Article

2006-03-03 -Short Attention Span Theater-

U.S.-Canada border pass card a bad idea, U.S. senator says

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Posted by Rafael 2006-03-03 14:19|| || Front Page|| [7 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Yes, national ID cards are that bad. I've seen plenty of people excluded from society because they didn't have an ordinary picture ID. And they couldn't get a picture ID without a picture ID.

And without a picture ID you can't rent an apartment, and you can't get a job. But this is now, bad as it is.

With a national ID, all of a sudden hundreds of intrusive and poorly thought out systems come into play. Databases filled with incorrect information that *can't* be corrected, are thrust into your life based on nothing more than bad luck.

Someone with a name kind of like yours has an outstanding warrant for a traffic citation in Florida--with a national ID card, you discover you can't get a driver's license in Oregon until you travel to Florida to get arrested so you can prove you are not who they think you are. (This is now, too, BTW. Happened to a friend.)

Other problems are that everybody wants to use the national ID card for their own purposes, like the Social Security number was misused. How about ridiculously low-security systems such as credit cards, with 1970s quality security, associated with your ID card? A nightmare.

You know they issue the damn things consecutively? So if you steal one credit card, you automatically know the numbers of the next 100 or so? And they adamantly refuse to improve their security.

Your medical records will be associated with your national ID card, making it very easy for your insurance company to discontinue coverage when you are no longer cost effective, that is, when you want them to pay for your medical costs, not just to pay them premiums. Thank you, HIPPA Act.

Look, right now the Brits are trying the national ID card scheme. See what a disaster it will be for them, before even thinking about the same for the US.

Posted by Anonymoose 2006-03-03 16:34|| 2006-03-03 16:34|| Front Page Top

#2 If it improves security, why not?

Ben Franklin once said: "Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." That's you he's talking about, Rafael. And nothing you've said leads me to believe he's wrong. Happy Brithday, Ben.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2006-03-03 16:57|| 2006-03-03 16:57|| Front Page Top

#3 Contrast your response with that of Anonymoose.

I know what national identity cards are all about, from another world in another lifetime. (cards hell, identity booklets!) My experience with them is a little different, hence my statement that they aren't all that bad. Anonymoose did a great job pointing out how this would not be the case here.

Now, I'm just wondering Nimble, do you agree with Chertoff? Do you support these new border cards (PASS I think they're called)?

Posted by Rafael">Rafael 2006-03-03 17:52|| 2006-03-03 17:52|| Front Page Top

#4 Passports work fine. If they don't fix them, don't invent a new form.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2006-03-03 17:58|| 2006-03-03 17:58|| Front Page Top

#5 show your ID - quit whining . Take the tinfoil off for a second. Does the US control who Canada admits as political refugees? Check the list and see if you agree. Whether it's a PASS, passport, Driver's License (restricted to legal citizens/aliens) or other hard-to-counterfeit ID, you may bitch and moan, but you'll show it or stay home, because the rest of rational America will DEMAND it. F*&king black helicopter nuts

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2006-03-03 18:08|| 2006-03-03 18:08|| Front Page Top

#6 Just who exactly is whining? I'm all for whatever security measures are deemed necessary! National ID cards or whatever.

You'll note that these PASS cards are for AMERICANS crossing the border. Canadians will be required to show passports. Fucking black helicopter nuts! Or were you refering to Spemble?

Posted by Rafael">Rafael 2006-03-03 18:21|| 2006-03-03 18:21|| Front Page Top

#7 Yo, brilliant one - he's referring to Moose and (to my surprise), NS.

Posted by .com 2006-03-03 18:23|| 2006-03-03 18:23|| Front Page Top

#8 Moose has had Black Helicopter Syndrome for a long long time...

Posted by .com 2006-03-03 18:24|| 2006-03-03 18:24|| Front Page Top

#9 From the black helicopter society I resent that!! NSDQ!~

Posted by 49 pan">49 pan 2006-03-03 20:17|| 2006-03-03 20:17|| Front Page Top

#10 .com: Look, you may be filled with the milk of human kindness, trusting of your fellow man, honest as the day is long and always willing to give a sucker an even break.

That ain't my hood. I was raised around cutthroats, blackguards, hackers, teachers, thieves, creeps, rats, historians, finks, con-artists, bureaucrats, senior NCOs, spooks, and I suspect a few pimps. To say I have had a colorful vantage of the species is an understatement.

However, I see mankind as neither inherently good or evil. Weak and lazy, more to the point. So I rely on history.

If villains have used it for their purposes in past, and yet now, someone claims great good will come of it, call me dubious.

For this reason, I see no more purpose in ID cards than did Heinlein's Lazarus Long: that once a place adopts them, it is going to hell, so you had best pack your bags and leave.

