TWIC port card pilot program on the ropes

c/o HSToday.us

"Data collected by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) during a pilot for readers of transportation worker identification cards is so bad that Congress should ignore it and order a new security assessment of the project, congressional investigators have reported." 

:::MORE HERE::: 

Is an EU identity card on the cards?

BTC - An update from No2ID [UK] says that STORK was exchanged for this newer program, SSEDIC here.

 

FRONTPAGE: Overseas forgers' fake IDs can fool even the experts c/o USA Today

e-IDs to work across EU borders

Automation Is Considered for Checking IDs in Airports

Thousands of Issued TWIC Cards Won’t Work Due to an Issuing ‘Error’

ID efforts cited in TSA reform report

SC mom defies arbitrary demand for identity from public school

BTC -  This is a great story. You'll love this one if you've "had it up to here" with walking into public places which arbitrarily require identity to participate.  This is one mother's account of a face off between herself and public school workers who needed some perspective.  Furthermore, you should note the principal's Retail Management style of dealing with someone who doesn't like their school policy.

:::MORE HERE:::

REDUX: Weekend Review

BTC - Corporations... Government data surveillance; same difference. They both do it.

Here is second life for news that matters.

Mexico starts to use iris scans on ID cards

A National ID Card for Every American c/o Fellowship of The Minds

"In 1998 the Clinton Administration tested such a privately-funded card without the consent or knowledge of Congress. Their card was part of a special healthcare program funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The program was initated in five western States and entailed giving women with dependent children free healthcare in the pilot project that actually tested the effectiveness of the biometric cards, which electronically monitored the whereabouts of the cardholder 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by GPS. The test lasted one year. It was deemed to be a success. Our federal government does have the ability, and the desire, to track the whereabouts of its human capital while they work, when they play, and where they sleep. REAL ID, in other words, is REAL Intrusive."

Trial Begins For Seattle Man Who Refused To Show ID At TSA Checkpoint In Albuquerque

Governor gives voter ID bill emergency status in legislative session

U.S. Cancels "Virtual Fence" with Mexico

USCIS e-Verify still flags eligible employees, says GAO

RE: Corporate Data Surveillance, Watch what you say and text

DIY Government: FTC Comment period on *PRIVACY PRACTICES* extended until 2-18-2011

OTHER RELATED NEWS:

Black Budget in the Red

Facebook suspends personal data-sharing feature

The Companies Who Support Censoring the Internet

How Big Brother is watching you from Israel

FILMS TO GO SEE:

Operation Endgame - Illuminates bureaucracy, comedic lunacy of the underground US Intelligence complex; straight to DVD, comes *highly recommended* for entertainment's sake.

Smash His Camera -  Classic rivalry of privacy in the face of public living. Example here.

No2ID: New Public Data Corporation, Scotland's Entitlement Cards continue

c/o No2ID UK  --The Cabinet Office has outlined plans for a new Public Data Corporation which the government intends to set up this year. The Cabinet Office press release states:

"The Corporation will, for the first time, bring together Government bodies and data into one organisation and provide an unprecedented level of easily accessible public information and drive further efficiency in the delivery of public services."

Little detailed information is available at this time.

SCOTLAND'S BACK-DOOR ID CARD BATTLE

Among the most dedicated opponents of the Blair government's Identity Cards Act were the SNP. However, as the government of Scotland they seem to have other ideas, as Geraint Bevan, coordinator of NO2ID Scotland, explains:

UK ID cards are no longer valid, but National Entitlement Cards (ID cards by another name) continue to be issued in Scotland. These multi-purpose cards, which masquerade under a wide range of guises including concessionary travel and YoungScot cards, are issued by local authorities and provide access to various services.

According to ministers, the cards are voluntary and alternative means of accessing services should be made available, except for concessionary travel. In practice, many schoolchildren have been told that they *must* apply for a card to buy school meals - or even to enter school premises.

Each card is linked to a "Citizens Account" unless card-holders explicitly reject data-sharing on the application form. Citizens Accounts are records of personal information stored on a network of databases operated by Scotland's 32 local authorities.

