[11767] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: NII and the US Card
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Frezza (via RadioMail))
Mon Apr 18 19:26:29 1994
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 1994 11:10:03 PDT
From: Bill Frezza (via RadioMail) <frezza@radiomail.net>
Cc: WHMurray@dockmaster.ncsc.mil, farber@central.cis.upenn.edu,
interesting-people@eff.org, stahlman@radiomail.net,
dbuck@world.std.com, ggilder@mcimail.com, barlow@eff.org, gnu@toad.com,
com-priv@psi.com
To: opfer@radiomail.net, bbigelow@radiomail.net, pfarkas@radiomail.net,
brodsky@radiomail.net, sam_boyle@mcimail.com,
frank_ricotta@mcimail.com, tdicker@farallon.com,
Tom_Hunt@radiomail.net, JACK+aRH%Russo_Hale@mcimail.com
WH Murray makes the frightening report:
<Last week ..I
heard a presentation by a representative of the U. S. Postal Service on
the "US Card." This is a piece of the national information
infrastructure intended to mediate all government services to and
controls over the citizen.
It will contain health care data, financial data, tax data, and identity
data. It will contain a private key (digital signatures only), a pin,
and other identifying data...
The official stated that the Postal Service is prepared to issue a
hundred million of these cards within months of getting the go ahead.>
Why is it so hard to see that this sort of *uninvited* government intrusion
is the flip side of the *invited* government intrusion called for by
the EFF?
How so?
Because entitlements ALWAYS come with entanglements.
The EFF and other self styled public advocates of government mediated
info-egalitarianism are educating the Clintonistas - providing them with
the mandate, the nomenclature, the "industry support", the press spin,
and the intellectual ammunition to puruse ALL of their ambitions.
Will these advocates wake up before it is too late and figure out that large
scale government involvement in the "Information Superhighway" only comes
as a package deal? That once you abandon the ideological defense of
individual liberty you can't pick and chose which liberties get trampled?
FOR CHRIST SAKE STOP ARMING THESE BUREAUCRATS, THEY'RE DANGEROUS.
Bill Frezza
