[Politech] Weekly column: Howard Dean's worrisome views on privacy [priv]

From: Declan McCullagh (declan@private)
Date: Mon Jan 26 2004 - 05:18:09 PST

  • Next message: Declan McCullagh: "[Politech] Howard Dean's speech calling for smartcard-based national ID [priv]"

    http://news.com.com/2010-1028-5146863.html
    
    Dean should come clean on privacy
    January 26, 2004, 4:00 AM PT
    By Declan McCullagh
    
    After Howard Dean's unexpected defeat last week in Iowa, public attention 
    has focused on his temper, his character, and that guttural Tyrannosaurus 
    bellow of his not-quite-a-concession speech. But Dean's views on Americans' 
    privacy rights may be a superior test of his fitness to be president.
    
    Dean's current stand on privacy appears to leave little wiggle room: His 
    campaign platform pledges unwavering support for "the constitutional 
    principles of equality, liberty and privacy."
    
    Fifteen months before Dean said he would seek the presidency, however, the 
    former Vermont governor spoke at a conference in Pittsburgh co-sponsored by 
    smart-card firm Wave Systems where he called for state drivers' licenses to 
    be transformed into a kind of standardized national ID card for Americans. 
    Embedding smart cards into uniform IDs was necessary to thwart 
    "cyberterrorism" and identity theft, Dean claimed. "We must move to smarter 
    license cards that carry secure digital information that can be universally 
    read at vital checkpoints," Dean said in March 2002, according to a copy of 
    his prepared remarks. "Issuing such a card would have little effect on the 
    privacy of Americans."
    
    Dean also suggested that computer makers such as Apple Computer, Dell, 
    Gateway and Sony should be required to include an ID card reader in 
    PCs--and Americans would have to insert their uniform IDs into the reader 
    before they could log on. "One state's smart-card driver's license must be 
    identifiable by another state's card reader," Dean said. "It must also be 
    easily commercialized by the private sector and included in all PCs over 
    time--making the Internet safer and more secure."
    
    The presidential hopeful offered few details about his radical proposal. 
    "On the Internet, this card will confirm all the information required to 
    gain access to a state (government) network--while also barring anyone who 
    isn't legal age from entering an adult chat room, making the Internet safer 
    for our children, or prevent adults from entering a children's chat room 
    and preying on our kids...Many new computer systems are being created with 
    card reader technology. Older computers can add this feature for very 
    little money," Dean said.
    
    There's probably a good reason why Dean spoke so vaguely: It's unclear how 
    such a system would work in practice. Must Internet cafes include uniform 
    ID card readers on public computers? Would existing computers have to be 
    retrofitted? Would tourists be prohibited from bringing laptops unless they 
    sported uniform ID readers? What about Unix shell accounts? How did a 
    politician who is said to be Internet-savvy concoct this scheme?
    
    [...remainder snipped...]
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