Moving the US Government into the 21st Century


Cinergy in business is the most efficient method to create profit with fewer resources, so why not address multiple government services and mandates with this same economy method?

For example all legal workers must have a Social Security Card. Persons desiring to travel outside of US boundaries require a passport. All persons desiring public state/federal services require a SS number and photo ID and likewise banking services require a photo ID. Citizens must register for the draft. When persons violate law they must be positively identified and record maintained. Persons desiring to participate in voting at all levels must be registered and positively identified.

Under my Cinergy proposal illegal immigration and numerous other problems such as non-support of children could be eliminated. And, by using Cinergy government size and efficiency could vastly be improved.

The Plan:

As each child is born in America the hospital will collect DNA and once the birth is registered with the state authority a file would be created issuing a temporary photo ID with a Social Security number. These cards would be smart ID’s with electronic photos embedded into a credit card style ID similar to a military ID. At age 18 this card would be updated and the citizen would make a new ID that includes voter registration with an eight year voting record where votes would be physically hole punched requiring renewal following the eighth year for all citizens, this function could take place in all public High Schools.

All adult persons without photo SS Card above would have three years to take birth certificates to the local High School to prove citizenship in order to have the card issued. State office of registrar’s would verify in public records of birth that these births were in fact valid.

Require all employers to demand presentation of the ID when employment takes place and require sub contractors to sign statements that all employees have appropriate ID.

Immigrants on visitor visa and all non resident aliens would be given a similar card to identify them with their home country passport number in lieu of the SS number, and an indication as to whether or not the person is authorized to work on the ID. This would end overstays of visitor visas and eliminate illegal immigrates from working without fear of arrest.

Could such a National ID function to reduce voter fraud?

Could such a National ID illiminate immigration problems?

Could such a National ID problem streamline pasport requirements allowing easier movement of citizens around the world?

Are there big brother implications that would prohibit such a national ID system?

Why not just go ahead and tag each child with a microchip that we can track them with. This would also reduce crime as we will always KNOW exactly where you were and when. DNA and fingerprints.
We could even create public housing where each person is assigned to live until death and never allowed to leave for another location without a public hearing. No more homelessness.
Assigned jobs as well.
Legally assigned diet plans to make sure people stay healthy and do not become a burden for the rest of society and keep healthcare costs down. If you try to order take out that does not match the diets parameters a fine is automatically deducted from your paycheck.



See no need for any type of National ID beyond what we already have.



P.S. Synergy (from the Greek synergos, συνεργός meaning working together)

The Social Security card is intrusive and subject to theft and or fraud as it is. Using DNA would not be intrusive and could aid in placing charges for child support requirements and be used in criminal trials as a law enforcement tool.

You are making my plan into big brother when, in fact it is no more control than a social security card and would function equal to a passport and secure voting method. Machines could be developed around the card to create a paper trail in voting and assure only qualified voters participate. It would encourage people to participate in their government.



We don't have one. What is a Social Security card but a piece of paper with a few numbers on it? Those numbers are to important since they assign you as property of the federal government, so a process should exist to secure those numbers.



Well, thanks I googled and found my spelling but I do appreciate your help on this issue.

Could such a National ID function to reduce voter fraud?

Yes

Could such a National ID illiminate immigration problems?

Definitely although the system we have now, if used could go a long way to achieve the same result.

Could such a National ID problem streamline pasport requirements allowing easier movement of citizens around the world?

Naturally – but only if other countries were linked in.

Are there big brother implications that would prohibit such a national ID system?

Paranoia will always be a factor. I see no such issue.

Since you specifically refer to "the hospital will collect DNA" I assume that you are talking about a biometric card. The British government has been talking about this kind of ID card since 9-11, so it's been talked about a lot. Also, the USA has requested that all nations move towards some kind of biometric ID driving the passports & visa system, though the scale of the implementation means that this is still several years off

I am, or rather I have become, generally sceptical on biometric ID. Before I say why, I'll answer your questions from the theoretical position of a perfect ID system that cannot be faked (or at least is hard to fake) and always works.

Could such a National ID function to reduce voter fraud?

This is essentially an issue of identity theft. In a foolproof ID system, only the registered voter could vote in their name, and each person could only vote once. So, in theory, your National ID idea would reduce voter fraud.

Could such a National ID illiminate immigration problems?