Even when not linked to a Citizens Account, the cards are privacy deficient. For example, when used as a bus pass, personal information about the card-holder is transmitted to the bus operator and details of the passenger and journey are recorded and logged on central government
databases.

The scheme was introduced under the previous Labour/Lib Dem coalition, but has continued under the current SNP administration.

Related news: TrackCare, A new Patient Management System for Scotland goes live.

IN OTHER NEWS:

ID Card Report Was Supressed

The publication of a report which raised concerns about the ID-scheme was delayed - leading to the suggestion that it was suppressed in the run up to the general election. The report by the Independent Scheme Assurance Panel (ISAP) was given to the Home Office in late 2009, but
only published this month. A February 2010 response to the ISAP report has also been released.

NHS (National Health System)review includes Opt-Out forms

The Summary Care Record system will make medical information about tens of millions of patients in England available to over 800,000 NHS staff. Patients have a right to opt out of having a Record. Both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats promised to scrap Summary Care Records before they took power.

• The NHS opt out form
• NO2ID's opt-out form
• The NHS Patient leaflet

A judgement by the European Court of Human Rights ruled that it was illegal for the Government to keep the DNA details of those arrested - but not convicted - for an offence.

EU/US: Transatlantic eHealth agreement signed 01-17-02011--Vice-President of the European Commission Neelie Kroes and United States Secretary for Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in Washington to promote a common approach on the interoperability of electronic health records and on education programmes for information technology and health professionals. [The US healthcare bill was repealed two days later.]

Border Agency plans £36.4m biometric collection contract

Destruction of ID card data to cost £400,000

Co.UK: Scrapping ID cards "a momentous step"

"The ID card was launched with fantastic claims about supposed benefits. In truth, it represented the worst of government. The first duty of government is to ensure its citizens are protected, but ID cards could never have done that. They would have been a distraction from the real work that needs to be done in countering terrorism, illegal immigration or benefit fraud." 

- Damian Green, GUARDIAN Co.uk

:::MORE HERE:::

NO2ID statement on the Royal Assent to the Identity Documents Act 2010

Issued c/o NO2ID's Phil Booth

NO2ID is, of course, glad to see with the passing of the Identity Documents Bill the death of the ID Cards scheme and the monstrous National Identity Register that it created.


However, while NO2ID welcomes evidence that all copies of the Register are being destroyed, powers retained from the original Identity Cards Act still allow the Home Secretary to potentially enact the same enforced data-sharing across government that NO2ID has campaigned against from the beginning *. To dismantle the ID Cards scheme but leave powers it rested upon in place leaves the people of Britain vulnerable to a resurrection of the scheme.

Also, with biometric identity cards for the UK now a thing of the past, it is a shame that residents and workers from outside the EEA must undergo the same experience and are being used to justify the continued existence of much of the technical infrastructure of ID cards: the Biometric Residence Permit ** remains in place, unchanged. Do the principles that led to the scrapping of ID cards for EU citizens not apply to those other legal residents?


This partial abolition is an excellent first step, but the Government should now take the courage to override the deep laid bureaucratic plans, and finish the job. NO2ID will not stop until the database state powers that would allow mass surveillance and official trafficking in personal information are erased for good.”

*[To wit, the enforced sharing of your full name and any other names by which you are or have been known; your gender; your date and place of birth; your biometrics (which could still include your fingerprints); the address of your principal place of residence in the United Kingdom; the address of every other place in the UK or elsewhere where you have a place of residence; the times at which you were resident at different places in the UK or elsewhere; your current residential status and all previous residential statuses; information about numbers allocated to you for identification purposes and about the documents to which they relate - which could mean your driving licence, National Insurance or even your NHS number. We note the latter was specifically *excluded* from the 2006 Act.]

**Variously billed by the Home Office as "ID cards for foreigners" as if it were part of the National Identity Scheme, but in fact introduced under the UK Borders Act 2007. 

REDUX: Wikileak's vs. EU Sexx Laws, more redacted record dumps

BTC --  Nothing has been as entertaining to watch for absurdity as charges were progressed to arrest Julian Assange, Wikileak's founder, for violating Swedish sex laws when "the condom broke".  

For news analysis,  Mr. Beck.

