"It is
impossible for ideas to compete in the marketplace if no forum for
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Letter from the
President
May 15th, 2002
John
Hathaway-Bates
President
& Executive Director
There has been a lot of talk about identity cards since 9/11 and an outcry of privacy invasion, big brother, etc. etc. ever since the subject was broached. Once it was no more than one of those academic coffee house debates as far as I was concerned, up until a few weeks ago, when such a conversation after a Business Forum luncheon in San Francisco made me really start thinking about it. Now I am starting to wonder exactly why the Federal Government does not actually establish a commission to discuss it, especially with so much focus on security and terrorism these days.
We already possess Social Security Numbers, driving licenses, passports (or Green Cards), there are Union Cards, Credit Cards, Student ID's and Security Cards for many places of employment, I even have a Patient Medical Card to save the doctors time in locating my medical records. So why not have National Identity Cards? Come to that, this being the 21st Century, why not just insert a computer chip into everyone's wrist, (heat sensitive, so that removing it from the body would deactivate it)?
It could be programmed to be everything I need to prove that I am me, my driver's license and my passport and then perhaps boarding an aircraft or cashing a check would be easier and more efficient than the present confusion. I could also include a debit card feature in mine, so that the next time I find myself somewhere I do not want to be I could get cash to get a ticket out of there.
It would create a new avenue for the technology revolution and create thousands of jobs; just the purchase of scanning machines by police forces wanting to check my license and registration, or a hospital wanting my medical history, or a convenience store wanting to sell me a soda, or a gas station where I fill my tank, etc. etc. Obviously that would be a welcome boost for the economy right now as the law could demand that the scanning machines must be manufactured in the US.
It
would allow security everywhere, protect us against terrorists, curtail
illegal immigration, there would be no more "lost" children, and it
would cure voter fraud once and for all - whoops, perhaps that is the real
reason it will never take place. Arguments for and against welcomed.
President & Executive Director
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Previous Letters from the President
April
2001
May 2001
July
2001
August 2001
September 2001
October 2001
November
2001
January
2002
February 2002
April 2002
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