This even got MSM coverage, though of course they mainly cite administration sources assuring us of how they will use restraint, etc. Also, they put a “reportedly” in the title when the article quite plainly says that they do in fact plan to create an internet ID for All Americans. Doesn’t Fox News consider everything they do as “reporting” or are they only “reportedly” reporting? That’s confusing, but then again not really. The “reportedly” makes it seem like this isn’t really happening. But it is.
I recommend the CNET article (also linked at the bottom), and possibly searching for “American internet ID Dept of Commerce” on a web search and see what appears. I did and I found an article from April which gives this as justification: “Because of online fraud, many people don’t trust the Internet, Locke added. “It will not reach its full potential — commercial or otherwise — until users and consumers feel more secure than they do today when they go online,” he said.” So because the elderly “don’t trust the internet” Obama is going to save us… I’m not going to address how the former constitutional law professor thinks this is constitutional. We are way beyond that now. But I think they will find many more people will not trust the internet when this gets implemented, but of course, that is not their purpose for creating internet ID.
I read this about something else, but it absolutely applies here. It may start voluntarily, but when banks start requiring it, or all the good search engines or ISP’s start requiring it, then it will become almost impossible to use the internet without it. Then most people will sign up. Then it will inconvenience so few citizens to make it mandatory to have an ID just to access the internet (and be tracked everywhere you go by big brother) that it will easily pass into law (Just like indefinite detention for accused Americans did 15 days ago).
Note that this is an entirely different angle our internet freedom is being attacked from than SOPA and PIPA. It seems that everywhere you look we have to fight to get out. There is a true siege on our freedom of speech online.
From Fox News: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/08/report-obama-administration-plans-create-internet-id-americans/#ixzz1jCP61Da4
Obama Administration Reportedly Plans to Create Internet ID for All Americans
President Obama is putting plans in motion to give the Commerce Department authority to create an Internet ID for all Americans, a White House official told CNET.com.
White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt told the website it is “the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government” to centralize efforts toward creating an “identity ecosystem” for the Internet.
The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace is currently being drafted by the Obama administration and will be released by the president in a few months.
“We are not talking about a national ID card. We are not talking about a government-controlled system. What we are talking about is enhancing online security and privacy, and reducing and perhaps even eliminating the need to memorize a dozen passwords, through creation and use of more trusted digital identities,” Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said at an event Friday at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, according to CNET.com.
Locke added that the Commerce Department will be setting up a national program office to work on this project.
The move has raised eyebrows about privacy issues.
“The government cannot create that identity infrastructure,” Jim Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology told the website. “If I tried to, I wouldn’t be trusted.”
Schmidt stresses that anonymity will remain on the Internet, saying there’s no chance that “a centralized database will emerge.”
RevolutioNation 