Tagged and Tracked America's Emerging Electronic ID

Tagged and Tracked
America's Emerging
National Electronic ID

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Tagged and Tracked--
America's Emerging Electronic National ID

by
Cooper Yates

In a United Nations plan discussed in December 2001, Pascal Smet, head of Belgium's independent asylum review board, submitted this proposal:

"Every person in the world would be fingerprinted and registered under a universal identification scheme to fight illegal immigration and people smuggling."

That a United Nations review board member considers fingerprinting the world a solution to illegal immigration and smuggling is breathtaking! Smet's vision of global tyranny was temporarily laid to rest by others at the meeting who spoke with reason like Australian Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock, "In principle we would be supportive of a system which would crack down on multiple asylum claims, but a universal identification system would be taking it too far."

In the US, discussions involving a national identification card are gaining momentum with proposals set forth by people like Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) and Rep. Nancy L. Johnson (R., Conn.) who both support a national ID card; Johnson adds as possibilities the use of fingerprints or retinal scans. And an astounding revelation by Harvard, self-described civil libertarian, Alan Dershowitz, who suggests the implementation of a "voluntary"card, with a chip that matches the holder's fingerprints.

Alan Dershowitz--who also advocates torturing terrorist SUSPECTS--seems to have lost touch with what it is to be American and the meaning of civil liberties, deciding instead to become a Harvard educated fascist. Senators' Feinstein and Johnson may truly believe they are acting in the best interests of American citizens, but as members of congress they should know that centralized federal government control erodes state government autonomy and individual rights; principles inherent in the constitution.

Another national ID card proponent is Silicon Valley software mogul Larry Ellison, the chairman and CEO of Oracle. In an interview with Mercury News in October, 2001, Ellison said, "[I] Met with U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and officials at the CIA and FBI in Washington, D.C., over the past week to discuss the idea. U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has endorsed it, other tech executives have jumped on board and even some prominent civil libertarians have said the idea is worth pursuing. Ellison further explained, "Passengers would show the card at airports, and would have their thumbs scanned by a digital reader to verify identity before boarding a plane. The cards also would be instantly checked against a new national database. That database would link existing criminal and immigration data to screen out potential terrorists."

Why would Ashcroft, Feinstein and Ellison be meeting with the CIA? What does the CIA have to do with scheming designs for a national ID card? It's a violation of the CIA's charter to engage in law enforcement or internal security functions. I wonder if it has anything to do with the USA Patriot Act--which tears down procedural safeguards and permits the CIA to create dossiers on constitutionally protected activities of Americans and eliminate judicial review of such practices.

As Ellison points out, criminal records will be added to identity records and as the move to centralize information continues to expand, credit, banking and asset records will eventually become part of the mix. Malaysia's Smart Card, introduced in March, 2002, already includes bank data. The Malaysian government claims all 23 million of their people will use the card which includes: name, address, ID number, digital thumbprint and photograph of the owner, as well as driving license data and passport information.Officials say it will eventually contain medical information, facilitate e-cash transactions and enable users to conduct secure Internet transactions.

In the US, some state's driver's license and motor vehicle departments already require persons to provide social security numbers. This will constitute massive profiles on Americans in one centralized database that will provide access to virtually every aspect of a person's life--paving the way for potential intrusions of American's privacy on a scale never before witnessed in US history.

Besides the obvious potential of government abuse, this national database will be a goldmine for private investigators employed by corporations, banks and attorneys who routinely request and conduct a wide range of investigations on people. Every private investigator worth his salt already purchases government restricted information on the black market. Under Bush's plan to consolidate government agencies, even more government agents will have access to greater amounts of information on citizens opening up fertile ground for leaks to privately funded investigations. There would be no limit to the scenarios of intrusion and abuse of a person's privacy.

In an article in NewsFactor Network, dated January 25, 2001, a DEA press release reported that a 12-year DEA a veteran, Emilio Calatayud, was charged with "illegally using his DEA employment and law enforcement position between August 1993 and August 1999 to sell criminal histories and law enforcement information to a Los Angeles-based private investigative firm."

Now meet Applied Digital Solutions, the designers of theVeriChip- -which is about the size of a grain of rice to hold information read with special electronic scanners. The company has marketed the chip as a method to store a person's medical records or security codes but is now promoting their chip as a means of identification that is implanted beneath the skin containing identifying information, "There would be other functions that would be available as well--such as not only identifying, but setting off an alarm if you are not who you say you are,"said Keith Bolton, Applied Digital Solutions.

Keith Bolton, Applied Digital's Vice President, demonstrated the product by waving a scanner two to three inches from the microchip, which can hold up to 128 characters. In seconds, an identification number appears on the screen. Bolton then checks a handheld electronic device that scrolls down the screen to find out the person's name, eye color and medical allergies, the name of the patient's pacemaker manufacturer, the model number, the date it was installed, and the company's phone number.

Richard Sullivan, chief executive officer of Applied Digital Solutions suggests tagging and tracking subjects to assist in monitoring undocumented immigrants. �The problem could be solved,� he said,� if people were required to be chipped or had some combination of a device requiring them to be scanned and monitored at all times.'' Sullivan also said, ''I think it's not unreasonable to ask people who want to come to work in the country that they respect the rights of people who are citizens in the United States."

