During the last two years, the U.S. Federal Gov’t has, by fiat, taken over many things and they have proposed to take over many more.
The automotive industry. The finance industry. The health-care industry. Now they propose to takeover the you industry.
The Department of Homeland Security has issued a proposal for a “National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace”. In effect, DHS proposes a strategy to deal with the critically pesky issue of having to remember all those darn passwords. To remedy the situation the government “suggests” how they could “facilitate” a system for managing your identities.
What could go wrong?
They propose that the system could be used not only for the IRS to track your very important refund but to be used by all websites for commerce. This all sounds vaguely familiar.
Rev 13:16 And he shall make all, both little and great, rich and poor, freemen and bondmen, to have a character in their right hand, or on their foreheads. 17 And that no man might buy or sell, but he that hath the character, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Now of course, DHS assures us that there is nothing nefarious in the Gov’t trying to control, I’m sorry, facilitate a system that the private sector is already actively working on. After all, we all know that truly great innovation on comes from the Gov’t. Now, of course, I am not really suggesting that this particular proposal is the fulfillment of this or any other prophecy. However, when that prophecy is fulfilled it will likely take the form of an equally innocuous memorandum. Liberty is not often taken by guns but rather by such memos.
Back to the proposal.
One of the suggestions of the paper is that your government facilitated national identity could be linked to your cell phone, to your pharmacy, to your credit cards, your bank accounts, and your blog entries and comments . No, nothing to worry about here. DHS asks us to “Envision It!”
Envision It!An individual voluntarily requests a smart identity card from her home state. The individual chooses to use the card to authenticate herself for a variety of online services, including:
· Credit card purchases,
· Online banking,
· Accessing electronic health care records,
· Securely accessing her personal laptop computer,
· Anonymously posting blog entries, and
· Logging onto Internet email services using a pseudonym.
Yes, I can envision it.
Here is wisdom. He that hath understanding, let him count the number of ways this could go very very badly.
I take it as axiomatic that when the government manages your identity, you cease to have one.
July 7, 2010 at 6:18 am
This is the creepiest thing I've read all year.
But, hey, chin up! We're all so satisfied with the tender loving care shown us at the DMV, the IRS and the USPS, why not let them manage every electronic detail of our existence.
I feel like I'm living in a dystopian novel and my fellow citizens who elected this crap administration are zombies who want to eat my brain.
July 7, 2010 at 6:19 am
The sad thing is there will probably be quite a few people who feel that this will be the greatest thing out there. Too many people seem to trust the government and therefore they will be more than willing to hand over their indentity to them. Be very afraid!
July 7, 2010 at 6:53 am
Reminds me of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXMAnlMmEPw&feature=player_embedded
Notwithstanding Jimmy Akin's take on it at NCR, it's creepy.
July 7, 2010 at 9:41 am
To any Democrat-favoring persons of my acquaintance who cannot
see what could be wrong with this plan, I shall suggest that they
envision this power in the hands of the Bush administration that they
so loathed.
No sane person of any political persuasion can get behind this.
July 7, 2010 at 1:15 pm
Patrick, Patrick, Patrick…
You sound so paranoid about this. You make it sound like the gubmint will be tracking every keystroke, monitoring every site you visit Internet, reading every comment or post you make. Get real!
The way you put it, you'd think they'll know what you're writing even before you write it, and then send DHS agents to your door before submitting it…
Hang on – someone's ringing the doorbell. brb
July 7, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Great post and very scary. The worse things get, and the scarier they become, the more I notice 2 things:
1. The sheer scale of horrific issues we face as a country and in the world. It's overwhelming! From the harebrained, and just plain evil machinations of our government (and, frankly, population), all the way up to the big picture cataclysms circling above us. (A possible huge and maybe nuclear world war, a very deep world depression, an expansion of evil social policies like abortion, a general loss of liberty, and the continued rise of liberal and Islamic fascism, etc., etc.) We are setting up such a nightmare scenario here that, yes, impending doom seems inevitable to me. I don't see the 2012 election solving much of this, for instance.
2. Which reminds me of the 2nd point… Bad stuff is supposed to happen and we are supposed to remain steadfast, good, and strong in faith and love. That is our only mission. Sun Tsu talked about never fighting on your enemy's battlefield and about the utility of walking away from a fight in one place in order to fight elsewhere in more favorable terrain. I think that we MUST fight these evils, but not JUST on the terrain of our enemy. It is most important that we fight with spiritual tools: fidelity to God and to the Gospels and with prayer and fasting. I am aware this is "preaching to the choir" here, but every time I read of the latest insanity, it just strikes me like a slap in the face…most of the world is just not going to make it, and we need to just make sure that we do.
***This message was approved by the Department of Controversial Religious Anonymous Postings***
July 7, 2010 at 2:46 pm
I guess good help is hard to come by that they do not have the skills to hack into people's accounts that easily if at all. So, like sleezy politicians they want to make a law so that we'll just hand access to them in a platter.
July 7, 2010 at 2:58 pm
@ Larry: haha times 100!
@ Clinton: whoever said politicians were sane?!
Seriously, the thought of this whole scenario sends me straight to the Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
July 7, 2010 at 3:03 pm
I'm having trouble envisioning posting an "anonymous" blog entry using my smart identity card.
I can't imagine how we could handle identities and authentication on the internet. Maybe some sort of combobox/drop-down list thingy that lets a user choose from multiple possible authentication mechanisms, or even just post anonymously.
Nah, that would never work. We need a government program and ID cards to handle that.
July 12, 2010 at 1:09 am
OK, you've officially freaked me out now. I really can't read any more of these sorts of articles or I'll start screaming and chew my hair in the corner.
Breathe slowly and don't freak out… breathe slowly…