Identity and the Terrorist

There has been a lot of noise out there recently about identity theft and Homeland Security. The most recent bill that has been going through Congress is that of requiring more ID to get a Driver’s License. For those of you that aren’t aware they want the Motor Vehicle departments to require Social Security card, Birth Certificate, a recent piece of mail with name and address on it and a photo ID.

Honestly I don’t know which is more absurd –

That you need to have a photo ID

1) To get a photo ID you need to show proof of whom you are which in NY could mean any of 40 other pieces of identification that are point based.

2) I have a photo ID from where I work. Will that work?

The bill was attached to another bill for funding the war in Iraq.

HEELLLLOOOO!?!?!?!?! Let’s address one absurdity at a time.

Photo ID – If there is already a program in place to verify who we are when we get a Driver’s License or any other photo ID then WHY in the world would we need to require a photo ID to get a photo ID? If anything maybe require more information as to proof of whom you are? Many people in this country do not have a photo ID of any kind including a driver’s license. If I didn’t have my license the only photo ID I have is from my place of employment. Would they accept that? That brings in the question of what constitutes a valid photo ID? My work ID could very easily be duplicated. Pretty much any ID from an employer could be duplicated. What about Veterans ID cards for the VA? Those could be duplicated easily as well. So what sense is there in having a photo ID to get a photo ID? I believe every state in this country has in place a way to get a non-driver’s photo ID. By presenting specific information they determine the person is who they say they are. Like I said earlier in NY there are some 40 pieces of information you could provide in any combination as long as you meet certain point criteria. Even to get a new Driver’s License with no photo ID there are specific things they need to see. Now if the process is already in place and it works then why try to change it? However in either case a number of the things on the list could easily be faked like utility bills, birth certificates, Social Security cards, and a host of other things. Maybe people should be finger printed at birth and that put in a database and that is how identity is proven. But if the current process is working and you are concerned about people faking ID’s and passports and a number of other things that terrorists might use then maybe the ID it self needs to change to eliminate the possibility of being faked.

The Congress – Here is a PRIME example of how screwed up Congress can be. You sit there and complain about the fact that the cost of the war in Iraq is in the billions and probably trillions and then you go and attach a bill that is going to cost another $500 million at least. Not to mention – HOW IS GETTING A DRIVER’S LICENSE ANYWHERE NEAR RELATED TO IRAQ? Talk about PORK! If Congress would actually work a full day and 7 days a week and didn’t try to maneuver this congressman or that congressman into voting and would actually look and vote on each bill WITHOUT all the other things that are added on they would probably find that things would be much more productive and the government would run so much better. Not to mention budgets would probably be better as well.

Do people in this country even realize what is attached to any one bill in Congress? I will bet that if you took a look at any bill passed in Congress (which by the way will probably consist of about 20 volumes each volume being about 18 inches thick) and took out everything but what the original bill was the cost of that original bill would be a 10^th of what was passed. I’ll bet if you looked at the spending bill for Iraq you will find there are things in there like money that is spent to repair a road in some county in one of the states or maybe a few counties in different states. You will probably find money that is tagged for stupid environmental things like setting up a preserve for a certain species of earthworm or some other absurd thing like that.

If you really want to do something about security and the whole issue of who is who and from where why doesn’t the government just have chips placed inside us at the time of birth? You walk up, they scan the chip and they have the information they need. Get the other governments involved and every human being on the planet would be tagged. Put information on the chip such as date of birth, location of birth, parent’s names and their places of birth and dates, blood type, genetic information and of course an ID number. Now there will be no question as to who is who. Say the person changes countries. Say someone from Ireland changes their citizenship to the US. Simple – replace the chip. The chips though would have to be hard coded. No soft EPROM or anything like that. It would have to be hard coded in the chip. Otherwise it would be very easy for some hacker to change the programming and identity on the chip. Then in order for you to change any information on the chip it would have to be surgically removed and replaced. I think they should be so deeply imbedded in the body that they should be almost impossible to get out.

Better yet, why don’t we come up with a chip that is coded with the information and genetic information and tie that to nano technology that is in the bloodstream so that once the chip and nano bodies are in the body they can’t be changed or separated or the person will “expire”. This would keep people from changing identities, countries of citizenship and a host of other things.

BUT – and there is always a but -- then we have the other side. Big Brother. How much information and identification should Big Brother have? If every human on the planet were to be implanted with the ID tag then wouldn’t it be easy for Big Brother to set up monitoring all over the planet to constantly scan those chips and know exactly where any one individual is at any given time? Wouldn’t they be able to know when you went to the bathroom or had sex with your significant other? How much is too much? Then we also have the Civil Liberties groups that would most certainly be opposed to that.

The government has a big job and yes so do people. We all want security and to be safe but we also don’t want to give up our rights and privacy. Somewhere there is a middle ground that has to be found. I don’t have the answer and I don’t think any one man has the answer. There has to be give and take on both sides and people have to talk to their representatives and let them know.