Wikileaks may equate the PENTAGON PAPERS v. 3.0  Assange's legal team threatens to "power leak" all over the world wide web if he is harmed or killed.  For instance, The Mexican Cables: "Why is this stuff secret?"

Here's second life for news that matters:

Government forced to release thousands of seriously redacted documents about domestic spying

The CIA: A Law Unto Itself

GOP wants photo IDs for N.C. voters

Lawmakers call on TSA to release X-ray inspection records

WAL-MART CLEARANCE: DHS gets to "message" shoppers

UK DNA profiles of innocent citizens on police databases to be destroyed

Web Advertisers fear Do Not Track policies 

ID cards were a bad idea from the start

Philip Johnston argues that there always was a much better alternative to this costly plan.

UK Register's Philip Johnston 

The Coalition's first Bill will be debated in the House of Commons tomorrow and, fittingly, it involves the repeal of a measure that is emblematic of the last Labour government's time in office: ID cards.

  :::MORE HERE:::

DIGEST: Sparapani bats for Facebook, UK to "kill off" national ID card program

UK MOVES AWAY FROM NATIONAL ID CARD PROGRAM 

BTC _ The United Kingdom has cited "civil liberties" as the chief reason for cancelling the national ID card program and to scrap the National ID registry.   The ID card program was instated as part of the Labour party's agenda to control immigration and and fight terrorism.  Privacy advocates, like NO2ID,  still seek to repeal  eablished laws on the books.

FACEBOOK SEEKING BALANCE BY INCREASING USER FRIENDLY PRIVACY CONTROLS

Anyone remember,  Tim "Congress must Repeal Real ID" Sparapani ?   While we know defending public identity doesn't pay much, Sparapani did what he had to do.  Right now he's the legal counsel for Facebook.   It only feels slightly better that we have one of our own on the inside of the Facebook fight.  While we are still working through our abandonment and betrayal issues, privacy needs more advocacy at Facebook.   WIRED magazine reports Facebook is working on "simplistic user controls" to unsnare profiles from complicated privacy controls which some consider unfair. So unfair, in fact, that transparency gauges were developed for people to watch certain Facebook applications. 

It is an important observation that the user controls at Facebook to delete accounts are hidden.  You'll have to go off site and dig through WikiHows to figure out how to actually delete your account.   


Whatever... Facecrook is an immense high maintenance pain in the duff.  It's time to move your clique to another fugee camp - try Diaspora.  While discussions say it is not as well developed or funded , it doesn't mean it won't be.  For now, it's all the buzz amongst privacy pros.  

NPR: A look at National ID Card programs

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126759966

There's an "Always on Surveillance Society"?!

"We would require all U.S. citzens and legal immigrants who want jobs to obtain a high-tech, fraud proof Social Security card. Each card's unique biometric identifier would be stored only on the card; no government database would house everyone's information." - Senators Lindsey Graham and Chuck Schumer

BTC- I hope someone will tell these Senators there was already a billion dollar effort to create a national to international FBI database to house the most comprehensive biometric catalogue in the United States. It is 2 football fields long and the public is not allowed to know where it is. How's that for "transparency"? It's been around since 2007.

Unfortunately, the term "transparency" is being twisted around against the American people not to mean "government accountability" but somehow to mean a super institutionalized state. In this type of state the only rights of the nation are the institutional rights and permissions granted by that state. Everyone is exactly equal: prisoners, immigrants, workers and government workers. This is the piece where the biometric worker ID card fits.

[Was this your idea of freedom, America?]

It's part of the Always On Surveillance Society and it might make you wonder if the 2010 Census is just a dog and pony show. It's globalized policy; which makes it more important than ever that you guard your private information and do everything you can to jamm up any assumptive networks using your 4th Amendment.

Unfortunately, fascism is commonly defined as Statist power as corporations rule the government, which legislates only for them and seeks only their interests.

DEBATE: Do we need a biometric worker card?

