[ale] U.S. National Identity Cards All But Law

[Randal Jarrett]

About your passport...

They (the US Government) are changing the passports,,,
see:
http://news.com.com/U.S.+moves+closer+to
+e-passports/2100-1012_3-5425314.html?tag=st.rn


One of the biggest problems I see with what they are saying about the
new passports (other than privacy problems, which they are working on
with builtin shielding so that they can only be read when open) is the
list of manufactures of the chips that they are considering.  Notice
that there are not any US manufactures in the list!!!
>From the article,
 "...a German microchip company that is one of the four competitors for
the State Department contract. 
The other candidates are BearingPoint, a French company called Axalto
and SuperCom, an Israeli firm."

Isn't that a kicker. trusting foreign companies to make the rfid chips
for our passports..


Randy 

On Fri, 2005-05-06 at 16:32 -0400, Jim Popovitch wrote:
> On Fri, 2005-05-06 at 16:15 -0400, Randal Jarrett wrote:
> > Bad news follows good!!
> > [snip]
> > The worst part is the completely machine-readable/automatic 
> > nature of the thing -- you might not even know you're giving 
> > your information away." 
> 
> Isn't that exactly the state of the current mess?  How many
> "unauthorized consumer information disclosures" were reported in the
> past 6 months, how many weren't reported?  Thieves are abusing the
> current ID situation so much that drivers licenses are as bad a joke as
> social security cards.  
> 
> Frankly the US States have done a horrible job of issuing consistent
> quality IDs.  Most banks consider your ATM card (w/ picture) better ID
> than your state drivers license.   Even college ID cards are better
> managed than state issued IDs.
> 
> I'm not 100% for a national ID, but I am 100% for a national standard
> for ID as well as a national standard for retention of personal data.
> 
> Btw, my US Passport trumps all other ID no matter where I go.  The US
> government did get it right with Passports, and they probably will get
> it right with something like RealID.
> 
> Let me know if they start talking about tattooing it across your
> forehead. ;-)
> 
> -Jim P. 
> 
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