Re: The End of Privacy ?

James Daugherty (daugh@home.msen.com)
Fri, 26 Jun 1998 20:53:36 -0400


Of course the card can be used to track your movements...every time you use
it, your position will be known....if it is required for many many uses by
government fiat.

I want the government as inefficient as possible in enforcing its dirty
stinking laws.

Gee, I never noticed magnetic stripes before!

>>Other cards that have magnetic strips: credit cards, ATM cards, hotel
keys,
appt keys, et al. The magnetic strips can't be used to somehow follow your
movements. But the author of the article seems more interested in
propogating
a juvenile kind of paranoia than paying much attention to the benefits of
such
a system or to the fact that the system really doesn't add any new powers to
the government but only makes the government more efficient. In any
immensely
large and complex society such as ours a standardized identification system
makes perfect sense. And the presence of it simply has nothing to do with
government encroachment of anyone's rights. It DOES have to do with making
the government more efficient. The place to protect rights, however, is in
the courts and the legislatures, and NOT upon the assumption of governmental
inefficiency in enforcing its laws.

Andrew