, as the parliament rushed it through with very little debate, in the house or in public.
This may turn out to be another High Aim Tactic. Ask for something which is absolutely ridiculous, and let yourself be beaten back to what you wanted in the first place. Even if Ellison is serious (surely not...?) his overtures can -- and probably will -- be used by others with the same barrow to push.
The question is where to draw the line. How much freedom from surveillance do you want? Once you have figured that out, don't settle for one jot less! As soon as you rationalise that `I don't really need to be able to X' and bargain away the right to be able to do so, then you have just lost something precious which you will never get back.
Of course, things are rarely that simple, and some things are obviously stupid. (Such as, eg, `I demand the right to stockpile Anthrax spores'.) But the apparatchiks will use these examples to persuade you that the right to freely assemble, for example, is just too dangerous for you to have. It will not be put to you like that. It will be that some travel may have to be restricted, or that restrictions based on profiling [Hmm, you have travelled in the middle east, your family name is arabic, and you talk funny...] will be instituted `for the time being'.
If history teaches us anything, it is that `for the time being' can be translated `for the foreseeable future', and that just means `until it is no longer profitable to do so'.
Wasn't it a Founding Father who said `the Price of Liberty is Eternal Vigilance'?
"Temporary Measure" - Income Tax (Score:2, Insightful)
Hmmm. Kinda like the Liberals getting elected with a plan to repeal the GST (VAT-like tax). They never did. Hmmmm.
Temporary measures tend to not be. Governments tend not to repeal measures giving them more money or power.
The old RPG Traveller (by Marc Miller) captured this by pointing out (in the rules for generating worlds) the relationship between high population and oppressive government and between oppressive government and high levels of law and law enforcement.
It was only a game. But strangely reality seems to be following pretty much the pattern they mapped out....
Tomb
Re:"Temporary Measure" - Income Tax (Score:2)
[OT] Re: Traveller (Score:2)
I myself am working on software for Traveller. Called travtrack [sf.net], it is in the middling stages. It's very cool, using gtk+ and glib [gtk.org] for data structures, classes, inheritance &c. and guile [gnu.org] for its scripting language. Ideally, I'd like it to someday be the emacs of interstellar science-fiction RPGs.
Right now it's surprisingly far along, and is doing fairly well on the SourceForge ratings. It's just me working on it, but I'm hoping that once I get release 1.0 of both travtrack (the actual galaxy-tracking software) and travlib (the library which implements Traveller objects) more developers will pitch in.
Traveller's very, very far from dead.
Re:This has a way of being inevitable... (Score:2)
Nope, it wasn't. The quote has been commonly attributed to Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine and probably others, but, in fact, was uttered:
"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."
by Wendell Phillips, who paraphrased John Philpot Curran, who said, "The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance."
Phillips' quote came in an 1852 speech to the Massacheusetts Antislavery Society. Curran's was from his Speech upon the Right of Election made in 1790.
Nonetheless, the quote, regardless of who made it, is well worth remembering.
-h-
They finally listened to us!! (Score:1)
When did they start talking to /.ers??
Of course (Score:2)
Now with that said, I wouldn't totally discount the idea. Why not require all foreigners over on visas submit thumb prints that are tied to cards? It would make it harder to "legally" enter the country on a stolen or counterfeit visa, though of course not impossible, but considering the paranoia in the US now it would make a "sleeper agents" job a bit more difficult.
Crazy Larry. (sarcasm) (Score:2)
"As far as anyone can tell, the only real supporter of the scheme is that Larry Ellison guy. He is so obsessed with being richer than Bill Gates that he will use any occasion to pimp out Oracle. I think it has something to do with him being a caveman; anyone with that much testosterone is obviously going to have a hard time coping in an industry where nobody really gives a damn about penis size."
Too Late (Score:2)
A Government Issued ID Card
State Driver's License
State Identification Card
Military ID
Military Dependant ID
Passport
I'm sure there are other official forms of ID, but these are the 'mainstream' ones.
At least one of these is necessary 99% of the time as proof of identity or age. You don't need one, but how much can you really do without one?
