By John Ballard
I don't know why the call this news.
It isn't.
The national ID program would be titled the Believe System, an acronym for Biometric Enrollment, Locally stored Information and Electronic Verification of Employment.
It would require all workers across the nation to carry a card with a digital encryption key that would have to match work authorization databases.
�The cardholder�s identity will be verified by matching the biometric identifier stored within the microprocessing chip on the card to the identifier provided by the cardholder that shall be read by the scanner used by the employer,� states the Democratic legislative proposal.
This was the subject of another post only a few weeks back.
How much longer do we have to continue avoidable confusion about
identification because there is not enough political will to demand a
national ID card once and for all?We have passports.
We have state ID cards.
We have corporate ID cards.
We have school ID cards.
We have a raft of ID cards for immigrants (even though they are
easily and widely counterfeited and almost never used by employers).But I looked at my Social Security card and it clearly says "For
Social Security purposes only. Not for identification."
Sheesh!
How long, as they say, do we keep doing the same thing before we figure
out it isn't working?Credit card companies keep incredible amounts of data on us. Every
time I put gas in my car I wonder why none of those little numbers on my
credit card gets messed up so I don't get the bill. But every time they
find their way on to my monthly statement. This has been going on for
decades and they still haven't made a mistake like that!Three national credit reporting agencies keep an eye on everyone
dealing with credit, although they don't let anyone see without charging
them a fee. Consequently they have lots of wrong stuff that most of us
never know about unless we take steps to investigate. But that is not
the point. The point is that information and identification of
everybody is already out there, even when the details are sometimes
wrong.
Why is so much time being wasted on this crap?
I love and respect the ACLU but in this case they are defending buggy whips and garters.
An avalanche of willful abuse, neglect and malfeasance in Washington is like guano piling up in a feed lot. The country is sinking is a quagmire of stupidity. As with our financial system, a deficit of social values is passing for a surplus. Just a few hours ago I heard someone at the Fair & Balanced network argue we should end birthright citizenship, a bigoted appeal to xenophobia if ever I heard one.
As described, the Believe system still falls short of a National ID card, but if I had a new baby I would try to get him or her one, just as I opened Social Security accounts, as soon as they could be biometrically eligible. (It's an "employment" card, you know. The sooner they go to work, the better. Ask any parent.)
The military sector is out of control.
Populist ignorance is at an all-time high.
Climate change denial is treated like any other story.
Crazy no longer has meaning.
CVS and three grocery stores keep up with my buying habits.
Everywhere I go in cyberspace I find "ads" with pictures of people I don't like. It's worse than robo-calls.
Hell, Facebook knows more about us than we know about ourselves.
Do it and move on.
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Followup: A look around Blogtopia <signum crusis skippy> tells me I'm in a minority.
Oh, well, it's not the first time...won't be the last.
I don't know how much more evidence we need.
What good would it do us? And do you trust the information in the hands of the people who would hold it?
ReplyDeleteYou've got valid points; we do all have a record. Some of us, however, purposefully keep our record as short as possible. I, for example, pay cash for everything i can because i don't want to be in the credit card company's system showing where and what i spend my money on. I refuse to use those little key chain "discount" cards from stores because the minor savings isn't worth them tracking my buying habits. It's just my personal thing. (i'm an 86 year old man trapped in a 36 year old body)
And when i need high identification i have a passport which would still be a higher form of identification than a National ID card. Passports already have an RFID chip. I'm sure that the next generation will have biometric data. If i take a new job somewhere now i'll have to prove my citizenship with either A. multiple forms of government id or B. my passport.
If a national id is important, why not just mandate a passport? Does the federal government need yet another bureaucracy? And if the new national id won't get you into a foreign country, then it's worthless...replacing something that does more, better with two things that do less.
As I mentioned at the end of this morning's post, I have abundant first-hand experience with I-9 forms used to document employment eligibility. You can believe me when I tell you there are plenty of really excellent counterfeit ID cards for those who need them.
ReplyDeleteA biometric ID card is long overdue. I see no reason to wait for fifty states to piss around for the next decade or two and still not have anything resembling a viable system that can be used nationally. I can assure you that drivers' licenses are certainly not the solution.
I notice a convenience store where I often get coffee has a biometric fingerprint device they use to cash payroll checks for some of their customers. I don't know how it works but I sure wish one had been available to me in the food business back in the day when occasional rubber checks were as predictable as walkouts.
As for passports, when my wife and I got ours it took a long time and cost too much to be universally practicable. And I'm told that a US passport is one of the most valuable documents in the world for those with nefarious motives. There are places in America where the cost of a contract killing is much lower than the underground return on a passport. And how easy is it to claim it was lost or burned in a fire? So what about passports of dead people? Or those in vegetative states or dementia? How easily could they be misused? Should I go on?
Sorry. The technology is here. And it will only get better. I'm sold on biometrics.
you guys are missing the point.
ReplyDeleteIt is not about information, it is about PERMISSION. Imagine being unable to get a national ID, or them being able to turn it off in order to force you to do something or other.
If a credit card messes up, then you get another card until the problem is resolved. If a national ID card gets messed up then you are SOL for work, retirement payments, bank accounts, you name it.
I live in ID, when I applied for a drivers license I also got a voters registration card. My name was mis spelled when copied from the application to the actual license and voters reg card. I did not notice. How long do you think it took me to get this "little" problem resolved? After I informed them that it was incorrect, who did they think had the problem? me or them? I HAD A PROBLEM. I just gave up... but they refused to renew and refused to give me another drivers license, until i PROVED I was who I already Knew I was.
Does anybody really want their whole lives at the whims of government organizations like the DMV?