>>>OF NOTE: Ed Hasbrouck on "mission creep" of Social Security cards and national ID

BTC - The Op-Ed wars have begun. Narratives are blazing to address a recently proposed immigration bill containing the blanket issuance of a national biometric worker identification card . The opposing groundswell amplified after Chris Calabrese, an ACLU watchdog, barked late yesterday to an announcement of the Hill's next political science project: immigration reform. Based on everything we've seen and heard, it's already time for the Senate to go back to the lab.

It is official. President Obama has staked out the immigration issue for the next milestone of his adminstration as the Healthcare distraction ceases. In a letter released this week, he seems to be optimistic about the bipartisan support framework and is gearing up to address the U.S. immigration debates.

AN "Immigrant Treatment" BILL

The "comprehensive immigration reform bill" has no name to speak of. This leads us to our conclusions about its experimental nature. Since we know biometrics (pictures and fingerprints) alone do not determine statehood, nationality or American citizenship; what does their biometric system prove to the American worker?

This bill is a crackdown everywhere of everyone who has to earn a living. Everyone gets the immigrant treatment. Especially, if you're an indebted working American stiff with four forms of legal identity already.

Worst case scenario: you are arbitrarily arrested for not proving your citizenship on the spot and sent to an ICE/DHS detention center. That makes a buck for the same people who profit from privatized prisons, who profit from criminal justice, prison labor and who profit from monetized debt, liquid credit and poverty [i.e. Bail Bonds and instant credit]. At the very least, you will pay the State to ensure that you stay out of jail. Yes, you pay all the fees and fines and do all the public service necessary to clear away any criminal record. This creates a solid resource and revenue stream for the State. Citizens simply have to pay through the nose to stay above board as good law abiding citizens. Either way, your fingerprints and your face are part of a new biometric worker database at the DMV. So America's private workers join State workers, prisoners and immigrants undergoing scrutinies where their body images are concerned. Oh yeah, and the biometrics industry gets a buck too.

Afterall, we know how hard life is for people with criminal records. They can't get real jobs. They lose a lot of their rights as citizens. They don't get to vote. They can't really hang onto much of anything. They end up doing the low wage scut jobs no one wants in America just to survive. HEY! Aren't those jobs being done by immigrants?

You may want to compare this bill to a practical and less political bill co-sponsored by Senator Graham and Sen Schumer. The AgJOBS bill is an example of a bridge attempt to issue "blue cards" to migrant workers. It seems moderate enough, to be a solid proposal co-sponsored by Senators Chuck Schumer and Lindsey Graham. It actually deals with immigrant workers present in the United States in a fairly non-circuitous, uncomplicated path. It stays away from jails, indefinite immigrant detentions and rights of laborers in America.

THE ACTUAL DEBATE

Just for chuckles lets look at the debate arguments directed at the public right now asking for your consent to choose this system.

IN FAVOR OF COMPREHENSIVE NATIONAL IDENTITY TO WORK

The right way to mend immigration by Charles Schumer and Lindsey Graham

We would require all U.S. citzens and legal immigrants who want jobs to obtain a high-tech, fraud proof Social Security card. Each card's unique biometric identifier would be stored only on the card; no government database would house everyone's information. The cards would not contain any private information, medical information or tracking devices. The card would be a high-tech version of the Social Security card that citizens already have.

OPPOSED OF COMPREHENSIVE NATIONAL IDENTITY TO WORK

Why not do it without the national ID? by Jim Harper, Cato Institute

In an earlier post, I called Senator Graham’s support of Schumer’s national ID plan inexplicable (before taking a stab at explaining it). Seeing the outline of their entire proposal, which would alleviate various pressures and begin a welcome transition back toward the rule of law in the immigration area, I am truly at a loss to understand why they would attach this grauitous and punitive plan to force law-abiding American citizens into a biometric national ID system.

ACTION ALERT UPDATE : Tell Washington you don't want biometric ID cards to work in America

>>> CALL CONGRESS NOW!!!

A BTC ACTION PREROGATIVE - We need to keep pressing our point of view towards Senate and congressional leaders who have not reconciled with constituents when national IDs are not an item you are willing to accept as law. [It's something that will cause you to lose elections, Lindsey Graham. South Carolina doesn't care for any national ID.]

CAN YOU PROVE YOU'RE NOT A TERRORIST?

