Our plan to eliminate poverty through human attrition
In an article I wrote for Republic Magazine 12 years ago, I stumbled upon the beginnings of a profiling program designed to work hand-in-hand with the NSA's massive spy program, which had begun after 9/11, 2001, and revealed recently by Edward Snowden. The media does not seem to be aware of the impetus behind this program, which says a lot about the NSA programs intentions and applications. It involves a lot more then just spying on your cell phone and Internet habits. It involves political, racial, social, criminal, educational and other profiling.
The same system, under control of the original designers, is being used today, in Singapore, to arrest people on suspicion of what they "might" do.
Due to my previous research on the Real ID Act, in 2007, I was commissioned by Republic Magazine, to write an article on the multitude of problems and invasion of privacy involved with that legislation. The Real ID Act is an attempt to create a national database of U.S. citizens without calling it a national database of U.S. citizens. In the process of researching for that article, I found something much more invasive was in the works, a program that could create profiles of every U.S. citizen, using the massive amounts of data collected by the NSA spy machine later revealed by Edward Snowden.
The Real ID Act is an interesting story in itself. Highly opposed by a majority of Congress, the bill nonetheless became federal law in May of 2005, skirting significant floor or committee debate or hearing, by the reprehensible attachment of the bill to the Emergency Supplemental Wartime Appropriations Act, which appropriated funds for the war in Iraq, U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, and relief for the victims of the December 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean. The act authorizes the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to supersede state laws protecting the individual rights of privacy, and requires states to surrender their regulatory rights over driver's licenses and birth certificates to the federal government. The act also gives authority to the Secretary of Homeland Security to unilaterally add requirements to the Real ID card as the Secretary sees fit.
Many don't remember hearing of, or have never heard of the Real ID Act. After much controversy over a great number of issues, the Act is still in place and is slowly creeping it's way into the surveillance system through your drivers license or state ID, one of which you will be required to carry at all times.
The first part of my Real ID article described not only the invasiveness of Real ID, but it's lack of protection of your personal data - government will share this information with private industry by basically giving them the keys to the data store, which is a hodgepodge of state government computer networks, sometimes running very outdated systems. It was, and is, ridiculous to anyone who knows anything about computer systems, both from an efficiency standpoint as well as security.
What I discovered, in my research for the article, was a much more sophisticated system in the works that would network with or, more commonly, pull information from the Real ID network. Comparing the two was like comparing ham radio to an international television network, or the horse and buggy to the automobile.
The following paragraphs are at the conclusion of the article. Additional information is [bracketed]. In the first part of the article, I had described the various flaws and potential for misuse of the Real ID system. So we pick up the article at the conclusion of that information.
Such inevitable flaws in the system and their inherent problems are extremely important to consider. Even more important, however, is "surveillance creep", which is what happens when a technology or law intended for one purpose, winds up being used for many others. Over time, this national database has the potential to host more and more personal data. Lacking any privacy regulation, this data will be used for expanded purposes.
This national database of information will inevitably be used for predictive profiling for law enforcement. In a report titled "The Uneasy Case for National ID Cards", A. Michael Froomkin, of the University of Miami School of Law, stated, "If linked to extensive databases, biometric information, and real-time (or near-real-time) activity monitoring - all of which are possible - an ID card system can form the anchor of a wide-ranging system of surveillance, authorization and, optionally, control."
History shows that privacy rights, once eroded, are almost never re-established. Given the open-end design of Real ID placed in the hands of Homeland Security, which has the authority to add whatever information requirements they desire, at any time they deem necessary, the possibilities of including medical records, financial transactions, and various methods of profiling are almost a given. Commercial interests will also play a role, and Real ID cards will turn in to a domestic passport and identifier for a whole myriad of everyday commercial and financial tasks. The potential also exists for expansion to a global identification system. According to Congressman Ron Paul, "A careful reading [of the Real ID Act] also reveals that states will be required to participate in the "Driver's License Agreement," which was crafted by DMV lobbyists years ago. This agreement creates a massive database of sensitive information on American citizens that can be shared with Canada and Mexico!"
U.S. military installations and government offices are already using a [Biometric Identity] system developed by the Federation for Identity and Cross-Credentialing Systems (fixs.org), which has developed what it calls the first "worldwide, interoperable identity and cross-credentialing network." FIXS says their system is ready for global deployment. Their stated mission is to "establish and maintain a worldwide, interoperable identity and cross-credentialing network built on security, privacy, trust, standard operating rules, policies, and technical standards." Such a global ID system has the very real potential of laying the groundwork for global totalitarianism. In such an environment, you could be forbidden to work, travel, open bank accounts, or conduct the most basic life activities without proper approval. Such possibilities may be more real than present governmental and sociological institutions reveal.