Passports (Score:2)
Re:Too Late (Score:2)
It's all about databases. If you have a bunch of ID's, you need to correlate them in order to query across different recordsets. That's a pain in the butt. Basically, as far as I can tell, the anti national ID crowd simply wants to make it difficult for the state trooper to look up your travel history when he's sitting back in his car writing you up for speeding through Missouri.
That may be a noble cause, but it's misguided. It's misguided, because correlating these different recordsets will happen anyway. It's a pain, but to the extent it hasn't already happened, it will. Your tax dollars will (and are) pay(ing) for it. A national ID system would untangle this mess.
In other words, not having a national ID system doesn't prevent anything from happening that isn't happening already. It just makes it more expensive.
The problem with Larry and Co. is their unabashed opportunistic greed. But I would still love to see some of my tax money being spent to implement systems that eliminate waste and inefficiency. This is a perfect example of the benefit of free software. Such a system, implemented with free software, could be audited to the satisfaction of the caring public, to ensure it was designed to serve the public interest.
The discussion really should be: "How do we prevent the abuse of public records?", as well as "How do we prevent the pilfering of public funds by opportunistic scumbags?". The Big Brother paranoia this subject incites reminds of nothing so much as the hysteria accompanying the initial broadcast of "War of the Worlds." Would a national ID system solve all problems? Of course not. It's nothing more than an attempt to simplify an overburdened beauracracy.
Dumb idea (Score:2)
Maybe Larry needs to spend more on bribes^H^H^H^H^H^H campaign contributions if he wants his ideas to get a warmer reception in DC.
Ellison's reply... (Score:2, Funny)
A "Virtual", National ID Card Already Exists (Score:2)
As much as my inner civil libertarian likes the White House backing away from a national ID card, I really have to wonder at that last comment. Specifically, if you have some way to correlate data between multiple cards (DMV databases, social security, etc), isn't it the same thing as having a national ID? Mine just happens to say "California Driver's Liscence" on the front while yours says "M.I.T. Student ID." It just takes one giant database record merge to put the whole mess together.
It seems the civil liberty issue is not the use of a single card (as symbolic as that might be) but the sharing of the information already out there. The "record merge" can already be done under limited circumstances (e.g. manually by a detective with warrants to search records at all the instituions). The real problem here would be the wholesale sharing of that information, especially electronically for any bureaucrat with too much free time to peruse.
Viewed from that point, I don't know whether to relax about a national ID card (since the thing essentially already exists) or freak out in panic (for the same reasons).
Please explain to perplex Europeans (Score:2)
I am sorry but I don't get it ?!
What would you show to proof your identity to someone? Your birth certificate ?!
Re:Please explain to perplex Europeans (Score:2)
People are also concerned with the electronic aspect of the ID card, and tracking associated with it. However, the government doesn't have the time to track everybody...they really don't. If you're not committing felonies or conspiring with people who do, then you're probably not worth their time. While you may not want the government to know how often you buy condoms, you have to realize that they really don't care.
In essence, the only potential problem I see is if the ID card is electronic, and its security is comprimised. If we place total faith in the security of an ID card, then all it takes is one good attack to steal quite a few identities and wreak havoc. Think stealing credit card numbers on a much much larger and more impactful scale. Because the database would be centrally located, getting access to any of it would give you access to all 280 some million Americans, including the rich and powerful.
Re:Please explain to perplex Europeans (Score:2)
Put through the national ID, and guys like this will just have a half-dozen separate identities in the national database, and each will appear perfectly legitimate as long as they don't show more than one card at a time. All the electronics will do is make the cards _look_ more trustworthy.
Re:Please explain to perplex Europeans (Score:2, Insightful)
Europeans, on the other hand, think this is paranoid and stupid. We simply look at things differently and there's no need to try to get either one to change. Sorry, but that's just how it is.
Driver's license will suffice in most cases since it has your picture on it. When accepting employment, you have to combine different forms of ID (there are different combinations) like birth cirtificate and driver's license to prove that you're legal.
Re:Please explain to perplex Europeans (Score:2)
Perhaps Euros will grow understand this better as the EU grows. Once your passport is not required most everywhere you go, you might begin to like the feeling of acceptance, everywhere you go. And you might even grow to dislike when someone questions you about what "state" you belong to. Privacy is not just about protection, it's also about acceptance.