We contributed a modified version of Downsize D.C.'s action alert to OpEd news which is now equipped to reach the media and to send direct correspondence to congressional leaders in D.C. If you haven't sent your letter against the push for biometric worker cards, or simply want to say it again any way you can, use this link to give your 2 cents. Some readers are at a veritable comfort level with Downsize D.C.'s Educate the Powerful engine, which is still available for interactive use with leadership.

TELL WASHINGTON YOU DON'T WANT BIOMETRIC ID CARDS

TO WORK IN AMERICA

You can add additional information and insights gained straight from the Huffington Post:

ID Cards are Obsolete Technology

Before we become too enamored of the concept of ID documents of any sort as a form of security, or fearful that any other technology will be abused, we must ask two questions, how we prove who we are to each other when we need to do so, and how to do that without impinging on the right to live our lives without a sense of being monitored and overseen?

:::MORE HERE:::

Addtional supplemental reading on biometrics, surveillance, and Immigration reform:

On biometrics and the politics of a national ID c/o Grits for Breakfast

NATIONAL ID: Big Brother Graham trying to decide for you

Commentary by Elwood Sanders for Virginia Right!

The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank reports that Sen. Lindsey Graham of SC is trying to make a deal with President Obama:

Graham has provided Obama a way out of this standoff: Send KSM to a military tribunal in exchange for Congress abandoning legislation that would deny funding to close Gitmo. Next, the administration would work with Congress to create a “national security court,” which would govern how other current and future terrorism suspects can be held in preventive detention.

This was criticized rightly by Glenn Greenwald who suggested it might lead to something like Minority Report, the adaptation of the Philip K. Dick short story where the police receive telepathic indications of crime before it happens. But the real crime is having the venue of a criminal trial decided by political branches like a health care bill. Where is due process in all this? This invites intervention by the federal courts in a way injurious to the cause of justice. How would you like politicians deciding whether say you get tried by a jury or not? It’s outrageous.

Besides, Senator Graham is also involved in an intrusive effort that is more dangerous than the Dangerous REAL ID that the states beat back in an monumental political effort. It would require an ID card for all legal workers in the United States. Check this out from the New York Times:

In addition to opening a path to legal status for an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants, the bill Mr. Schumer and Mr. Graham are shaping would tighten enforcement against hiring illegal immigrant workers by creating a national biometric identification card for all workers, including American citizens and legal immigrants.

A national BIOMETRIC identification card? ALL workers? This is what the Wall Street Journal described for such an ID card:

A person familiar with the legislative planning said the biometric data would likely be either fingerprints or a scan of the veins in the top of the hand. It would be required of all workers, including teenagers, but would be phased in, with current workers needing to obtain the card only when they next changed jobs, the person said.

I once admired Senator Graham so much I sent him an email hoping he would someday run for President. But any politician who would advocate a biometric ID card for all American workers is beyond the pale of my support. “I know not what course others may take,..” the most famous Hanoverian once said, but I know my choice. As a follower of Christ, I have no choice. If Senator Graham does not repudiate this idea I will not support him for any office nor encourage others to do so.

Waking Up Orwell: Reconvenes discussion National ID, National Guard

Tomorrow on Waking Up Orwell

Waking Up Orwell reconvenes at it's normal program time this week. News regarding National identity and more. There is a lot of buzz right now about repealing Real ID as a measure to answer back to the run on American identity through labor using biometrics.



A Citizen's Story: Tangerine Giy

Special guest Tangerine Giy joins the program to talk about her experiences as a Iraq war veteran from the National Guard. She is a naturalized citizen who emmigrated with her family from Burma to avoid life in a fascist regime. Ms. Giy was raised in a very conservative, traditional Asian home. Her father became a self-made small business owner, a local community leader, and eventually a city politician. She joined the National Guard in her late teens, during peacetime. In 2003, she was deployed to Iraq in a bizzare application of the Bush Administration's foreign policy to staff up armed services support in the middle east. She will retire from active duty soon and is very engaged with her college studies in Northern California. Unfortunately, she also suffers from the more persistent of battle traumas: PTSD. She has so generously decided to share her experiences in the Iraq war theater with us.