Bad enough that
we are required by law to present our “papers” – government-issued ID cards,
egregiously mislabelled as driver’s licenses – whenever a government bullyboy
so demands. Just as in the former East Germany, just as in the former Soviet
Union – and in another place whose name it’s hardly necessary to mention.
But in those
places – in those times – tyranny was limited somewhat by technology.
In our time,
the technology available to tyranny is almost limitless – and the laws which
used to at least somewhat protect us have become the means by which technology
tyrannizes us.
Corporations,
which give a damn about our rights as much as Ted Bundy cared about his
victims, provide the technology – and exploit the law – to profit from tyranny.
Government, in
a kind of twisted quid pro quo, enacts the laws – and uses the technology
created by corporations to intrude ever deeper into our lives.
Think of the
loathsome body scanners we must pass through at airports.
Think of the
Mobile Biometric Driver’s License.
You haven’t
heard?
It is the
brainchild – and hoped-for profit center – of something called the MorphoTrust
– which is one of those corporations that doesn’t give a damn about our rights
if there’s a buck to be made from eviscerating them. Morpho – as in morphology
– wants to use your smartphone and facial recognition technology it developed
to convert your cell phone into a mobile, scannable and downloadable version of
your “papers.”
In theory – and
in technological fact – a cop would not even need to pull you over to examine
your “papers.” He could simply access your phone. Without you even necessarily
knowing.
And not just
your “papers,” either.
Whatever else
you’ve got on your phone. Texts, images, emails and Internet searches. It’s the
electronic version of a free-for-all rifling of our persons and effects without
our persons or effects even being aware it’s happening.
They do this
already, in a way, via Automated License Plate Readers (APLRs). A cop drives
around, the ALPR scans every plate within its range and records,
cross-references and takes general note of who is where and when. Ostensibly,
it’s to help find Bad Guys – car thieves and such. In fact, it’s a way for the
government to monitor and record the movements and whereabouts of vast numbers
of people who’ve done nothing criminal or even suspicious – two things that
were once the necessary legal prerequisites for initiating investigations but
no longer.
The Mobile
Biometric Driver’s License takes it up a notch, given how much personal data
could be mined from our phones.
And we won’t be
given the option to opt out.
The precedent
for this business goes back to the aftermath of the 911 attacks. Corporate
friends of Michael Chertoff (co-author a priori of the USA Patriot Act and
director of the Homeland Security Department it birthed) used the pretext of
“security” to create an opportunity for profit.
Chertoff – via
his Chertoff Group – pushed for body scanners at airports. To Keep Us Safe. As
it happened, and just by coincidence, one of the Chertoff Group’s clients
happened to be Rapiscan, the manufacturer of the body scanners. (See Washington
Post account of this sordid business here.)
Pass a law,
make a buck.
Rape the Bill
of Rights along the way.
MorphoTrust is
pushing for effectively the same thing: A legal requirement that people accept
biometric/facial scan driver’s licenses embedded in their cell phones – the app
and other necessaries provided by MorphoTrust.
Which will make
a tidy profit off the involuntary transaction.
That is a key
element, the thing which makes the MorphoTrust, Rapiscan and other such
corporations evil.
It’s not too
strong a word.
The use of
force against peaceful people is the very essence of evil. Unfortunately, it
has also become the way “business” is done in the metastatic stage of America’s
decline into overt tyranny.
The word is in
air quotes to mock the abuse of what used to be decent plain language.
Business –
properly defined – is the free exchange of value for value. You are free to buy
– or not. If force enters into the transaction then the exchange is not free.
If the buyer is under duress – if he is told he must buy the product or service
or else – then he stands in relation to the seller very much in the same
position as the victim of a mugging in relation to the person mugging him.
This is bad
enough when mere money is being extracted from the victim. Electric car crony
capitalists such as Elon Musk, for instance.
But when
degradation of our rights is a part of the transaction it becomes the
apotheosis of loathsomeness. Like being made to dig the ditch that will soon
contain your bullet-riddled body.
MorphoTrust – in
partnership (surprise) with the Department of Homeland Security – has got the
Iowa Department of Transportation to launch a “pilot” program. Similar programs
are in process in other states, including North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona.
The company was paid $1.47 million by the Amt der Heimat Sicherheitsdeinst
(that’s Department of Homeland Security in its proper German) to develop the
Mobile Biometric Driver’s Licenses.
These are the
first steps toward general implementation, a requirement that people submit to
being biometrically ear-tagged, like cattle, in order to be allowed to function
in this not merely increasingly but actually Orwellian society.
They’ve got us
by the short hairs.
Because who can
function without their “papers” – paper or electronic – in this society? You
cannot (legally) drive a car, it is impossible to open a bank account or obtain
employment (other than in the underground economy) without “papers.”
Having accepted
that, it is hard to imagine how this will be resisted. It will be touted – as
all technological tyranny is touted – as being for Our Safety. And a
convenience. It will make things so much easier.
For whom, is
never asked.
Some states
already fingerprint people as a requirement for them to obtain the driver’s
license/”papers” they have to have in order to be other than an economically
Untouchable.
Scanning their
faces and forcing them to carry around a portable and very smart ear tag is the
logical next step.
Soon, you may
have as much choice about whether to have a cell phone as you do about having
to carry your “papers” with you everywhere you go.
Both will
become one and the same thing.
With
MorphoTrust profiting handsomely from the deal.
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