A few months after it initially unveiled the proposal, the Obama Administration has announced that it is moving forward with a federal government Internet ID scheme, with the Commerce Department tapped to create the program.
The effort was condemned back in July when it was first discussed, with complaints about its lack of specifics and major privacy concerns. Far from solving those concerns, the new announcement appears to just rehash the introduction, and still doesn’t seem to offer any concrete benefit to the American public, except for some odd mention that it would mean Americans “won’t have to memorize dozens of passwords.”
The administration insists the program will be purely voluntary, but its ambitions to be the de facto identification standard across the entire internet suggests it would remain so in name only. The benefits of a multi-site ID are clear, but have already been realized with efforts like OpenID without the messy problems created by a federal program.
At first blush the program seems a (sloppy) solution in search of a non-existent problem, but it becomes pretty quickly apparent why the administration wants such a program at all. Officials tout its use as allowing someone to log in to their “anonymous blog” securely, but with the login credentials already tied to a specific American citizen by the US government, in what sense the blog would remain anonymous is unclear.
And that is the real value for officials, who are looking to move against their online opponents in a big way and are openly calling whistleblowers “terrorists.” If the Commerce Department can verify the identities of Internet users at will, it must inevitably have a chilling effect not just on whistleblowing, but general criticism of the administration.
Forget whistle blowers. Free speech is no more. Anyone who dares criticize Dear Leader will get a visit from the State Security Department.
Better start memorizing all the Yakov Smirnoff jokes as they already apply in reverse.
Heil Obama – let the Obama dictatorship expand its powers!
Here it comes… We are in the last days of freedom of speech. Next target: freedom of thought.
Big brother is watching you…
Far from solving those concerns, the new announcement appears to just rehash the introduction, and still doesn’t seem to offer any concrete benefit to the American public, except for some odd mention that it would mean Americans “won’t have to memorize dozens of passwords.”
Oh, heavens help us! Big Brother is now trying to spare our brains the extra work of remembering passwords. The Thought Police has arrived!
Where is the pre-ID opt-out list? I'm happy with my internet security just like it is.
Oh, wait- if we opt out do we automatically get out on the Terrorist Watch List? Or do we just report to the nearest military installation for transport to Guantanamo Bay?
Note the dangers of language.
First, we let them get away with violating the rights of anyone who's a terrorist.
Next, they call any political opponent a terrorist.
They want to create a civillian version of the CAC, and eventually require its use to access any part of the internet. They can make it work, because they can require its use to access your account in any federally regulated financial institution and require its use to file your taxes or to make purchases over the internet that involve transfers from federally regulated banks or credit accounts. Once everyone has one for financial transactions, it is a simple matter to require its use for everything.