I'm not kidding. When did this happen? President Obama has given the nod to take point providing every American an Internet ID under the auspice of the Department of Commerce. While this is a proposal, I don't know what to think of it.
I'll need to do more research on this. I guess this is sort of like a federal ID akin to having a Google Checkout or MSN account, except this a government issued ID.
What this is is suppose to help reduce cybercrime and to increase cybersecurity. This is the part that I am trying to learn more about. It'll be called the Naitonal Strategy for rusted Identities in Cyberspace.
The scary thing is that there were proposals to have the NSA, tasked to spy on foreign sources, or the Department of Homeland Security. Both of those two were shot down because of privacy concerns.
Others are even more critical, stating the obvious that such a system created by the government would not be trusted and needs to be created by the private sector to insure competition and trust. And it must also be voluntary.
"Voluntary" being the operative word here. It was the first though that came to my mind. What if I don't want to use a government issued ID? And what if it does do what it was meant to? Sure, I might end up using it anyway. Nothing to hide. Still, it has the hint of Big Bro written all over it should be get abused.
There isn't a lot going on with this just yet. Maybe it'll be a 2012 issue.
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