George Orwell would be rolling over in his grave if he knew that Big Brother is even more a reality that he could have dreamed.

Legislation for an offical National ID Card and Citizen's Database was passed in the Senate. As soon as the President signs we will have an OFFICIAL National ID in the form of our Drivers License.

Thanks to legislation passed in the late 1990s, your Drivers License is already your "unoffical" national ID Card, linked via SSN and a "smart strip" on the back of the card to each of the following databases:

• National Drivers Registry
• National Work Registry
• Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (a database which tracks all of all your banking and stock transactions)
• Internal Revenue Service
• Department of Education
• Social Security Service
• Social Security Administration
• Department of Health & Human Services (a medical history Database, which includes all your health insurance transactions, medical treatment history and psychological treatment records)
• Federal Bureau of Investigations (a database which tracks all in-bound and out-bound cell and land line calls, all faxes transmitted and recieved, and all websites visited via Carnivore, a controversial program developed by the FBI to give the agency access to any and all online/e-mail activities)
• MATRIX (Multi-state Anti-TerRorism Information eXchange; a database search engine that is connected to over 22 other databases and can pull an innumerable amount of queries on anyone in the United States, providing they're in the system, and if they've got so much as a birth certificate, they will be in the system.
• National Concealed Carry Database (CCW Database--a national registered weapons database)
• Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives Database (The incredibly dense database that is based off of Form 4473. Form 4473 is a very detailed, personal form that links a person with a gun purchase, including serial number and model)

What is most disturbing to me is the fact that databases are maintained by humans. Humans make mistakes. Since I'm going to college to learn database creation, I know how picky and careful you have to be when you are writing a database. One error can totally screw up everything...and I don't think I'd like to be pulled over by the cops and lugged to jail based on an "error".

http://news.com.com/National+IDs+for+everybody/2010-1028_3-5395386.html

~Elissa