As has been pointed out, this would rely on foreign cooperation. It wouldn't have to be foreign governments organising it - you could simply expand the visa-issuing service out of American Embassies and Consulates around the world to allow them to collect biometric data and issue biometric IDs as part of tourist or work visas. That would cost money, but there's no barrier to charging the visitors themselves for their ID/visas.

This would certainly reduce the number of people who come into the USA through Immigration Control at ports of entry.

Could such a National ID problem streamline pasport requirements allowing easier movement of citizens around the world?

Movement of US citizens abroad? Only if foreign governments had access to the US National ID database (which, if other governments implemented their own biometrically-driven ID systems, would rapidly become an interconnected network of national databases, or in effect, a single international ID database).

Are there big brother implications that would prohibit such a national ID system?

Yes, if it worked well enough to be a foolproof ID system for the mundane uses.

BUT...

There are fundamental problems with biometric ID.

All those terminals that would be needed to read the encoded data on the card would cost a fair amount.

And if all they do is match the fingerprints/iris scan/DNA of the person carrying the card, rather than cross referencing against a central database, all the system is doing is requiring criminals to spend more money on hardware to poduce a fake. Think of it this way; if my card says I'm George Clooney, and my biometric ID matches what it says on my card (easy to do because I use myself as a sample when I'm making the fake), then the scanner in the field is going to verify my identity as George Clooney. In effect, despite using some fancy technology, you're just updating the kit required to make a convincing fake; in 1943, ID papers with a photo could be faked by - well, by taking a photo of the person who was going to use the fake ID. All a non-database ID system will do is add fingerprints, DNA, etc. to the list of things to sample from the holder of the fake.

What you'd need to be able to tell I'm not George Clooney is something to verify me against the card I carry AND to verify the same data against the central record for me. If you miss out one of the verifications, I could have faked the card to match me but not the database (as I've mentioned). Or, if you verify the card info against the database but not against my own finger/eye/DNA then I could just have stolen the card from a real, "official" person.

Ok - so that just means that there has to be a central database, right? Right. So now we've got all the port-of-entry immigration terminals hooked up to a big database which itself is hooked up to all those US Embassises and Consulates abroad that issued the biometric visas and to all the foreign governments' own national ID databases. Any database designer will tell you that for speed, accruacy and avoidance of conflicts, you design a relational databse so you only hold each piece of data once. So for foreign visitors, you have to have a secure, always-on network connection to London or Paris or Kuala Lumpur. Or you have to convince the world that everyone should be reading from and writing to the same secure, always-on database through the same secure, always-on network.

That might be just about possible.

But if you want all voting booths to have access to the same database (to verify the voter is entitled to vote, and hasn't already done so), the network gets a lot more complex.

And all police stations? More complex. And all police vehicles? Same technology, with some kind of wireless connection to a network of masts which are connected to the ID network & dabatase - much more complex. And all beat police - you'd want them to be able to verify the identity of someone acting suspiciously there and then? - same card reader technology with wireless connection, only portable - more complex still.

And, while it wouldn't be an part of the legitimate government uses of the ID system, pretty much every other organisation that ever wants to verify identity (banks, car rental agencies, hotel registration, even bars and restaurants wanting to verify age for serving alcohol) would have to be able to hook into the network as necessary (as I've already said, any National ID system using biometrics that didn't cross-reference against the central database would be no more use than existing paper-based ID systems, and a heck of a lot more expensive).

As if THAT wasn't enough, if the immigration enforcement aspect is to fulfil its potential, all employers would need to be able to verify identities. Which would load costs onto every business in the USA that employs people, even casually.

Which leads me to the biggest reason to suppose that even a foolproof version of this type of ID system would fail to control illegal immigration - the same reason that the current system doesn't function; too many employers don't know or care whether their employees are legally entitled to work. And a significant number actually prefer illegals - they don't have as many rights, they work for less money, and they (generally) are a lot easier to exploit than native workers. Which costs the businesses that employ them less money. Which, in capitalism, is a good thing. Such businesses would still exist under a National ID system, so there would still be an incentive to enter illegally. And if someone wants to avoid the ID terminals at ports of entry in 5 or 10 years after the new system comes in, they can do so in exactly the same way they currently do it - cross a desert or a river and walk 100s of miles, so you never get anywhere near immigration control officers. Or pay someone to smuggle you in through a container port (or in the false compartment of a truck or other vehicle). If you get in that way, and you then go to work for an employer who (illegally) never checks you are entitled to work for them, you could have a National ID system that requires every legal resident and visitor to wear an implanted chip or even wear a locator ankle bracelet, and you'd still have an illegal immigration problem.

