Resident Evil
February 25th, 2007 by 
Morgan J. Locke
Here’s a good wake-up call on the state—and threat—of Real ID.
Real ID requires states to issue national ID cards with embedded, radio-frequency identification chips in them. The act already been passed into law. States are required to put measures in place by May 2008.
The sheer volume of horrors we learn about these days is numbing. Iraq, Iran, vote fraud, reprisals against critics of administration policies, and on, and on. Under the onslaught, sometimes I just slump, slackmouth and stunned, as report after report tumbles out detailing the lies, manipulations, the brutal and callous evils being perpetrated by this administration.
But here is a case where if we don’t act, and soon, our privacy and our liberty are in grave peril. If we do act, we can have an effect. There is some momentum building against implementation of the Act. Some states are refusing to comply. More state governments will resist, too, if they know this expensive, invasive boondoggle is strongly opposed by their constituents. The Act can be repealed, if enough people push back.
So please. Take action. Contact your state and federal officials today. Urge them to fight this horrific invasion of privacy. (It’s strongly recommended that you send a fax, if at all possible; email is often ignored, and snail mail can take up to three months to reach the intended recipient.) Support the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Posted in Morgan, People, Politics, Technology | 
9 Comments »
February 25th, 2007 at 11:53 am
SCARRRYYY.
February 25th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Morgan, thank you so much for posting this. This is Gestapo/KGB/Stasi/SAVAK territory we’re heading into. We need to stop it.
And we also need to think carefully about how much personal information we voluntarily choose to reveal to the world at large (via the Web or otherwise).
Because the more of ourselves that we willingly give away, the easier it is for a repressive government to simply take whatever shreds are left.
February 26th, 2007 at 5:49 am
As I sign this with my real name and commit myself to Google immortality, I am thinking about the human inability to evaluate risk rationally. We’re wired to respond to our bêtes noires – but that wiring more or less bypasses higher rational processes and hijacks us when it’s triggered.
Everyone expects a Spanish Inquisition, now. It’s the worst nightmare of US society, partly because of various overactive imaginations in film and literature. At the same time, most of what this (piece of trash propaganda) film decries already exists.
How many people live by cash? What drove the transition to electronic transactions? It wasn’t that most conservative and immovable bastion of society, the financiers. They had it forced upon them, in the end. E-cash is more easily forged and spoofed in quantity, and keeping things controlled is like wrestling a greased anaconda.
Convenience is the key. Customer relations and marketing departments in the desperate rush to differentiate made electronic banking a must-have. The loss of paper creates conveniences and reduces some costs – and increases exposure and liability enormously. It deeply challenges the sub rosa nature of the banking industry in general.
You are now tracable via every electronic transaction you make. If you pay in cash, you’d better be willing to go local – can’t do that on the net. And really. you don’t want to buy your groceries in secret. You only buy… you know… SECRET stuff with cash. Which you withdraw in approximately correct quantities from your fully historied bank accounts. Connecting the dots from one missing line is harder in a multivariable environment – but unless you were trained at Moscow Center, you’re tracable a number of different ways, should the Big Bad Gov’t want to track your every move.
Abuse of power is scary – and already feasable and done. And punished, when noticed, barring large payoffs or invoking the name of Clinton/Bush/select-a-strawman.
Your passport already has a RFID tag, if issued in the last few months. ‘Course, we’re a couple of years behind the UK – and their RFID tags, in the classic British tradition, are overbuilt to the point of humorousness – like those postboxes.
The author of “Spy Chip” (the definitive work on RFID in society? Gimme a break!) mentions chips that can hide behind behind the dot of an i in the fine print. True. And its antenna? Not so easy – unless it’s only contact-readable, in which case, most of the concerns are obviated.
A surprising number of products you buy have an antenna behind the label. If you’re paranoid, peel them off. Put them in the microwave. Throw them away in a foil bag. I’m sure you have plenty of foil.
I’m not sure what nefarious information can be derived from the fact that one has purchased Gilette Mach3 blades and stored them in your house. This is a house with windows, surely? Might there be more sensitive and private things (conversations, computers, etc) that can be monitored (with less effort and at much longer range) by the criminal government agent that’s monitoring your activites? Of course, you have a white noise generator physically linked to every window, you have Tinfoil Hat Linux with the NSA patches on your tempested home computer, and you regularly sweep for bugs… right? At least you have a Mac, not a Windows machine, right? (Yes, Steve, I know you have a Mac.) Oh. Well, I guess RFID is the least of your worries. Look up Van Eck phreaking sometime.