In fact, I lump ID cards along with all the other accoutrements of the police state. They are well known, and the earliest, best example I can think of is that of the first emperor of China, Ch'in, whose techniques bore a startling similarity in the ancient world, to those used in East Germany.

Dammit, they keep doing it the same way every time.

And yet you say, but *THIS* time, the ID cards will be used for a GOOD purpose! Yeah, right.

Face it, this is the same damn argument liberals always use to try to justify socialism and communism. It didn't work in 100 OTHER countries, but that is just because they didn't TRY hard enough, or didn't spend enough money, or they were inferior ethnically, or whatever. IF WE CAN JUST TRY SOCIALISM OR COMMUNISM HERE, WE *KNOW* IT WILL WORK!!!! IT JUST *HAS* TO BECAUSE IT SOUNDS SO GOOD!!!

Same with goddamn ID cards.

Face it, sometimes an idea just sucks, no matter how good it sounds. It's not paranoia to know that it sucks ahead of time, as it has sucked 100 times in 100 different places in the past.

Pattern recognition is one of the hallmarks of people who get through life with all of their fingers, toes and eyes.

Prove that you are smarter than a liberal. Look at the British experiment with ID cards, objectively. See what they get out of the deal vs. the major pain in the ass it turns out to be.

It won't happen quickly. Look how long it took for the National Health Care to go to the dogs. But I can almost guarantee it will be for crap. As it has been, and so shall it ever be, forevermore.

Posted by Anonymoose 2006-03-03 22:02|| 2006-03-03 22:02|| Front Page Top

#11 It's coming. Period. Get your 2¢ in constructively with everyone who you can collar. That would be good for us all because, indeed, there are those who will try to abuse it.

As for your colorful background - we might have a lot in common, lol. If I wasn't a near-total recluse, not out of paranoia - simply a personal choice, it would be fun to trade stories, heh.

Grab your congressman and anyone else you figure can steer it in the best direction.

Posted by .com 2006-03-03 22:48|| 2006-03-03 22:48|| Front Page Top

#12 Uhh... I hate to sound the doom-n-gloom, but all you people protesting ID cards need to take a look in your wallets (or equivalent). See that driver's licence? There it is. Try cashing a check without it.

The only thing standing in the way of the Orwell Nightmare that you are so worried about is the finite capacities of the Gummint to actualy do something.

While everyone here can come up with anecdotes all day long, your actual fears are mostly just potential. If your worries were to actualy come to pass, we would all have much more important / immediate things to worry about. I, for one would probably be mobilized to help implement whatever police state was being started up, and I would have to decide on wether I wanted to join the resistance in the woods, or be a mole from within resistance sympathiser/agent.

Posted by N guard 2006-03-03 22:53|| 2006-03-03 22:53|| Front Page Top

#13 As far as a US police state goes, I have a simple way to tell if we are really becoming a police state, or if someone is having a paranoid delusion.

I call it the MSCE ditch digger scale.

The typical paranoid delusion is the fear that when the government "takes over", it will take all of the Microsoft Certified Engineers and make them dig ditches. This is because a paranoid police state America needs lots and lots of ditches for some reason, and heck, it's not like those engineers were doing anything constructive, anyway.

Of course this is ludicrous, but it shows the difference between a delusion and reality.

In a real police state, the government would use gradualism to take away *accustomed* rights, such as the right to bear arms, the right to free speech, the right to practice religion, etc. It would justify each of these as necessary to combat "the threat".

A real police state is also very obsessive about surveillance, and more than anything else, this shows the large grey area between a liberal state and an authoritarian state. A liberal state only uses authoritarian techniques against a small, criminal minority. An authoritarian state insists that only by inflicting such techniques on everybody, are they *able* to police the criminal minority.

So, for example, the US is far more a liberal state because we are allowed to own guns with few restrictions, compared to elsewhere. We can also be really abrasive with our political speech, even going so far as to suggest a politician dyes their hair, without being supressed, like in Germany.

However, we are more authoritarian over such things as highway speed limits, and shrug off the right to drive as fast as you want, which is beloved in Germany. So our government could get really abusive about speed limits and we would shrug it off as not particularly oppressive. But if they tried restricting our ownership of dogs and cats, there would be pitchforks and torches in the streets.

Posted by Anonymoose 2006-03-03 23:18|| 2006-03-03 23:18|| Front Page Top

23:57 Fred
23:56 JosephMendiola
23:55 DMFD
23:47 JosephMendiola
23:45 DMFD
23:32 RD
23:23 JosephMendiola
23:18 Anonymoose
23:16 USN Ret.
23:15 Listen To Dogs
23:06 Frank G
23:04 Frank G
23:00 Anonymoose
22:59 Listen To Dogs
22:53 N guard
22:48 .com
22:45 3dc
22:43 3dc
22:41 3dc
22:39 3dc
22:21 .com
22:02 Anonymoose
21:58 mag44_vaquero
21:57 Xenophon