Provisions in immigration bill might ultimately lead to government access to citizens' biometric data
This entry was posted on 5/25/2007 3:16 PM and is filed under Technology News, US News.
USA -- An immigration bill pending before Congress "`would require employers to re-verify the identity of every single person currently employed in the United States,'" according to a May 25 story by Kurt Nimmo from his Web page, http://kurtnimmo.com, and posted to Mathaba.Net News (http://mathaba.net/news).
Nimmo, quoting articles appearing in The New York Times and Raw Story, continues, "`Not would it (the bill) place a considerable burden on both government and business, but the verification system currently being tested has shown a significant rate of error.'" Nimmo, US Representative David Bonner's Web page, notes Bonner's proposal that would required citizens' Social Security (SS) cards to "`contain an encrypted electronic identification strip, unique to that individual.'" However, according to Nimmo (quoting Wired News), "Neither Bonner's scheme or the one included in the 'immigration proposal with traction in Congress' specifies 'what the biometric would be, but it could range from a simple digital photo to a fingerprint or even an iris scan.'"
"Do we really think the migrant workers are going to show up at the pickle farm, and the farmer is going to demand ID and have a laptop in the field to check their ID?" American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) legislative counsel Tim Sparapani is quoted as saying. Nimmo dismisses Sparapani's example as irrelevant, saying that the issue is much broader than immigration -- that the goal is "eventually making sure every American -- indeed, every person on the planet -- has his or her papers in order. Of course, papers are so yesterday, so the idea is to capture biometric data on every person, beginning with workers. It will begin with an SS card and eventually a subdermal microchip, as cards as easily lost or stolen."
While it seems likely that many US citizens would protest something being forced to submit such an invasive and radical privacy violation as a subdermal microchip, Nimmo believes that this can eventually be pushed through with the appropriate "spin" and packaging. Nimmo writes, "It appears the effort to attach a biometric SS ID card to current 'immigration reform' (i.e., across the board amnesty for illegal immigrants) is a way to cut off Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) at the pass, as Leahy plans to introduce a bill to repeal the Real ID Act." (Actually, the proposal of across-the-board amnesty for undocumented immigrants is very controversial, and compromise measures have been proposed in Congress and seem much more likely to pass in the short term.)
According to James Parks on the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) Now blog, as quoted by Nimmo, "Under the (Real ID) Act, states and (the) federal government...would share access to a vast national database that could include images of birth certificates, marriage licenses, divorce papers, court-ordered separations and medical records for more than 240 million Americans with no requirements or controls on how this information might be used. The database also could contain detailed information on the name, date of birth, race, religion, ethnicity, gender, address, telephone (number), e-mail address and Social Security numbers [sic] for every American." Nimmo notes that such cards "would likely also contain biometric information such as retinal scans, fingerprints, DNA data and RFID tracking technology."
Nimmo is pessimistic about the chances for arousing sufficient public opposition to defeat these measures. While a growing "new new" left is emerging, with a new Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and Movement for a Democratic Society (MDS) slowly expanding, as well as the continuing presence of civil liberties stalwarts such as the ACLU, the forces in the right and center, as well as apolitical people, may effectively block liberals and leftists' counteractions.
Nimmo writes, "As Orwellian as retinal scans, fingerprints, DNA data, and RFID tracking technology sounds [sic], it is simply a matter of selling the scheme to the docile, fear-conditioned masses. Get them used to swiping a biometric card in order to get a job or a driver's license and it will only be a matter of time before they will be convinced an identity theft proof biochip for the same purpose is the next logical step." Nimmo quotes Charlotte Twight of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank: "If Americans accept a national ID system as they accepted SSNs (Social Security numbers), 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."
Nimmo concludes by claiming that people who refuse to "get used to it" will face the prospect of starvation, unless the use of biometric chips is extended to financial transactions -- "if you refuse to be scanned, you will not be allowed to buy food in the Brave New World envisioned by our neoliberal corporate rulers."
