[Politech] AAMVA National ID Forum scheduled for Feb 26-29 in Houston [priv]

From: Declan McCullagh (declan@private)
Date: Wed Feb 04 2004 - 05:45:43 PST

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    To: declan@private, gnu@private
    Subject: AAMVA National ID Forum, Feb 26-29
    Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2004 18:33:09 -0800
    From: John Gilmore <gnu@private>
    
    They call it the "2004 Driver Licensing and Identification Security
    Forum".  But what it really is about is making "one individual, one
    document, one database record" -- in other words, one national ID per
    person in the US, that happens to be issued by the US states (and
    Canadian provinces and Mexican states).
    
    Join the bureaucrats who are plotting to make this happen, in scenic
    Houston, Feb 26-29.  (Don't forget to show your ID to travel there,
    and also to check in to the Westin Galleria, "of course".  That
    requirement is why I won't be there; I'm under regional arrest because
    I refuse to get, or show, such an ID.)  Feb 29th is specially set
    aside as "Canada Day" for dealing with how Canadian provinces are
    going to issue these coordinated "US National IDs".
    
       http://www.aamva.org/events/mnu_evt2004IDSecuritySummit.asp
         (Meeting Contact: Lucia Osterbind, +1 703 522 4200)
    
    This AAMVA project is a multi-year effort that started before 9/11 but
    accelerated afterward, in a misguided attempt to categorize and file
    every person on the continent so we'll then know all the "good guys"
    from the "bad guys" and can merely lock up all the bad guys and then
    we'll feel safe.  The bills that authorize and enable this cross-state
    collaboration are due to be introduced in state legislatures STARTING
    NOW, and need active opposition from local privacy groups.  But
    first, you need information about what they're up to -- so attend.
    
    Privacy activists and journalists should converge on this conference,
    to find out what's really happening, and to ask them if they've lost
    their minds.  Curiously, the scheme is being perpetrated by middle
    level bureaucrats in state motor vehicle agencies, who actually think
    they are doing good for the world by tracking every citizen from the
    cradle to the grave.  Privacy activists have been absent from their
    deliberations for years.  Neither their bosses the Governors, nor
    their own legislatures, know what they are up to.  (The Feds are in it
    up to their armpits, of course, but only as "advisors".)
    
    	John Gilmore
    
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