National ID cards are not a real problem. I know – I have to carry one, here in the police state of France. Along with my passport. I have to sign the required proof of insurance tag on the windsheld of my car (complete with policy number) – otherwise, I am fined €180 on the spot. There are traffic cameras all over in Switzerland (I live on the border at Geneva) (oops, too much info about me on the Intarweb) (oops, too late – just Googled myself). There are RFID tags in my currency already.
I have many less rights here – quoting from a WSJ column today,
“Warrantless wiretaps? Not a problem under French law, as long as the Interior Ministry approves. Court-issued search warrants based on probable cause? Not needed to conduct a search. Hearsay evidence? Admissible in court. Habeas corpus? Suspects can be held and questioned by authorities for up to 96 hours without judicial supervision or the notification of third parties. Profiling? French officials commonly boast of having a “spy in every mosque.” A wall of separation between intelligence and law enforcement agencies? France’s domestic and foreign intelligence bureaus work hand-in-glove. Bail? Authorities can detain suspects in “investigative” detentions for up to a year. Mr. Bruguiere once held 138 suspects on terrorism-related charges. The courts eventually cleared 51 of the suspects–some of whom had spent four years in preventive detention–at their 1998 trial.
In the U.S., Mr. Bruguiere’s activities would amount to one long and tangled violation of the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution. And that’s not counting the immense legal superstructures that successive Supreme Courts have built over and around the Bill of Rights.”
So I live in a Bushian utopia? Right? Actually, this just scratches the surface — a dear friend gets her kids back every 15 days from her ex with bruises and lacerations, and nothing can be done because he’s the father. Locked the kids out of the house all night because they were late for dinner – and the police picked them up and returned them to him the next day. They had no other legal choice. The US, for all its flaws, is far more comfortable and protected than any other legal system of which I am aware. I’ve lived in a few, as I’m sure several others have. Reflect a bit – were you afforded these protections anywhere else? Are they REALLY being taken away, or are you being made to see that privacies you thought you had, you really never did – because the hack is so easy as to be commercializable?
Did you notice the assertion that suddenly cash will be identifiable? Surely it hasn’t escaped the notice of the tinfoil hat brigade that the serial numbers on bills are machine-readable, and have been for years? If that tech were interesting to people (and perhaps it is), ATMs would already be rolling out with it. If Wal-Mart cared enough to install cash drawers that had RFID readers for bills, surely they would go with the same tech that is already used for cash payment at gas station pumps?
The real issue here is unifying and updating disparate databases. Unless we live in the Firefly universe and Blue Sun rules all, and Pizza Palace is a subsidiary of Blue Sun, there will never be a circumstance under which such database integrations is workable. That scenario was as laughable as the scare music and the earnest pleadings of the guy with the NYC accent. In spite of all Hollywood and etc, there are real technical and physics hurdles to be cleared before all humanity is identifiable and trackable in an automated way. Frankly, we don’t have the time or money for it. That’s people-intensive, on an unimaginable scale. Otherwise, it would’ve been done a while ago. DBs are getting better – but not *that* fast.
The politicians have this as a priority to try and show they’re doing something – like the laughable airport security measures. The law enforcement types want tools to help them connect dots that are more easily hidden every day, and I frankly sympathize with them, though the use of an airbag accelerometer to send people to jail for multi-year terms disturbs me. You have to admit, though, that more info makes false imprisonment and conviction less (rather than more) likely – like DNA testing, when done reliably, is the darling of the Innocence Project. All twisty novel plots aside.
Finally, the system (including the military) is populated by people. Some few are sociopaths. Most of the rest are people with families and a love for liberty. They may have differing opinions, and some may see as a gift what others view as a threat – but that mass of people is a strong corrective mechanism. They’re opinionated and obstinate, sometimes easily manipulated (by both sides), but when something is REALLY not working right, they are HEARD – and in a way that Europe cannot be, because there is too much submission to the authority of the state here. They moan and complain, but nobody has the time to fix things. Especially in August.