If Nimmo, Twight, and others are correct in their predictions, then such advanced capitalist states as the United States may become far more "totalitarian" in their access to ordinary citizens' personal information than any of the states labeled in 2007 as dictatorships.
Nimmo, quoting articles appearing in The New York Times and Raw Story, continues, "`Not would it (the bill) place a considerable burden on both government and business, but the verification system currently being tested has shown a significant rate of error.'" Nimmo, US Representative David Bonner's Web page, notes Bonner's proposal that would required citizens' Social Security (SS) cards to "`contain an encrypted electronic identification strip, unique to that individual.'" However, according to Nimmo (quoting Wired News), "Neither Bonner's scheme or the one included in the 'immigration proposal with traction in Congress' specifies 'what the biometric would be, but it could range from a simple digital photo to a fingerprint or even an iris scan.'"
"Do we really think the migrant workers are going to show up at the pickle farm, and the farmer is going to demand ID and have a laptop in the field to check their ID?" American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) legislative counsel Tim Sparapani is quoted as saying. Nimmo dismisses Sparapani's example as irrelevant, saying that the issue is much broader than immigration -- that the goal is "eventually making sure every American -- indeed, every person on the planet -- has his or her papers in order. Of course, papers are so yesterday, so the idea is to capture biometric data on every person, beginning with workers. It will begin with an SS card and eventually a subdermal microchip, as cards as easily lost or stolen."
While it seems likely that many US citizens would protest something being forced to submit such an invasive and radical privacy violation as a subdermal microchip, Nimmo believes that this can eventually be pushed through with the appropriate "spin" and packaging. Nimmo writes, "It appears the effort to attach a biometric SS ID card to current 'immigration reform' (i.e., across the board amnesty for illegal immigrants) is a way to cut off Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) at the pass, as Leahy plans to introduce a bill to repeal the Real ID Act." (Actually, the proposal of across-the-board amnesty for undocumented immigrants is very controversial, and compromise measures have been proposed in Congress and seem much more likely to pass in the short term.)
According to James Parks on the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) Now blog, as quoted by Nimmo, "Under the (Real ID) Act, states and (the) federal government...would share access to a vast national database that could include images of birth certificates, marriage licenses, divorce papers, court-ordered separations and medical records for more than 240 million Americans with no requirements or controls on how this information might be used. The database also could contain detailed information on the name, date of birth, race, religion, ethnicity, gender, address, telephone (number), e-mail address and Social Security numbers [sic] for every American." Nimmo notes that such cards "would likely also contain biometric information such as retinal scans, fingerprints, DNA data and RFID tracking technology."
Nimmo is pessimistic about the chances for arousing sufficient public opposition to defeat these measures. While a growing "new new" left is emerging, with a new Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and Movement for a Democratic Society (MDS) slowly expanding, as well as the continuing presence of civil liberties stalwarts such as the ACLU, the forces in the right and center, as well as apolitical people, may effectively block liberals and leftists' counteractions.
Nimmo writes, "As Orwellian as retinal scans, fingerprints, DNA data, and RFID tracking technology sounds [sic], it is simply a matter of selling the scheme to the docile, fear-conditioned masses. Get them used to swiping a biometric card in order to get a job or a driver's license and it will only be a matter of time before they will be convinced an identity theft proof biochip for the same purpose is the next logical step." Nimmo quotes Charlotte Twight of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank: "If Americans accept a national ID system as they accepted SSNs (Social Security numbers), 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."
Nimmo concludes by claiming that people who refuse to "get used to it" will face the prospect of starvation, unless the use of biometric chips is extended to financial transactions -- "if you refuse to be scanned, you will not be allowed to buy food in the Brave New World envisioned by our neoliberal corporate rulers."
If Nimmo, Twight, and others are correct in their predictions, then such advanced capitalist states as the United States may become far more "totalitarian" in their access to ordinary citizens' personal information than any of the states labeled in 2007 as dictatorships.