From: Jon Galt <jongalt@pinn.net>
Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 11:24:17 +0800
To: John Young <jya@pipeline.com>
Subject: Re: Your Papers, Please
In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.32.19971121122153.006cd9fc@pop.pipeline.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.971121214332.3343A-100000@everest.pinn.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



On Fri, 21 Nov 1997, John Young wrote:
> This is
>  where Big Brother may arrive big time. 
> 
>  Under active consideration is a plan to require taxpayers to obtain digital
> IDs for all
>  electronic transactions, keeping records that could be examined on audit.

And what if "taxpayers" simply don't keep these records?  There have been 
quite a few things government has tried to impose on the American people 
in the last two hundred years, and have just been laughed at.  For 
example during the civil war, I believe there was a tax "imposed" which 
many people simply ignored.

> The IDs
>  would be issued by IRS certified agencies, subject to government developed
>  standards to ensure that proper identity checks are performed before anyone is
>  allowed to shop online.

This is absurd.  They can't possibly control every single one of us.  

> The IRS would enforce this by issuing its own digital
>  certificates to issuers of digital IDs so that they can electronically
> prove that they
>  have received IRS certification.

And who would they prove it to?  The IRS would have to have enough 
bureaucrats to track us all down.  - Actually they could wage a war just 
like the one with the Income Tax now.  Prosecute high-profile cases and 
publicize the hell out of them if the IRS wins, issue a gag order if the 
IRS loses.

> The technology they need to make this
> happen is
>  available. All that's missing are the regulations forcing compliance.

Regulations do not *force* compliance.  Words on pieces of paper do not 
force anything on me.

Even laws against the worst thing humans could do to each other (murder) 
do not *force* compliance.  And such laws are the ones agreed to by most 
people.  If laws that have the absolute greatest support cannot prevent 
human actions, how can you think regulations with such broad opposition 
could possibly do so?

___________________________________________________________________
Jon Galt
e-mail:  jongalt@pinn.net
website:  http://www.pinn.net/~jongalt/
PGP public key available on my website.
__________________________________________________________________