Obama Administration begins work on an Internet ID program

Source: Liberty Confidential

President Obama is planning to hand the U.S. Commerce Department authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet ID for all Americans.

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. In the meantime, an effort is already under way to promote this Internet ID program.

The biggest worry is likely to be this: That this program sets out to accomplish the same aims as the National ID scheme. Difference is, rather than trying to get the states to do the heavy lifting, Washington is going to try and compel private companies to do it.

You are being asked to not worry about the Internet ID program for the following reasons:

• This is not a National ID program — even though pretty much everyone in the nation uses the Internet.
• The U.S. Dept. of Commerce will be overseeing the program, and not the NSA or the DHS. As if it’s fine that the White House will direct the Dept. of Commerce to impede our liberty this time, instead of the DHS or the NSA.
• This program will come from the private sector — even though it’s being overseen by the White House, via the Dept. of Commerce.

The Commerce Department is “the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government” to centralize efforts toward creating an “identity ecosystem” for the Internet, according to White House Cybersecurity Czar Howard Schmidt.

“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 added, according to CNET.com.

Allow me to take issue with the reasons we are being told not to worry about this Internet ID program.

“The effort is being lodged in the Department of Commerce, not in Homeland Security or the NSA”

Ryan Singel, writing at Wired, points out: “Even more telling is that the effort is being lodged in the Department of Commerce, not in Homeland Security or the NSA.”

So we can all breathe a sigh of relief, right? The Federal Government says they want everyone using the Internet to have an ID, while at the same time promising everyone will be able to remain safely anonymous.

And, by golly, it’s not the DHS, and it’s not the NSA. It’s the friendly, warm and fuzzy people at the son-of-a-bitchin’ Dept. of Commerce! Why worry?

However, the Department of Commerce is still considered a law enforcement agency; and I wouldn’t be surprised if they have armed agents. If they don’t, they will have to get some if they are going to enforce some form of Internet ID program.

As soon as a government agency has an identification program, that government agency will have to implement some form of identification standards and enforcement. It stands to reason that, in time, we’ll hear about Commerce agents going out and making arrests.

We now live in an America were even the Department of Education has an enforcement division (the Office of the Inspector General, a “semi-independent branch of the U.S. Department of Education”) with agents who use sidearms and shotguns, and storms people’s homes.

Also, government programs can get launched by one agency and then transferred to another.

Full post at Liberty Confidential (libertyconfidential.com)