No Picnic in the Park

The assault on our privacy is a continual refrain these days. From NSA spying to FISA warrantless eavesdropping, the government seems to be interested in every move we make. The fact that you may have nothing to hide is not the point. It shouldn't matter, because it's no one else's business -- especially the governments. Yet another affront to our privacy is the National ID Card. In the latest news on that front, CNN reports, in Federal ID plan raises privacy concerns:

Americans may need passports to board domestic flights or to picnic in a national park next year if they live in one of the states defying the federal Real ID Act.

The act, signed in 2005 as part of an emergency military spending and tsunami relief bill, aims to weave driver's licenses and state ID cards into a sort of national identification system by May 2008. The law sets baseline criteria for how driver's licenses will be issued and what information they must contain.

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The cards would be mandatory for all "federal purposes," which include boarding an airplane or walking into a federal building, nuclear facility or national park, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the National Conference of State Legislatures last week. Citizens in states that don't comply with the new rules will have to use passports for federal purposes.

(Via Crooks and Liars). A state by state listing of activity on ID compliance is here. As the Electronic Fronttier Foundation notes, The Real ID Act:

Once the IDs and database are in place, their uses will inevitably expand to facilitate a wide range of surveillance activities. Remember, the Social Security number started innocuously enough, but it has become a prerequisite for a host of government services and been coopted by private companies to create massive databases of personal information. A national ID poses similar dangers; for example, because "common machine-readable technology" will be required on every ID, the government and businesses will be able to easily read your private information off the cards in myriad contexts.

Of course, he who takes does not believe in giving. As we lose our privacy, the Bush Administration simultaneously expands its "privacy" by denying its citizens access to more and more information.

As Adam Clymer notes, Bush Administration most secretive ever.

(Via Attytood)

Tags: Civil Liberties, Law, Bush, Politics