EFF: New FBI Documents Provide Details on Government’s Surveillance Spyware

REDUX: NSTIC run by Banking Industry, Real ID news and Big Data v. Privacy

This one goes to Hawaii for all of the exhaustive inquiry into identity articles.

c/o Honolulu Star Adviser.com

Question: Regarding the Department of Homeland Security giving states until January 2013 to comply with the REAL ID Act (Kokua Line, April 21): Does any Hawaii license issued so far comply? I got my driver’s license in March, but I can’t tell the new one from the old one. (Combination of two questions.)

Answer: No Hawaii driver’s license or state ID card is fully compliant with security features required under the REAL ID Act, according to the city Motor Vehicles & Licensing Division and state ID Office.

Under the Department of Homeland Security’s REAL ID mark guidelines, a fully compliant card will feature a gold circle with a star cut out to reveal the background. That mark will be placed on the front top third of the license or ID.

Here is second life for news that matters:

Banks to Lead U.S. Online ID Strategy

White House cyber czar: "Trusted Identities program is a secure “ecosystem”, not a national ID card"

The New York Yankees and DSLReports.com responsible for 30,000 more data loss victims

Why Voter ID Laws Are Not The Answer 

Who else is tracking your location?

Data Privacy Put to the Test in a Supreme Court Case

Zero Privacy, Big Data, Oxygen Deprived Birthers

AND JUST IN CASE YOU'VE BEEN IN A COMA...
Former Miss USA, Susie Castello alleges sexual assault by TSA

"Don't let immigration hysteria undermine environmental laws"

BTC- Big props to Scott Nicol at No Border Wall Coalition.

Roughly two-thirds of the U.S. population lives in the area targeted by this waiver.

 :::MORE HERE:::

OCELOT can not haz silence 

MAINE CURIOSITY CONTINUED

AxXiom for Liberty ‘Biometric Skeptics’ Show Notes from April 29, 2011

"Imitation is the highest form of flattery." 

- Coco Chanel 

USA PATRIOT Act: The myth of a secure European cloud?

BTC- Part 3 in a ZDNet series by Zack Whittaker.... another great find c/o BORDC

ATTENTION-ACHTUNG-CUIDADO-ALERTER: 

There is no privacy in the European cloud, or any public cloud outside of the United States where a U.S.-based or wholly owned subsidiary company is involved. 

:::MORE HERE::: 

SEE ALSO:
Pt 1- Safe Harbor: Why EU data needs 'protecting' from US law
Pt 2- Case study: How the USA PATRIOT Act can be used to access EU data

And the Birthers may doubt your citizenship

A response to CNN reports, “CNN Birther Investigation: ‘No doubt’ President Obama was born in Hawaii.” 

By Sheila Dean 


What would life be like in America if a political group could simply doubt you out of your citizenship and subsequently, your rights? What would happen if they didn’t like: your race, your parents, your State of origin or who you were married to? If the Birthers were a smashing success, you could share President Obama’s fate.


Currently, anyone born in the United States is a citizen by right of the 14th Amendment. 

The Birther movement has exhibited relentless challenge to President Obama’s U.S. citizenship. The strategy of the Birther movement has been to displace the current United States President by annulling his birth records. A successful PR campaign has driven doubt about Obama's birth certificate into many Americans. The Birthers reject Obama’s current electronic birth record held by the State of Hawaii.   In a worst case scenario, if Obama’s citizenship was disproven, the Birther movement might call for an ex-officiated President to be expediently deported for being an "illegal alien immigrant".  We can not speculate where he would be sent, since he is an American. 

According to CNN, Obama’s birth documents pre-date the electronic records system in Hawaii.  Obama’s mother is also a US citizen, born in the Continental United States. This is still not good enough for Donald Trump and the Birthers he serves. 

Obama’s birth record contest mimics a nightmare trip to and from a Florida DMV window; where it seems no amount of identity proof will ever be enough.

The Florida DMV has become notorious for turning away women and the elderly from attaining drivers licenses or ID cards because they can’t substantiate “adequate” documentation. The State of Florida is adherent to Real ID requirements for very specific citizenship articles and identity documentation, as well as mountains of supplemental information as proof of residency.  Often proof of citizenship and marriage records pre-date acknowledgement by “updated” systems, if you have been around long enough.  Residency? Birth Certificate? Marriage Certificate? Soldier? At times this is not nearly enough for the State of Florida to give you a license to drive.

An American birth certificate is also a private identity document. Posting a copy online is not something most of us would do; yet the President has indulged the Birther community by doing so.  If the US President’s identity is compromised, stolen or misappropriated by common criminal identity thieves, the matter becomes an issue of national security.  The common risk remains.  If you repeatedly flash certain documentation enough, it will inevitably tempt identity thieves. There is risk to you through over-exposure or repeated sharing through insecure DMV databases in Real ID compliant states. 

In a best case scenario, you hope having a birth certificate and a social security card are enough to procure the gold standard for national-to-international passage, the US Passport. Surely, this would ensure your ability to sail through all inquiry into your legal identity.  However, right now, a birth certificate alone will not relieve you from the run on proof of private information to gain a passport.  The TSA and the US State Department have teamed up on an exhaustively intrusive questionnaire for passport applicants.  This may require you to prove the last 7 years of employment and status of circumcision if you are male.   

Not everyone who wants identity information deserves an answer.  It’s bizarrely disenchanting see the POTUS cave in to an incessant demand for birth certificate verification by a politically motivated group bent on his displacement.  Why would Obama go along with this type of juvenile ultimatum?  Birthers are the same type of  people who can’t be satisfied with enough evidence of ANY US citizenship- no matter how much or how often you prove it to them.

Americans aren’t required to agree, or even like, Obama’s policies or his politics. In fact, he is responsible for backing over his own civil liberties by signing the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act and continued warrantless data gathering efforts.  His Administration has a lot in common with the Birthers nipping at his heels afterall.

However, if the Birther movement were allowed to displace a US President for “inadequate documentation”, wouldn’t it force a weird new standard of subjectivity into the handling of United States citizenship?  What if a group of US residents decided you shouldn’t have rights?  Could they could simply launch a private campaign effort to dispell your citizenship as if it were a myth and then expect the State’s highest offices play along with it? 

Don’t be a fool.  American citizenship should not be reduced to some blithe Statist game of,“I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours”.

Just because Obama put his birth certificate online, does not mean we should give the Administration unlimited access to our private identity articles.  The President waiving his rights, doesn't require you to waive yours.

REDUX: Poll: 60% Reject Government ID for Online Security [NSTIC]

BTC - Thanks to Freedom's Phoenix.

 


SEE ALSO: Rasmussen Poll shows 60%Reject Government ID for Online Security [NSTIC]

Digital ID News: The US isn't ready for NSTIC & It's all in the implementation

PAPERS, PLEASE!: Public outrage at proposed questionnaire for passport applicants

The Maine Curiosity

BTC -- Maine has tread a rocky road to success and compromise towards resolving Real ID compliance and State boundaries. Rep. Ben Chipman, a freshman elected on an Independent ticket, used Maine's legislative history and his experience on a local People's Veto initiative to gain support and sponsorship for An Act To Protect the Privacy of Maine Residents under the Driver's license Laws [LD-1068]. The bill has been recently re-worked to include an Amendment; which united partisan interests and gained a nod from the Governor.

Rep. Chipman discusses the bill, the Amendment, the legislative priorities for LD-1068 and Maine's conflicted history with Real ID.

Economic View: Show Us the Data. (It’s Ours, After All.)

IDAHO: "New license not part of REAL ID"