Although it's been questioned alot lately, with the new legislation coming out of my country, (Who would think of a 99-1 vote, after our elections?) Americans still expect privacy. As open and friendly as we have always been, we reserve the right to our privacy, both in business and in our relationship to our government. And we consider privacy a building block of our liberty and freedom.
Therefore, any identification process or device which we dont willingly submit to, and choose to give or receive, we instinctively distrust. You might hear talk of Social Security numbers. We all have one, but many of us refuse to give it out, as is often unquestioningly done with identification numbers in Europe.
But it's more than that. Consider how identification records, so immaculately kept by the Dutch (say), affected the subjugation and subsequent roundups which were carried out by the nazi regime. It's always a risk to give information about yourself, especially when it will be permanently stored, and regularly updated.
Shit, most americans dont even like filling in our tax forms. Much less the multitude of annual surveys which many Euro coutries send out to willing citizens. It's scary to us! :-)
Note - To be fair, the Dutch have proposed encryption of personal data in the national records with keys kept by the person who actually owns the data. This is good, but escrow access could still be a problem.
Why frown on this, after the "PATRIOT" act passed? (Score:2)
Why would the White House frown on a national US ID card, when it was all in favor of the strongly authoritarian "PATRIOT" act?
There's a weird undercurrent in USA Right Wing politics against things like national ID cards. The more crazed Republicans ("Black Helicopter Republicans", sort of like "Log Cabin Republicans", only the average BHR gets less respect) usually believe that national ID cards equate to the "Mark of the Beast". I can't really believe that consideration of weird, fringe beliefs keeps the current White House from doing the national ID card thing.
Not really a surprise (Score:2, Insightful)
There are still some ethics in Washington, surprisingly.
and it's not like anyone didn't just see this as a ploy to sell more copies of Oracle anyway.
A modest proposal... (Score:3, Insightful)
If they ever DO mandate a national ID card/number I want it to be mandatory to provide it for registration in federal elections and to be collected federally and checked for uniqueness. That would go a long way toward eliminating election fraud.
"Everyone I've talked to doesn't think it's a good idea," Clarke said.
Which is why I almost didn't post this, for fear of turning more Republicans on to the idea of national ID cards than it turns Democrats off from it.
In case you haven't been following the issues, it's primarily Democratic legislators who have been in favor of a national ID card and other tightening of citizen tracking.
But the Democrats are the main beneficiaries of the votes of illegal/undocumented non-citizen voters. So they have also been strong opponents of voter verification and proponents of unexamined registration and voting schemes such as "motor-voter" and always-absentee-without-reason voting.
By the way - SS # would not work for this. (Score:2)
There are circumstances where a Citizen qualifies to vote but does not have or need an SS number.
There are a few duplications - both multiple people under one number and people with more than one number.
Non-citizens have SS numbers legally.
Criminal conviction status and other issues that might affect eligibility to vote aren't attached to SS number (with the possible exception of military discharge status).
Re:A modest proposal... (Score:2)
Actually, I was thinking that attaching this mandate to any "National ID" bill that came down the pike would be just the poison pill to kill it D-E-D dead.
Re: (Score:2)
Why stuck on smartcards? (Score:5, Interesting)
smartcards suck. The readers are overpriced, the cards are delicate and cannot be worn on the person without clothing or in the shower.
I have an Ibutton ring, I shower with it on, If I'm buck naked (Ok all of you can stop going Ewwwwww!) I still have my ibuton on me. It stores more, can do more(Java VM built in) is pretty much indestructable (stainless steel) and is super secure/tamper proof. (Open the ibutton can and it releases the inert gas inside and causes the silicon inside to quickly erase/destruct)
I log in my computer, unlock my home's doors, and open the garage door with it. I also store my bank accountnumbers inside and when in my reader that cost a paltry $15.00, it also stores my login/password for websites and automagically logs me in.
granted the java ring is expensive ($75.00) bit the ibuton in single price quantity with 32K of flash storage is around $5.00 and about $2.00 if you are only interested in a ID.
smartcards are $5.00 each in lots of 100, the reader is horribly overpriced, and durability is not there by any means.
A national id is a horribe idea, but thinking of using a smartcard for it is plain stupidity.
About as stupid as thinking that Oracle was being nice and generous by offering to design the database.... Geee, what humanitarians.