[Remember, this was 10 years ago. Today, we have surveillance systems in place that are constantly focusing in on individuals faces - in buildings and places where crowds gather - sending that information back to a biometric match database. Given what we know of NSA's data collection, inevitably, they will collect facial recognition data at any time they can positively connect it with us. We are all under suspicion by the NSA.]
To understand where the policies of putting these systems into place can lead us, one need only look to countries that are way ahead of us in government surveillance and data collection. Take Singapore, for example, one of the most highly regulated societies on the planet, where chewing gum is illegal because it is messy, and expensive fines can occur from such actions as forgetting to flush a public toilet. Singapore is often referred to as a model for successful government control, based heavily on computer and surveillance technology. Its' streets are clean, crime is low (you could receive the death penalty for drug possession), and no one argues politics.
The leaders of the city-state say that economic prosperity has to be paid for with freedom, and warn that Western societies are declining as a direct result of individualism. Former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew declares that good citizens should remember that the national interest is always more important than civil liberties.
Internet activity is censored and devoid of political dissent. As a matter of fact, you will find very little political discussion at all on the Web. Since the 1990's, Internet activity has been under the strict control of the Singapore Broadcasting Authority, which monitors Internet content and website access. Internet Service Providers must be government licensed. The Ministry of Home affairs polices every aspect of personal life, including monitoring personal e-mails, Internet activity and phone calls. Information is gathered, stored, analyzed and used for profiling, and can be used in the courts for prosecution. These practices were put into effect in the 1990's, but were stepped up after 9/11, in the interest of "national security."
Patrick Nathan is deputy director of the Singapore National Security Coordination Center, and is in charge of RAHS [Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning], who's aim, according to Nathan, is "to help leaders to anticipate future security threats and patterns through a networked government approach."
Instigation of the RAHS project in Singapore, according to Nathan, was based on the fear of terrorism and the SARS epidemic. The system is designed to cross reference data in various government databases and is based on profiling to determine threats to the government.
The plan, originally designed by Retired U.S. Adm. John Poindexter for the Pentagon, was scuttled in the United States. Deluged with bad publicity on the project which, among other things, cited Poindexter's key role in the Iran-Contra affair of the 1980's, Poindexter resigned from the project in August of 2003, and Congress pulled funding for the program, titled Total Information Awareness. The TIA office was closed.
[What I didn't mention in this article - because there was no proof - was that rumor, from reliable sources, indicated the program was quietly moved to the NSA, and thus away from the control of either the Pentagon or Congress. The proof did not come until several years later, thanks to Edward Snowden. Since then, it has become massive.]
The technology traveled to Singapore via its creators, John Peterson, of the Virginia-based Arlington Institute (arlingtoninstitute.org), and Dave Snowden, who was previously supported by Poindexter's office within Darpa (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), and is now the chief scientific officer of Cognitive Edge (cognitive-edge.com), a Singapore-based company.
[Additional note: Prior to this, Dave Snowden was the Director of IBM's Institute for Knowledge Management, and the founder of the Cynefin Center for Organizational Complexity. John Peterson calls himself a "futurist" and founded the Arlington Institute which, among other things, states as its mission "Helping leadership translate information - from data to scenarios - into mental maps by which to guide decision making and build sophisticated organizational visions.
The government of Singapore is so enamored with the system Peterson and Snowden set up for them that they now use "preventive detention", under the Internal Security Act of Singapore, to profile and throw people in jail for what they "might" do. Among other things, this makes it a very useful tool in removing political opponents from public view.]
Every citizen and permanent resident in Singapore is required, at the age of 15, to register for and receive an IC, or "Identity Card". The card is a necessity for such everyday transactions as shopping, registering a mobile phone, logging on to various Internet sites, receiving medical treatment, securing a rental car or motel room, or obtaining documents. Most of these activities and more are recorded, in real time, in a centralized database.
IC Applicants must submit, among other documentation, photocopies of both parents' ICs. After registering, the card is sent to the registrant's school - not to their home.
Spring Singapore, the national office that establishes industry standards in Singapore, has come up with a standard for various RFID-based cards, including the IC so that one electronic reader can be used by government and industry. Devices will also include PDAs, watches and mobile phones.
[Think this can't happen here? According to Henry Kissinger, we only need "an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated". Kissinger, advisor to every president since, Eisenhower, with the exception of John Kennedy, also said "The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer."]
Modern technologies hold many wonders not even considered possible only a short time ago. Intelligent consideration of what these technologies mean to society brings up the inevitable conclusion that just because we can do something does not necessarily mean we should. When the devaluation of personal autonomy, safety and individual freedom is bound to a technology, it is of paramount importance to self-governing people to resist the use of that technology. One need only look to our society's past to see the effects of erosion of the principles we, as a nation, profess to uphold. Should we never draw the line and define our boundaries, we will have no defense against the frailty of misguided, error-prone institutions, let alone the tyranny of others.