Passports within the US

[johnridley]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/16/real.id/index.html

Apparently there's this idea that if you live in a state that's dared to not jump in bed with the federal government on RealID, you'll need a passport to visit federal areas, possibly including national parks.

I found this very interesting quote in the Slashdot discussion on the matter:

"What happened was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to be governed by surprise, to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believe that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security. " ~ an anonymous German Professor from 'They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1939-1945', by Milton Mayer

Comments

[tceisele.livejournal.com]

Here's a question I've been wondering about: what would be the legalities of a private foundation implementing surveillance technologies at the same level as the government/police, only using them preferentially to keep an eye on government employees? The reason I wonder about this, is it seems to me that most of the problem with surveillance is the asymmetry of it: if the world is divided into "watchers" and "watchees", the watchers end up with all the advantages, but if *everybody* is being watched then the opportunities for abuse become much less.

I think this is like global warming: it's too late to stop the change, so instead of trying to halt the flood, I think we need to roll with it and try to make it come out OK.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

People have tried it. There were some people who tried to put public-access cameras in that pointed at police stations. People have called for police to put cameras inside the police station, since certainly they have nothing to hide. Police don't like camcorders rolling when they're around.

They do have a bit of a point; police don't really want it to be super easy for people to find out where they live and when they're not home. Some police work undercover and they shouldn't be exposed (but at the same time, they should be accountable).

Individuals acting on a local level are really at a disadvantage here. I don't know why a company would set up surveillance, not sure what the motive is, but it would be interesting if a company with some clout and money offered to legally stand behind individuals who wanted to, for instance, set up a web cam on their apartment window pointing at the police station across the way, or the senator's driveway, assuming that the rules were followed (only stuff visible from a public area).