From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 94 13:01:10 PDT
To: frissell@panix.com (Duncan Frissell)
Subject: Re: ID card from hell
In-Reply-To: <199407151900.AA04014@panix.com>
Message-ID: <199407151929.MAA11351@netcom7.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


(Duncan's message not included, because I only want to make a brief
point.)

Not addressed in Duncan's essay was my chief concern: The "National
Benefits Card" is required to get license plate tags. (And maybe other
things, like car and home insurance, etc.)

It's all well and good to talk about disobedience, how the State can't
enforce traffic laws and how the "record" of several hundred traffic
citations shows this, etc. But how this applies to me is a different
matter.

To make this concrete, I recently got a speeding ticket--I was late
for the Saturday Cypherpunks meeting, ironically. The computer form
arrived a week or so ago: pay $130 by such-and-such date (in lieu of
contesting the charge), or the fee will roughly double, and then
double again, and so on. (I'm not sure of what the limits are, but the
fees escalate rapidly). Now my point is this: I plan to pay up, and
all the talk in the world about people with dozens or hundreds of
citations DOES ME NO GOOD.

If I fail to pay, I lose my car insurance (which makes me ripe for a
"deep pockets" lawsuit by anyone who gets into an accident with me).
Lots of other implications. Very real implications. 

It may be that scofflaws who are poor have an advantage--no assets to
seize, no insurance to worry about, etc. But for folks like me, the
notion that such laws can be safely ignored is crazy.

(No offense, Duncan, but I read your rant with enjoyment....I just
didn't see any connection with the reality I see around me.)

I continue to see great dangers here, in tying a national ID card to
transactions we are essentially unable to avoid in this society:
driving, insurance (and let's not argue insurance...I mean it is
unavoidable in the sense of legal issues, torts, etc.), border
crossings, etc.

As an example we haven't talked about recently, the national ID card
would presumably be tied in to income tax filings, in various ways I
won't go into here. The Postal Service, aiming to get into this area I
guess, has floated the idea of electronic filing, ID systems, etc.

Now how will one file taxes without such a card if one is made
mandatory for interactions with the government? Saying "taxes are not
collectable" is not an adequate answer. They may not be collectible
for street punks and others who inhabit the underground economy, but
they sure are for folks like me.

I see nothing in Duncan's essay that applies to me. And that's what
worries me about the move toward national ID systems and complete
traceability of all economic interactions.

--Tim May


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