VeriChip is the next step in the evolution of another Applied Digital product called Digital Angel, a pager-like gadget that uses global positioning system (GPS) tracking to keep tabs on people, and bio sensors that monitor vital signs. Digital Angel can be turned off by the wearer or by an administrator, depending on how it's programmed. VeriChip can be removed only surgically. Los Angeles County parolees are being monitored by Digital Angel through a three-year pilot program.

It's not difficult to imagine that when something like the VeriChip is approved as an official national identification system in the future, the chip could also be programmed to monitor a citizens location via the global positioning system (GPS). If the new sweeping Fourth Amendment changes in the Patriot Act go unchallenged, a warrant could be obtained in the future permitting officials to engage the (GPS) in a VeriChip--which will be already equipped but unarmed for instance--to begin monitoring a citizens movements because a citizen may have prompted suspicion by writing a book, publishing a web site or speaking out publicly in protest of something like globalization or corporate pollution.

Applied Digital also markets their product in Latin America where unlike the US, claims Applied Digital, FDA approval is not required. But an April, 2002, article appearing in AP reported that Applied Digital needs no FDA clearance in the US if the chip is used solely for identification purposes and not medical purposes.

Applied Digital is not the only company implanting computer chips. MicroCHIPS, in Cambridge, Mass., makes products that deliver medicine to the body; AVID, in Norco, Calif., tracks pets implanted with its microchips; and Trovan, in Santa Barbara, Calif., has implantable transponders in more than 300 zoos worldwide.

According to Charlotte A. Twight, professor of economics at Boise State University, "Over half of the population now supports some form of national identification. If Americans accept a National ID system as they accepted SSNs, and if the intrusiveness of such a system expands as did government-mandated SSN usage, ten years from now the idea of a national microchip system may not seem as alien and repugnant as it does today. As with SSNs, people will get used to it."

There's only one reason for a centralized identification system: control. If the government replaced sloth, political corruption and ineptitude with honest, creative and efficient employees and programs, the government wouldn't need to resort to controlling its own citizens to provide national security and deprive citizens of their privacy in the process. What the government is really telling us by advocating a centralized identification system is: because we are internally corrupt, wasteful and inefficient, we will tag, track and identify everything that moves, regardless of privacy issues and Fourth Amendment violations; Americans citizens are just collateral damage. It's the chemotherapy approach, to kill the bad cells, we must necessarily kill the good cells as well. It is a supremely unjustified excuse for government incompetence and unaccountability.

This isn't the first time the US government has attempted to arrogantly exercise oppressive control over its citizens. One can go back to the 1950's when a request was made by J. Edgar Hoover to investigate Einstein. Hoover was apparently worried about Einstein's liberal intellectualism. And then of course there was Nixon. Well Hoover could certainly rest easy today and may even have put some of today's so-called liberals on his payroll.

For years the government has maintained the chesty notion that the government's citizens are the government's slaves. Consider the condescending, rude and intimidating attitudes encountered when dealing with government representatives at a county court house or county hall of records, or an unemployment office, or department of motor vehicles. The government needs to be reminded over and over again that they work for us, not the other way around.

In an article written by Duncan Frissell, an Attorney working in New York City, Frissell sums up his take on the government's true motive for centralized identification, "A National ID card is not really about identity. It is about authorization." Frissell goes on to say it will "Require Americans to obtain federal government authorization to travel, work, rent or buy housing, obtain medical care, use financial services, and make many purchases." And he says that " The system will almost certainly create an outlaw class - as large as 10 to 20% of the population - cut off from "normal" life in America."

Frisell adds: "When you present your National ID to complete a transaction, you will actually be asking the Federal Government for its permission. It converts most significant transactions that you make from private ones to public ones. It creates a government license for all jobs, all travel, all medical care, and many purchases. This is a profoundly troubling departure from American traditions."

As law abiding American citizens, the concept of a national ID card-- which will eventually become an identifying chip implanted beneath our skin--is yet another excuse for increased government intrusion into people's personal lives, where the simple act of buying food, gas and clothing will be deemed a privilege granted to you by the federal government; just as driving is now considered a privilege granted to you by the state. Driving a motor vehicle is as necessary to one's survival as walking and the license to drive a motor vehicle has evolved into an official state identification card.

And now, in addition to unprecedented proposals of government intrusion and control, private corporations lie in stealth waiting to make millions of dollars tagging and tracking everyone from law abiding citizens to parolees to immigrants to medical patients to pets. We're all going to be tagged, tracked and shackled.

The right of an American citizen to move freely within the boarders of his or her own country without being electronically monitored is so obviously fundamental to personal liberty inherent in being an American, that it's difficult to understand how even one American citizen would not be outraged at the oppressive ramifications of a national ID card system.

As Frissell points out, �The future abuse of the National ID Card will be based on the idea that living is a privilege not a right. As convenient as a National ID card seems for law enforcement, it is an un-American notion. It comes from a political system explicitly rejected by those men who founded this country. The English language has a word for a system in which the central government of a country must authorize in advance all of its citizen's activities. That word is "TOTALITARIAN.