From: tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 1996 04:41:58 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Internal Passports
Message-ID: <ae26305c070210048f37@[205.199.118.202]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 7:30 AM 8/1/96, Lucky Green wrote:
>At 11:12 7/31/96, Duncan Frissell wrote:

>>Most Central European countries have both privacy commissioners and legal
>>requirements that everyone register their addresses with the police.  I'll
>>do without the former if I can also avoid the latter.
>
>I remember a time when Privacy Commissioners were a new thing. Their
>primary purpose seemed to be to sanction government access to (and keeping
>of) large databases on the activities of the population. Their secondary
>purpose was to prevent the private sector competition from doing the same.
>Eliminating access to such data by the individual in the process.

I'm with Duncan and Lucky on this one. Nations with a "Privacy Ombudsman"
are almost always nations with extensive files on individuals, their
habits, and their political activities.

Having a "Privacy Ombudsman" is a bone thrown to the proles. I suspect a
police state like Singapore has such a person.

And related to the "photo I.D." discussion, most of these nations demand
that passports be left at hotel desks when checking in. (At least they did
when I spent 6 weeks travelling through Europe in 1983.) Perhaps the theory
is that this stops people from running out on their bills, though credit
cards do the same thing (*). However, the police reportedly inspect these
passports and enter them into data bases to track movements.

(* As the credit card companies increase their cooperation with law
enforcement, a la the links between FinCEN and the Big Three credit
reporters,  the passports will no longer be necessary, and the process of
tracking movements can be done just with the credit cards. Those without
credit cards...well, they'll think of something.)

Question (a la "Wired"): "When will the United States introduce an internal
passport?"

May: "2005, but they won't call it that."


--Tim May

Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software!
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Licensed Ontologist         | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."