Re:Why stuck on smartcards? (Score:2)
No identification method can't be spoofed.
Including your () fingerless ring.
All we'll get by trying to lock them down is eliminating the liberty of people who aren't the problem.
--Blair
"Other than that, crappy movie."
Re:Why stuck on smartcards? (Score:2)
everything you can do with a card I can do with this ring and more..
Like impliment an entire digital copy of the enigma machine on it in java (yuck), or just use the built in encryption system.
Just another device - but is it asymetric? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think I am more comfortable with this than with my data sitting unencrypted, on some doctor's PC somewhere. Otoh, can you imagine teaching a whole nation how to create and use pincodes longer than four digits? Scary.
The only difference a National ID would make. (Score:2, Interesting)
Here in California ID is required for everything. For example, I just (20 minutes ago) requested some info about cable modems. I needed to provide an ID number before getting any info!
Okay, so I don't have a Californian driving license. I don't have a social security card. If I didn't have a UK passport I would be pretty stuffed. That would mean: no bank account, no apartment, no TV, and (most importantly) no Beer.
So I have to carry my passport everywhere (and risk losing it - which would be a real bummer). I figure it is okay to leave it with my clothes whilst surfing off pacific beach, but technically that's against the INS rules.
Presumably all Americans need to carry their driving license nearly always. That sucks.
So, overall, I don't think a national ID would make any difference to anybody's privacy, and it would make going out considerably easier. (Gesh, half the doormen at bars/clubs don't know where to find my photo in my passport).
National ID =~ Passport (Score:2)
Everybody has a social security number. Look at your social security card. It's a piece of cheap paper that you could print yourself. Driver's licenses are more difficult to duplicate. But not so difficult that you'd entrust them for highly secure transactions. What's the point? Let's call a spade a spade. Another work for what we're talking about is authentication. Are you who you say you are? Something you have, something you are, something you know - the triptych of secure authentication. Give everyone a card with their picture on it, containing a unique code, with a PIN. What a sly dog, Lawrence. Good way to beat William to the punch, you good samaritan humanitarian, you.
Identifier or Dossier? (Score:2)
I think the advocates of the notion have only themselves to blame for not presenting a good-faith attempt at that goal.
_Irony_ in politics (Score:2)
I think the only way to get politicians on your side of any technological issue is to scare them. From now on, we should just push the absolute worst-case scenario of issues we don't want to become a part of policy.
If the DMCA is passed, um, people could be forced to sign complicated contracts just to listen to music!
Actually, that's not quite frightening enough.
Maybe one of you can do better?
Re:Anyone ever heard of a driver's license? (Score:2, Insightful)
Hey dumbass (Score:2)
Re:Anyone ever heard of a driver's license? (Score:1)
Of course I can't find the article, but I read somewhere recently that a national organization of state DMV officials has convened to standardize the license process, including issuance and information stored (on the card via magstripe and in the big database). Keep an eye on this development, but it is going to be a while to get 50 DMVs to agree on something.
Re:Anyone ever heard of a driver's license? (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Driver's licence is optional.
2) Driver's licence is state-controlled.
3) Driving is a state-granted ability; citizenship is a birthright.
4) Lose your driver's license, you can't drive until you get a new one; lose your national ID card, ???
etc, etc.
More interesting than it would appear. (Score:2)
Drivers License databases are shared between states. Those records can also be used to keep track of people. So in this sense there is no difference.
However, Ellison's vision would have these ID cards linked to a database of fingerprints, and people with the ID cards, though they would be optional, would have easier access to airplanes. This could actually reduce security, so I see why the opposition (and Ellison's attempt to make a buck in services after sale).
Re:Immigrants (Score:2)
would allow the US the explot undocumented immigrants even more.
---
By chance do you mean illegal aliens?
The only reason they are undocumented is because they're breaking the law and haven't been caught yet.
These euphemisms are seriously getting out of hand. 'Undocumented' indeed.
Re:The line forms to the right... (Score:2)
They have them at the University of Minnesota. At least one person was discovered to have found a [simple] way to re-charge his card for no money. I don't think it even involved a card writer, just some trickery of the vending machines. With a writer you can do more I'm sure. (assuming you can discover the algorythm and key)