just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not after you

hm. the weekend has been full of exciting news in the field of orwellian surveillance and privacy invasion.

first, i read about how london is being wired for sound, since the cctv cameras everywhere aren't quite enough. fine, i thought, the british are used to not having any privacy rights and submitting to the nanny state. it's all part of being british.

but apparently it's not just the british. this scary article from wired magazine describes the first 30 of a planned 2,250 camera network for the police in chicago:
Funded with $3.5 million from local drug busts, the next wave of pod cameras will have audio sensors that listen for gunshots (and distinguish between them and similar noises, like the pop of a firecracker). Software will scan the video feeds for suspicious behavior.

and on top of that, there's the real id act, which just passed in the house of representatives. it basically creates a national id card, fucks up habeas corpus, and makes it even easier to track down somebody. which will do no good at fighting terrorists, since they have money and knowhow to confound the system -- but it will make it easier to hunt down, say, a victim of spousal abuse who's trying to hide and doesn't have the money and knowhow to get around the system.

i'm writing my senators about the real id act (click below for the letter i wrote). it's dangerous, and it needs to be stopped. as for the cameras, they sound ripe for civil disobedience.


Senators,
I am a 25-year-old aerospace engineer living in Seattle. I have been following the gradual degradation of privacy rights in this country since 9/11, and the "Real ID Act" that you will be voting on this week is the latest in a series of misguided attempts to increase security for the American people.

It has come to my attention that this Act is being attached as a rider to a bill intended to provide support for our brave troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. While the primary bill is noble in its intent, its rider, the Real ID Act, is dangerous and must not be allowed to pass.

I can understand some of the reasoning behind the Real ID Act. Law enforcement has to deal with the differences between state driver licenses, incompatible databases, and easily forgeable identity cards. But the cards required by this Act will hold permanent home addresses - no PO boxes, not even for undercover cops, judges, or congresspeople - that can be read by any machine that scans them. And the data collected in the required databases, linking home addresses and ID photos to hospital records, purchasing histories, and so forth, will be held in both federal computers and private sector computers. And while the federal government may choose to use the resources of the NSA or other agencies to protect citizens' privacy, the private sector will not be under such restraints. Even the well-known data collection agency, ChoicePoint, recently had a significant amount of personal data on many Americans stolen from its databases by identity thieves.

While it is understandable to want to create a web of information in which terrorists or criminals can be caught, what the author of this Act forgets is that terrorist organizations and experienced criminals can easily circumvent such an ID system, much as the 9/11 terrorists did. The people who will end up being caught in this web will be people who have a legitimate need to hide, and don't have the means to circumvent the system, such as victims of domestic abuse. All that will be required for a battered wife to be found is a husband willing to pay a small fee to access this database.

Please, vote against the Real ID Act. It is dangerous, and it is un-American.

Thank you.