Wednesday, May 26, 2010

MICAS: A window into the black market for identity

BTC -  American identity is bought and sold every day and not just by online intel pirates, Facebook.

Identity is a turnkey to employment.  As long as you present a legal or legal looking identity, you should be able to get a job.  Long-term unresolved problems with immigration in America open up short-term underground markets.  The black market provides solutions for workers pooled around jobs requiring American identity.

The rub with Real ID laws, and other forms of proposed national ID, is there is no pathway to accommodate the specific problem of legitimizing migrant workforce identity.  National ID programs simultaneously create a surveillance dragnet for all American citizens possessing several forms of legitimate identity.

Those who want to solve the migrant identity problems often propose some form of guest worker card program.   Businesses who exploit migrant workforces, paying them below living wage, and fostering indentured servitude to coyotes for passage find ways to support and empower black markets.  Does a migrant identity solution require the fingerprinting of the citizen of another nation or of non-criminal American citizens?  Biometrics are destined for criminal justice databases.

AMERICAN IDENTITY BY IMMERSION

This SF Gate report gives you a window into the market place for migrant workers seeking what they need to work in America.  One reporter immersed herself in the experience.
"Like the Mexican immigrant who got her documents fraudulently, I felt out of place negotiating the price of an ID in the street, in broad daylight. The seller, on the other hand, seemed relaxed and friendly. We walk to a nearby passport photo shop. I pay ten bucks and get my mug shot. After two hours, I have a new identity."
:::MORE HERE:::

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