Been awhile, eh?
Originally Posted on January 11th, 2008:
My poor, poor neglected blog. There’s so much that’s happened since last time that.. well, I’m not sure where to start.
RealID. This turd has been floating in the toilet known as Washington D.C. for quite awhile now. Today, I find out that they’re trying to renew efforts to implement it.
Besides the obvious difficulties to overcome with manufacturing and distributing such a thing, getting states to comply and putting in place an infrastructure to get the RealID from the government to the citizen, there’s the ethical argument against it, which goes something like “WHY THE FUCK IS THE U.S. GOVERNMENT ACTING LIKE NAZI GERMANY?!”
Really, folks. They’re talking about requiring one of these things to board aircraft (and possibly trains) and enter federal buildings. Next thing you know, they’ll have traffic stops with armed guards (which are already a well-practiced scam) requiring a RealID to pass through. Police are already infamous for randomly asking for identification without a reason. There’s no question about it, this is awfully reminiscent of WW2 German soldiers stopping people at checkpoints to check their “papers.”
Only, we don’t have papers. Instead, we’ll have an ID card with a sort of microchip inside. This chip will store your personal information (and will quite probably act as a gateway to all sorts of other information, like what books you read, for instance), which is easily attainable by people with what amounts to an RFID snooping device. All they need to do is stand next to you. And we thought identity theft was a problem today!
I understand the concern for protecting against terrorism. I really do. I understand that certain measures can be taken to prevent it, including standard security procedures. But also, not inflaming people’s hatred of our country with belligerent foreign policy while letting our corporations do whatever they damn well please overseas would help.
What other people need to understand is that terrorism, by its very nature, is random and unpredictable. The only way to control that which is random is to have control over everything. The Patriot Act. Gitmo. Checkpoints. Department of Homeland Security. Unauthorized wiretapping. Real ID. This is obviously what they’re trying to accomplish. To that, I say benevolence brings about better conditions that totalitarianism. We, as a nation, need to go back to fighting the good fight rather than trying to justify fighting the bad one.
Even the government itself has been transparent about being opaque. Donald Kerr, our deputy national director of intelligence, says that “Privacy is not synonymous with anonymity.” Well, Mr. Kerr, you cannot maintain freedom through control, nor can you save it by forcing protection upon it. Despotism is synonymous with tyranny.
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In other news, women who are planning on voting for Clinton because she’s a woman are sexist idiots.