Identity Cards

Germany & some other countries etc still use ID cards. UK government again presses to shove ID cards on citizens. (The same UK govt. that wanted (but failed) to deny citizens privacy through computer encryption).

Regular trendy customers of a Spanish disco have ID devices installed invisibly under the skin on upper outer forearm near shoulder, to prove membership & avoid using money. Cows for slaughter have numeric ear tags. Jews & others in German Nazi concentration camps were numbered on lower inner arm.

After ID cards, perhaps some years later, mandatory sub cutaneous insertion of goverment issued ID number ? Perhaps not in your country, but some other country first, that your politicians can then point to. Not on all adults either to start, (too many to rebel), so start on children of a certain age ?

Later add a small capsule to the ID device. Not to all people, just eg ex criminals to start with, to make sure certain people don't walk past certain entry/ exit portals. With 2 compartments: A paralyser that mostly won't kill healthy humans, just be replaced in hospital, + a 2nd terminator poison, activated initially only in rare cases, eg known criminal, who has committed another murder & not been captured yet, or government security cleared worker who disappears with state secrets (Look what lengths Israel went to, to recapture Vanunu). Then gradually introduce it to ever wider groups in society.

Governments extend power at expense of citizen freedom. Some distort the truth to get more power. Goverment has it's own interests: politician's & `civil' servant's. Some power is needed for public safety, to repress criminals & terrorists, but `State Security', does not equate to collective `Personal Security'.

Every liberty you sacrifice to perhaps current mostly `benificient' goverment in the name of security, will be harder to try to recover under future more controlling governments, that will likely seek yet more control (& have your ID card to identify you as a a known political dissident.

ID cards are one step toward a police state.

Life is full of risks. It's a trade off. A balancing act. Don't be naive enough to believe all governments, politicians, & administering civil servants are to be trusted.

With computerised personal ID, vehicle ID, & ever improving face recognition computers, in a future police state, it'll be every easier for a "Nanny State" to control not just criminals but your every move, for everyone, eg:

• Link sales computers to refuse to sell you more than so many burgers, cigarettes, ice cream or alcohol per week, 'cos you are already, or would get too fat/unhealthy, as verified by your national & private health insurance computers, that don't want to pay for higher chance of heart attack treatment.
• Refuse to sell you what they consider to be not an officially authorised colour of paint for your house exterior, relating to where they deduce you to live. (Germans are forced by law to register their address. Americans have laws about what colour they can paint their houses) Imagine needing an affidavit to confirm you were helping a friend to paint his house, & though You weren't allowed to use pink, he was. ;-)
• Sell your force-ably collected consumption & travel etc information to commercial companies for targeted advertising. (advertising revenue might be justified by lowering communal taxes) Adverts might include "we see you regularly travel toward the (legal) brothel, would you like to buy our soft pornography or rubber goods.
• Disable or detune your car's future engine management system during periods of pollution, even though you have a personal emergency, & Really need your vehicle that day.
• Refuse to give you airplane boarding clearance, or your car or passenger bus/ national (or even city) exit/ entry clearance, because someone, perhaps an unknown fellow passenger, has not paid his taxes recently enough.
• So you think `They" wouldn't trouble you if you just stayed home & watched TV ? ;-)
  China has a one child policy, right ? So you have an ID card, a TV satellite decoder card, a computer with network ID (MAC) built in, likely purchased by a credit card, (with ID of course), Your satellite receiver with encrypted movie has a phone connection to call back to TV company ? (Some do using some channels on Astra) (Your phone may also call back to manufacturer with info (some Amstrad's do)) ... So your Satellite/ Cable TV & or computer combo is ever more likely to know just who you are & what you watch. Your country may decide you've had enough frisky input that might inspire sexual reproduction, or too much violent etc stimulus exceeding the quota allowed by your goverment/ insurer for health & social policy purposes. - You might find your TV automatically censored.

Why not ? There's a lot of power & profit to be had out of repressing people. There's no limit to how power & money hungry governments & corporations could abuse ever increasingly computer automated personal identification, unless people draw the line & obstruct their government & or equipment supplying corporations from going that way. Best start by objecting to ID Cards !

Not all governments are so intrusive, yet, but many companies will delight in profitably manufacturing & supplying the technology.

Last century one worry was the convergence of government, military & manufacturers to an unholy alliance. Less money in that now I guess. I suspect the worry will increasingly be all the companies that will seek to work with government to regulate, tax, exploit & eventually repress the identified citizen consumer.

UK has cameras analysing all vehicule number plates entering London. Germany taxes Autobahns (just lorries (trucks) for now), supported by camera analysis of vehicule number plates. UK & other prisoners get security radio tagged to not leave a short radial distance from home. The new alliance has started. It's not bad yet. Watch it grow profitably for the alliance of goverment & industry.

I'm not an implant surgeon or poison specialist, just a Computer Systems Engineer, keen to provide computerised Products & Services. I might find some of the above schemes interesting to develop from a technical view, but wouldn't want to from an ethical view. Others may not be unwilling to purchase & develop similar systems. Some do anything for money or power.

Think about identity cards, machine readable especially as they're all becoming, & what may come next, sooner & later. Discuss with your friends & tell them what you Don't want. If enough of us tell people, some may be the politicians that can steer policy away from a police state requiring machine readable identity cards or (Shudder!) later body identity implants. Like cows to slaughter !