Answers to objections to biometric ID

I put this post in the Xscape from Elba forum for New York Times forums in exile:

poster Incadove said:

As you know, I too am strongly opposed to that totalitarian big brother invasion of privacy called the biometric ID.
These measures are also seen in various opposing states as increasing the risk of identity theft.

I said:

Words like "totalitarian" pack a wallop. But precisely because of that they should be used sparingly. "Totalitarian" means "of or relating to centralized control by an autocratic leader or hierarchy" with synonyms like "authoritarian, dictatorial, despotic." Worst case it's "of or relating to a political regime based on subordination of the individual to the state and strict control of all aspects of the life and productive capacity of the nation, especially by coercive measures (as censorship and terrorism).

Incadove said:
Sounds to me like the shoe fits.
It is also described as massively bureaucratic and costly. That, like building another wall, people find other ladders, the ID theft risk increased precisely because it is so centralized.

I'd rather spend the money on educating Americans, including our newcomers, and universal health care, rather than handing the government another free ride into my privacy.

Legalization will redress any ID theft issues related to immigrants needing papers in order to work. That portion of ID theft, to my understanding, being but a small portion of a much larger problem not even related to immigration.

Compulsory IDs are not biometric IDs.
But I don't like them either, having once lived once abroad in a country that had them. Being an American, I didn't appreciate the notion that the police could stop me at will on the street, for whatever tickled their fancy, and demand that I produce ... my compulsory ID.

I said:

Re: "sounds like the shoe fits." Bad as Bush/DeLay/the rest of the GOP scoundrel-ocracy is, a police state they're not, and it's hyperbole to call their administration as such. We're friends with a couple in which the guy is a computer scientist from the former East Germany and his wife is from the Union of South Africa, of Indian descent. Both grew up in police states with ubiquitous secret police and no bars to arbitrary arrest and confinement. Ask them whether this is that and they're laugh at you. I'm NOT justifying the GOP's efforts to lean in that direction. But they're a lot ways from today's police states (N. Korea, Zimbabwe, China, Iran, and Cuba for starts, with Venezuela and Russia not far behind).

A national biometric ID would be costly and bureaucratic, to be sure. The question is, what are our alternatives?

Actually, a poll analysis just released by the New York Times helps explain why Democrats and Republicans are at such loggerheads over such issues. The poll analysis concluded that for members of each party, the priority stack of crucial issues is almost completely different (except for Iraq). Things Republicans think are "man the barricades!" emergencies are nothingburgers for Demos and vice versa. Illegal immigration as well as ID theft are just two examples of this.

This explains why you'd find the ongoing expense of a national ID unacceptable, while the average Republican and independent would find it unfortunate but necessary. We're trying to solve a problem you think isn't a problem. No wonder you wonder at our efforts.
I'm not saying either side is right or wrong, mind you. Not here at least. Just that it helps explain why it's so hard for us to have a conversation about these issues. We can't imagine the mental universe the other side lives in.

I'll take a small stab here. Once upon a time the ability of a handful of people to do serious damage to a whole country was nearly infinitesimal. Even if Guy Fawkes had blown up Parliament it wouldn't have changed Brit history. Some Americans did more by giving smallpoxified blankets to Indians--and that's the best historical analogy I can think of. But in, say, 1776, a man with a firearm couldn't have sunk a warship.

Today a zealot with an RPG can. Those smallpox blankets could decimate a village of dozens, even hundreds. But a zealot with a briefcase full of aerolized anthrax and a Cessna 152 could lay waste to a modern city, and another with a dirty bomb in an Econoline van could render Manhattan uninhabitable for a generation. And it's not like these guys would hesitate for one second to do such heinous acts.

In some ways this is a paranoid's dream come true. I'm not happy with the fact that all this feeds into the rich fantasy life of suvivalist nut cases like the Atlanta Olympics bomber. Unfortunately it is true, though, and I don't think there's any way we can appease the Islamofascist movement. They need us as an enemy, and like Osama once said, accurately, we love life, while they love death. Fareed Zakaria has said BTW that the biggest hotbed of Islamofascism isn't in Iraq--it's in our "ally" Pakistan." We aren't remotely prepared to deal with that.

