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Canadians Wary of 'Enhanced Drivers Licenses'
Dr.Merkwurdigeliebe writes ""Enhanced drivers licenses such as those to be issued in B.C. will lay the groundwork for a national identity card", federal privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart said yesterday.
Stoddart said the licenses, touted as an alternative to a passport for the purpose of crossing the U.S. border, closely resemble the Real ID program in the United States. She characterized that program as a way of introducing a "type of national identity card" for Americans."
Remember, we don't own machine guns so we can hunt, we own them so we can fight back against the government if necessary.
I'm not a gun nut. I don't own a gun, haven't shot a gun, and hope that I will never have to use a gun with the intent to hurt another. However, I support the right to own guns. The 2nd Amendment was put in place largely because the British tried to confiscate and hoard guns so the "rebels" couldn't fight back, and the founders didn't think that should happen again. The "I should be able to own an assault rifle for hunting" myth needs to be replaced with "I should be able to own an assault rifle in case the people decide to take back their country by overthrowing the government"... or something along those lines that sounds better.
All passports, drivers licenses and identity cards have been harmonized to one standard coming from dozens and dozens of different ones. And we're proud of it. We may still speak many different languages, we have common goals.
The funny thing is: Here in Europe we have ID cards, but we're very rarely asked to present them (I've had to show mine last time to get the birth certificate for my daughter). However, in the countries that seem so proud of not having national ID cards, everyone and their dog wants my ID for all kinds of crap (I'm 30+ years old and still they want to see my ID if I'm buying alcohol. And they wanted to see it when I was accompanying my wife to the federal building where she had to take care of some paperwork. ID necessary to enter what's essentially an office complex, WTF guys ??), forcing me to carry my passport around everywhere I go (which is _very_ annoying as it doesn't fit in a wallet and there's going to be major hassles if it ever gets lost or stolen).
Here in BC, the provincial government subcontracted out some of the management of our provincial health care records to a subsidiary of an American company. This means that we essentially lose sovereignty over those records, through any quasi-totalitarian homeland security intelligence bungle the Americans want to cook up. It is an end-run (intentional or not) around our political protections and sovereign rights.
If you know many Canucks, you'll know that a certain significant percentage of us are touchy about our sovereignty, and not just the sovereignty of Quebec from Canada or of the First Nations from the Queen... but from the USA. We resent being told how to run our country, and while we lap up the American media, we don't want to be told what wars to fight or laws to have or what is moral (Alberta excepted, of course). We look for all the little ways to differentiate us from the USA... lately, one of the differences is that it looks to be turning paranoid and oppressive down there. We keep reading stories about people having to 'show their papers' and being turned away from planes and such.
Many people will take these cards and run, because they have to cross the border weekly or more, and it will be the thin edge of the wedge. But there will be a stubborn battle over them. We aren't always as polite and apathetic as the stereotype.
Damn those pesky terrorists
Interestingly, the requirement is for a number, not a card. A random nine digit number is much easier to 'forge' or 'steal' than a physical card. By the time the crime is complete, the criminal is long gone. Illegal immigrants can get a job by providing the number to the employer, and it may take months for the mismatch to be recognized; if the name and ss# are a match, then it may never get recognized.
Identity theft is so common and easy because just about all it requires is that nine digit number. My mother's neighbor is a hardworking guy who for some reason has over a dozen credit cards and cell phones in his name all over the country, and several outstanding warrants for his arrest. HE'S done nothing wrong, but his number apparently was pretty popular for a while, and he has to bat clean-up on it on a continuous basis. He actually carries a card in his wallet that effectively says "I'm not the man you're looking for" to the police in case he gets pulled over for anything. In spite of that, it still often means a drive down to the station and waiting while higher-ups check out his story.
Sadly, the SS# fails as a security identifier because it was never intended as such; it was strictly supposed to be a primary key for identifying your contributions to the US Social Security system. In any security system, there should be at least a 'two-part' login process: who you are and what you know. The SS# is now being taken for granted as the 'what you know' part, and sometimes even as the 'who you are' part. Additionally, it's not a secret (you can't use a different SS# for each organization you give it to) and you can't change it.
Thought exercise: imagine that you're email address is your login and your ss# is your password for every site you visit on the internet; including your online banking. Now: imagine that one of the sites gets compromised.