Ok, so ID cards on their own will not really eliminate illegal immigration - just force illegal immigrants that do get in to stay under the radar. They'd have to not claim social security, not pay taxes, etc. - i.e. they'd have to live their whole lives in the black economy. But there are other things that can be done about that; put in place proper port and border security so every container and vehicle, or at least a much bigger and completely randomised sample of them, gets inspected. This would also clamp down on every other type of smuggling, which may not be a bad thing.

Back to the database. It's clear that, if the new National ID cards are to consolidate existing ID forms (drivers licence, voting registration and social security to name but three), there would need to be a really big and central database to hold all the information, and a really pervasive and fast network so all the official and unofficial-but-legitimate uses of the database could take place in real time.

It would have to be in real time, because you wouldn't want to be in a situation where a policeman had to take someone into custody for 24 hours just to wait for their ID to be verified - at least I hope you wouldn't, unless you've never been pulled over and don't think you ever will be. nor would you want voters to register at the voting terminal hours or days ahead of actually voting; apart from anything else, if the biometric ID verification is separated in time from the actual voting, you need to make sure through some other means that the person whose identity was verified is the same one who actually voted. The best way to do that would be to do the verification in real time.

Anyone here used a credit or debit card? They're pretty good, right. But sometimes, the network goes down; a particular store can't connect to VISA's database say. That's not usually a disaster - many if not most people have more than one credit card, and the main card companies have their own networks and databases. Or you can pay cash. Or do without. How inconvenient that turns out to be depends very much on what it is you're paying for.

If the network is up and running it isn't always up to date - if my salary get paid in on the 30th of the month and usually clears the next day, but takes five working days to clear on time because of a computer glitch somewhere that's a problem - I can't spend my money because they've messed up.

Now, bank networks are generally very secure. Maybe not as secure as the nuclear defence network, but then that's got a lot to do with how many different people around the world legitimately need to transact with the bank networks versus how many people need to legitimately transact with the nuclear defence computers (i.e. hundreds of millions, many times per day, versus perhaps a few thousand under very special circumstances).

The numbers of transactions with a National ID database would be more comparable with bank networks than secret defence networks, yet - because it's government holding lots of data on citizens and visitors - the level of security would need, if anything to be more like that of defence networks than banks.

There are LOADS more things to say about this topic, but I don't have time to say them now. More later...

There are positives and negatives to a system like this, a biometric photo ID card would probably work better in reducing Voter Fraud, however in terms of passports etc I dont think it would make too much difference (unless you're referring to the requirements to get a passport). The additional biometric data would aid as another form of ID rather than just an old normally very bad (I speak from experience of the photo on my passport here) photo of yourself that you present at border control.

However like I said previously there are negatives to the scheme presented here

1. It probably wouldnt stem the flow of illegal immigrants in the long term as smugglers and fraudsters would find away round it eventually. No system is fool proof the second the new ID system came on line there would be a queue of hackers and ID fraudsters working away to be the first to say "I've unlocked the new ID system"

2. The cost of introducing the system would be prohibative, in the UK when the idea of the system was first raised I think conservative estimates for setting up the system alone came to £1 billion.($2 billion-ish) for very little more security than you currently have

3. There are problems with having an all in one card. If you lose your passport its bad, if you lose your social security card its bad, if you lose your drivers licsence its bad. Imagine having all three stolen in one go with all your DNA, Iris and fingerprint data, ID fraudsters would have every possible piece of information about you in one card. Information which could then be used to apply for credit card, mobile phone contracts, or adapt your data to smuggle immigrants across the border on fake passports.

This is without getting into the orwellian nightmare that could arise from the government having your fingerprints and DNA on file. A persons DNA is their property and no government (whom ever it may be) should have the right to forcibly take that from you at birth under the pretext that one day you MIGHT commit a crime. Under the law of most democratic civilised nations you are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. When a person is charged of a crime they can take their fingerprints and DNA at that point. Police have reasons for going after specific suspects in criminal investigations. There is always the danger of police finding a DNA or fingerprint of an innocent third and that person then being put through a trial and being convicted for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This has happened on many occasions anyway through neither the fault of the Police or the courts. One of the founding principles of the legal system is that it is better for 100 guilty men to walk free than it is for 1 innocent man to go to jail.

Anyway thats my view.