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The correct solution to this and a shitload of other problems is a real, national ID program. But there's enough resistance to it in both US political parties t
by yamtaddle 4y ago
The correct solution to this and a shitload of other problems is a real, national ID program. But there's enough resistance to it in both US political parties that it can't happen. The lack of it causes a ton of stress, over the population, and is a drag on the economy, but we're just never gonna fix it. Instead we'll de-facto have one (or more) anyway, including 99% of the risks that a real one would carry with it that everyone's so hand-wringy about, but without the benefits of the real thing.
- mcshicks 4y agoThere was a bill to improve digital identity in the us Congress but I don't think it went anywhere. I wrote my congressman about it more than once. https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/4258 https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/4258 edit: Actually there is a similar bill being sponsored in the senate now this year. So something is happening https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/4528/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/452...
- yamtaddle 4y agoYeah, it's brought up from time to time but the right hates national ID programs and enough on the left don't like it (including elected officials, not just voters—the distinction's worth mentioning) that it'd take an implausibly-huge supermajority of Democrats to ever pass such a thing. Never mind that all the things they're worried about would barely even be easier with an official national ID versus what exists now. Let alone hard/impossible without one. But no, we just suffer though tons of wasted time for all bureaucratic processes and all kinds of hassle keeping our documents in order and tons of fraud and abuse instead. For no benefit. So we can pretend the government can't already "make a database" about dissidents or gun owners or Christians or whoever very nearly as easily and effectively as if we had an official national ID, if they wanted to. Sigh.
- crooked-v 4y agoI think it's worth noting here that the passive resistance to the idea of a national ID among Democrats has a lot to do with Republicans regularly hijacking voter ID bills to specifically make things harder for the poor and minorities, and the expectation that they would absolutely do the same for any national ID program that actually got Republican support.
- xani_ 4y agoUh, no, that's even worse thing to give to the for-profit companies as indentifier. Now they have country-unique ID of a person that will never change so it can be linked to a person regardless of where that person logs in