4 ms·

For many, it's a goal to avoid having a national ID, for privacy-from-the-government reasons. The ACLU has a decent writeup about the issue: https://www.aclu.or

by pcl 7y ago

For many, it's a goal to avoid having a national ID, for privacy-from-the-government reasons. The ACLU has a decent writeup about the issue: https://www.aclu.org/other/5-problems-national-id-cards https://www.aclu.org/other/5-problems-national-id-cards

homonculus1 7y ago
Similar to constant surveillance, the psychological implications of mandatory ID are horrifying. It tips the scale from "You are born free, but you must fulfill certain obligations to cooperate with others" to "You exist first and foremost through the lens of the government. You are not permitted to live outside the bureaucratic abstraction of you."
- mschuster91 7y ago
  Well then easy solution: you refrain from opting in into personal ID cards, but you're responsible for all fraudular and other activity that is done under your name and could have been prevented by having an ID card lock down your identity.
  - homonculus1 7y ago
    Holding victims civilly liable for fraud is not a fair or liberal alternative to government monitoring. Should I also have no recourse when my house is burglarized if I fail to install cameras that send a feed to the police?
    - mschuster91 7y ago
      > Should I also have no recourse when my house is burglarized if I fail to install cameras that send a feed to the police? That comparison is wrong on multiple levels: 1) you may be automatically at fault already when not doing what the government is requiring you to do for public safety reasons (for example, your car has a rusty brake pipe, you do not do the yearly mandatory checkup, pipe explodes, car crashes into something) 2) contrary to a feed to the police, showing your federal ID card at a bank or car dealership when applying for a loan does not cause the government to know you were at the bank or the car dealership. Therefore it is not surveillance.
- lr4444lr 7y ago
  Go cry about it to Rousseau. If you want to continue enjoy the benefits of a modern society, to some small degree, you are going to have to play its little games.
- dwild 7y ago
  > "You exist first and foremost through the lens of the government. You are not permitted to live outside the bureaucratic abstraction of you." Aren't we already at that point?
  - homonculus1 7y ago
    Sort of, but generally not on the minute-to-minute basis that is being forced to carry government identification at all times. And in cases where that may de facto be the case, e.g. being a minority near a border, that's already abhorrent. That whole paradigm should be reversed rather than further generalized.
    - dwild 7y ago
      > being a minority near a border, that's already abhorrent. That's abhorrent because they are targeted which force them to carry it. Isn't driver license a government identification anyway? Sure no one is forced to have it, but that won't change much if everyone had it. I'm not arguing about forcing carrying it either. Just about whether it would be bad if it existed.

by pcl 7y ago

homonculus1 7y ago

Similar to constant surveillance, the psychological implications of mandatory ID are horrifying. It tips the scale from "You are born free, but you must fulfill certain obligations to cooperate with others" to "You exist first and foremost through the lens of the government. You are not permitted to live outside the bureaucratic abstraction of you."

mschuster91 7y ago
Well then easy solution: you refrain from opting in into personal ID cards, but you're responsible for all fraudular and other activity that is done under your name and could have been prevented by having an ID card lock down your identity.
- homonculus1 7y ago
  Holding victims civilly liable for fraud is not a fair or liberal alternative to government monitoring. Should I also have no recourse when my house is burglarized if I fail to install cameras that send a feed to the police?
  - mschuster91 7y ago
    > Should I also have no recourse when my house is burglarized if I fail to install cameras that send a feed to the police? That comparison is wrong on multiple levels: 1) you may be automatically at fault already when not doing what the government is requiring you to do for public safety reasons (for example, your car has a rusty brake pipe, you do not do the yearly mandatory checkup, pipe explodes, car crashes into something) 2) contrary to a feed to the police, showing your federal ID card at a bank or car dealership when applying for a loan does not cause the government to know you were at the bank or the car dealership. Therefore it is not surveillance.
lr4444lr 7y ago
Go cry about it to Rousseau. If you want to continue enjoy the benefits of a modern society, to some small degree, you are going to have to play its little games.
dwild 7y ago
> "You exist first and foremost through the lens of the government. You are not permitted to live outside the bureaucratic abstraction of you." Aren't we already at that point?
- homonculus1 7y ago
  Sort of, but generally not on the minute-to-minute basis that is being forced to carry government identification at all times. And in cases where that may de facto be the case, e.g. being a minority near a border, that's already abhorrent. That whole paradigm should be reversed rather than further generalized.
  - dwild 7y ago
    > being a minority near a border, that's already abhorrent. That's abhorrent because they are targeted which force them to carry it. Isn't driver license a government identification anyway? Sure no one is forced to have it, but that won't change much if everyone had it. I'm not arguing about forcing carrying it either. Just about whether it would be bad if it existed.