USA To Require Govt Issued ID To Use Internet, No More Anonymous

[dan at geer.org]

 | A senior Homeland Security official recently argued that Internet
 | anonymity should outlawed in the same way that driving a car without a
 | license plate is against the law. "When a person drives a car on a
 | highway, he or she agrees to display a license plate," Erik Barnett,
 | an assistant deputy director at U.S. Immigration and Customs
 | Enforcement and attache to the European Union at the Department of
 | Homeland Security, wrote. "The license plate's identifiers are ignored
 | most of the time by law enforcement. Law enforcement will use the
 | identifiers, though, to determine the driver's identity if the car is
 | involved in a legal infraction or otherwise becomes a matter of public
 | interest. Similarly, should not every individual be required to
 | display a 'license plate' on the digital super-highway?"

In a world of circulating *private sector* plate readers and cameras
fed to databases where it is dollars, not writs, that open the door,
the analogy above is bullshit.  As they say in the law, falsus in uno,
falsus in omnibus.

--dan