From IBM to Real ID
"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, it makes you so sick at heart, that...you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon wheels...and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all." - Mario Savio, 1964
The Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in 1964 was about freedom of speech, but Savio's famous speech, excerpted above, was not only about the need for freedom in a society predicated upon the belief that we have essential rights and freedoms ("life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," among other things), but also about the regimentation, the bureaucratization, the soulessness of society at large. The IBM punch cards of the era epitomized this facelessness, the unbending, unyielding step of procedure for the sake of procedure. Despite its multicultural population and blended traditions, the American government does Prussian efficiency better than the Prussians did themselves.
Today's equivalent to the IBM punch card doesn't fully exist on its own yet, but it's definitely coming. The concept of a National ID Card spooks people out, and rightly so. But we have elements of this already. Our Social Security cards, for example, contains a facet of a future ID Card-- an identification number/tag. As it is, it seems you have to give your SSN for just about anything these days, and that scares me. Legally, only the Social Security Administration and a select number of other gummint agencies need your number at all. Yet everyone from the credit card companies to the video store to the library wants you to put down your SSN on forms, applications, and all kinds of papers. Some states use your SSN for driver's licenses, and quite a few colleges and universities use them as student identifiers. I generally refuse, and then, if necessary, I'll let them view my driver's license or use my driver's license number- most of the time that mollifies people.
That's another component right there: our driver's licenses. More and more, a lot of places are using driver's licenses as a means not only to identify you, but also to keep tabs on you. It's also becoming more and more difficult to get a driver's license. My mother-in-law told us about her experience renewing her license in Virginia, and it sounded like a nightmare. She had to get her birth certificate, her school transcripts, her divorce papers, and all kinds of stuff together just to show she was who she was.
Take these things together, meld them into one, and presto! Instant National ID. Think it's fantasy? Well then, think again. Today I read this article in Salon, about the advent of a national ID card, and how the new process will make getting your first driver's license years ago seem like child's play. More and more, we're going to end up with experiences like my mother-in-law's, where it takes more than a day to obtain a driver's license and where the total burden will be on you and me. Additionally, as the article points out, such IDs will just result in yet another database. Given the recent problems with multinational corporations losing data, computers, and disks with tons of personal and financial information on them, and the very real threat of the seduction of an easily pliable employee being lured into giving away SSNs, credit card numbers, and all kinds of other personal information, is this really something we want? Not only will we continue to be depersonalized and reduced to numbers, but in this day and age of laptops and tech-savvy criminals, it's not just a seemingly undecipherable punchcard anymore-- it's a database that exploits our privacy, our personal lives, yet does nothing else for us.As the article also points out, the main rationale for such identification needs is to prevent terrorists. But like any criminal, a terrorist isn't going to let a new form of identification stop them, just as the reworking of our money doesn't prevent counterfeiters from co-opting our monetary system, and just as teens of every generation have bartered for fake IDs so they can party. What our gummint desperately needs to recognize (and for all their supposed knowledge and "intelligence", they still don't get it) is that if something is created by humans, eventually some other human is going to figure it out or bypass it-- and those with fewer scruples will have no problem figuring out how to exploit weaknesses of any kind.
Some machines are great. Some technology is wonderful, admirable, helpful. But national ID cards and the machine that permits them is odious, and if we don't speak up, we may regret allowing the machine to further invade our lives.
The Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in 1964 was about freedom of speech, but Savio's famous speech, excerpted above, was not only about the need for freedom in a society predicated upon the belief that we have essential rights and freedoms ("life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," among other things), but also about the regimentation, the bureaucratization, the soulessness of society at large. The IBM punch cards of the era epitomized this facelessness, the unbending, unyielding step of procedure for the sake of procedure. Despite its multicultural population and blended traditions, the American government does Prussian efficiency better than the Prussians did themselves.
Today's equivalent to the IBM punch card doesn't fully exist on its own yet, but it's definitely coming. The concept of a National ID Card spooks people out, and rightly so. But we have elements of this already. Our Social Security cards, for example, contains a facet of a future ID Card-- an identification number/tag. As it is, it seems you have to give your SSN for just about anything these days, and that scares me. Legally, only the Social Security Administration and a select number of other gummint agencies need your number at all. Yet everyone from the credit card companies to the video store to the library wants you to put down your SSN on forms, applications, and all kinds of papers. Some states use your SSN for driver's licenses, and quite a few colleges and universities use them as student identifiers. I generally refuse, and then, if necessary, I'll let them view my driver's license or use my driver's license number- most of the time that mollifies people.
That's another component right there: our driver's licenses. More and more, a lot of places are using driver's licenses as a means not only to identify you, but also to keep tabs on you. It's also becoming more and more difficult to get a driver's license. My mother-in-law told us about her experience renewing her license in Virginia, and it sounded like a nightmare. She had to get her birth certificate, her school transcripts, her divorce papers, and all kinds of stuff together just to show she was who she was.
Take these things together, meld them into one, and presto! Instant National ID. Think it's fantasy? Well then, think again. Today I read this article in Salon, about the advent of a national ID card, and how the new process will make getting your first driver's license years ago seem like child's play. More and more, we're going to end up with experiences like my mother-in-law's, where it takes more than a day to obtain a driver's license and where the total burden will be on you and me. Additionally, as the article points out, such IDs will just result in yet another database. Given the recent problems with multinational corporations losing data, computers, and disks with tons of personal and financial information on them, and the very real threat of the seduction of an easily pliable employee being lured into giving away SSNs, credit card numbers, and all kinds of other personal information, is this really something we want? Not only will we continue to be depersonalized and reduced to numbers, but in this day and age of laptops and tech-savvy criminals, it's not just a seemingly undecipherable punchcard anymore-- it's a database that exploits our privacy, our personal lives, yet does nothing else for us.As the article also points out, the main rationale for such identification needs is to prevent terrorists. But like any criminal, a terrorist isn't going to let a new form of identification stop them, just as the reworking of our money doesn't prevent counterfeiters from co-opting our monetary system, and just as teens of every generation have bartered for fake IDs so they can party. What our gummint desperately needs to recognize (and for all their supposed knowledge and "intelligence", they still don't get it) is that if something is created by humans, eventually some other human is going to figure it out or bypass it-- and those with fewer scruples will have no problem figuring out how to exploit weaknesses of any kind.
Some machines are great. Some technology is wonderful, admirable, helpful. But national ID cards and the machine that permits them is odious, and if we don't speak up, we may regret allowing the machine to further invade our lives.
posted by Mr. Sandman | 9:33 PM
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