All this puts biometric ID in a vastly different light than before 9/11. And the Madrid train bombing, and the Brit subway bombing, and the Toko subway poison gassing, and the Chechin mass murder of a schoolful of children...the list goes on and on.

I believe it's a failure of imagination not to be able to believe something worse than 9/11 could happen here--worse by an order of magnitude. I don't want us to turn into a police state, and by opposing something like biometric ID I think you make that future police state more likely, actually. Because if the bad guys take out a US city I think we'll get martial law "for the duration." And you'l think the privacy-invasion of biometric ID was chickenfeed compared to what we'll be living under.

As for centralized secuirity measures being more susceptible to getting hacked--well, that's a two way street. Governor Richardson says if you build an 11 foot fence they'll use 12 foot ladders. That's a cute bumper sticker slogan but I don't see many people getting over the Israeli's fence. And they've have suicide bombing incidents diminish radically everywhere they've put their fence up. It doesn't have to be perfect to be worth doing.

As for the centralized system--we already have a bunch of centralized commercial ID systems that make for attractive criminal targets. Think about ATMs, credit card billing systems, stuff like that. There's crime involving them, all right, but it's tough to do. And in all the years I've used ATMs here and abroad not once did anyone else get my money and not once did I not get exactly the amount I'd requested.

This is why I said history is important but not definitive. Some things actually change. And a biometric ID is one of them. It ups the ante on ID theft--massively. The bad guys will try, but it'll be tough, and we'll be looking for them constantly.

Bottom line, all biometric ID needs to be is better than the alternative. Liberals think this is all nonsense, and that we should pour our resources into healthcare and education. Let me point out that nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki was bad for the health of those cities' inhabitants. And you can't educate a pile of ashes.

As for legailzation of illegals solving ID theft problems, and ID theft being a separate issue with only a small part connected to illegal immigration:

Well, sure, legalizing any crime eliminates the costs of combatting that crimw. I actually agree with this line of thought when it comes to adults using illegal drugs. But as a general principle it sucks. How about legalizing rape? That costs a bundle to prosecute. DNA tests are expensive, after all. And the rapists don't think they've done anything wrong.

Now of course you don't agree with that; neither do I. Which means you don't really believe we should legalize crimes. Rather, you're implicitly arguing that crossing into a country without that country's permissions isn't a crime, or at least isn't if the person is just coming here for work and not to commit felonies or acts of war.

But the only way for that not to be a crime is if you think nations have no right to exist as separate nations--or at least that "the people's" rights supercede those of nations. This is--and I'm not using the word to inflame the debate--anarchism. The black flag. It's the state of affairs in failed states, and what always happens in such places is that hard men with guns take over, and life under their rule makes the most onerous burdens of living even in a police state look like heaven by comparison.

I'm writing this in a comfortable home with the doors unlocked. In a little while my spouse and I will walk over to church to print out the Sunday program. When we're there I'll probably use the bathroom, and we'll certainly turn on the lights. At not time will we be worried about our physical safety. In exchange for these things we pay our taxes and submit to the state having a monopoly on physical force (I realize it doesn't in the inner cities, but we don't live there). Our taxes are spent in many ways that help us and some that hurt us. I wish they were spent well 100% but that's never going to happen. Doesn't mean we shouldn't always try to improve things, of course. And overall I think we're getting a great bargain. Don't you?

Lastly, yes, ID theft overlaps illegal immigration. YOu can have both together or either without the other. And illegals' ID theft is rarely done to rob Americans--though it imposes on many American victims as badly as if they had been robbed. Just as the drunk driver didn't mean to hurt you--or that horse's behind with active TB didn't mean to infect anyone sitting beside him on the various airplanes he flew in--the amount of hurt you receive from someone is an independent variable with that someone's desire to hurt you. Sometimes you're hurt most by someone who thinks he's helping you, actually.

But steps taken to prevent ID theft will help control illegal immigration in addition to helping curb the Russian and Nigerian etc. gangs who do the ID theft to empty your bank account.
I realize I'm aking people to accept less freedom, less privacy. That's always a hard sell. My main argument is that we accept strictures in wartime that we woldn't accept in peace, and the only reason we don't think this is wartime is that the enemy isn't a country and the weapons are often bitstreams instead of bullets.

It's a new world...yay.