Things aren’t bad here, certainly, and the US could do a lot worse than to become another Europe – but it’s already better, and has the capacity and will to be better still.
In the meantime, I remember the opening scene of that clip – and the scene is set in France. I bike past two pairs of armed border guards twice a day, to and from work. Theory in the US is practice here.
February 26th, 2007 at 6:05 am
And my apologies for the long and preachy comments. I think some of the issues mentioned here are complex enough to require lengthy analysis, and I certainly am addressing them only cursorily as it is. For all the opinions here that differ from mine, I see the workings of intelligent minds – and I was brought in from Steven’s site because I know he’s a sharp fellow, and I’ll read anything he’ll write. I might even agree.
That makes me his fault.
So – I’m not trolling, but I hope I can bring useful info to the conversation. I have strong specialties in high-energy particle physics, high-performance computing, religion, literature, family life and mountain biking. And I’m New Mexican (by way of roots).
Cheers.
February 26th, 2007 at 7:35 am
Alden, thanks for the read. Informative and quite sane. Can’t say the same about that hysterical video. If we’re worried about bad government, wouldn’t finance reform make for a better lead?
February 26th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Hey, Alden,
While I am indeed feeling that more privacy is better than less, I’m pretty much in agreement with everything you said.
I am concerned about RFIDs because (at least in the case of passports) they make identity theft easier. They were cloned by hackers easily within days of being issued.
So, as security, they’re a joke and a half.
What I’m far more concerned about than being ID’d and tracked is being locked away without access to a lawyer. The habeus corpus thing has got me far more concerned. Ditto for the recent change in chain of command for the National Guard, taking governor’s out of the loop.
Security theater really pisses me off. When our own government has got us so fear crazy that blinking LED signs can shut down a city and we essentially punish our own citizens for flying instead of going after terrorists the only way that’s actually worked.
(The way you go after terrorists is the same way the police found out about the plot that causes all the “liquids” fuss in the first place. Police investigative work. Terrorism is a tactic. It’s a criminal tactic. The “War” on terror is far more a war “of” terror.)
Deep breaths, Steve.
So, to reiterate, no problems at all with your post Alden. The answer to free speech you may disagree with is more free speech, not less. And I don’t even disagree with you.
The only thing we plan to crack down on here is rudeness, really.
It’s our living room so to speak, and when guests behave badly, we invite them to behave badly (and speak freely) in their own venue.
February 26th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
To chime in — Excellent thoughtful post, Alden. I also am doing my best to stay out of databases, but it’s way too late for that, really.
I’m also rather deliberately being self-revelatory here at EOB, because I found myself shutting up out of fear over the past five or so years, and have made a deliberate decision to speak up. Perhaps boring, perhaps unwise, but I think part of what’s gone so terribly wrong in the US in this new century is the result of those of us in opposition to the fascist corporate state too often feeling isolated and alone and powerless in our beliefs.
This may mean that one day They will come for me. But there are a lot of us to lock up….
Like Steve, my current worry is that the Bush admin is trying to create a legal structure that will allow them to simply stay in power.
All it might take is a major incident to give them an excuse to declare martial law and suspend the Constitution. My paranoid surmise is that they’re trying now to figure out whether they’d be able to quash the ensuing armed resistance and civil war.
And they have a really lousy track record for making accurate judgments.
How’s that for tin-foil-hat thinking?
February 26th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
I appreciate your thoughtful comments, Alden, but I do think you underestimate the risk. I think also it’s inevitable that everything will be recorded (and as you and Steve point out, highly rip-off-able), but that we need to both be aware and to push back. As Rory and Steve refer to above, this is happening in the US at the same time as fundamental rights are being stripped away from us: loss of habeas corpus, the Patriot Act, etc.
It doesn’t take an over-active imagination to expect that this administration will misuse the information it collects in the interests of holding onto its power.
February 26th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
I guess my fear is not as great because the real Big Brother scenarios call for something this group of yahoos really lacks.
And that’s competence.
But the messes they’d create while doing this really need to be avoided so I’m all for pushing back.
“The terrorists hate us for our freedoms, you know. So the more freedoms we strip away, the safer we’ll be.”