|
The number of forged IDs being used. As you said yourself, your bank and many others started using this procedure a couple of decades ago. Did it stop or even slow down the crime rate at your bank? My guess is, if it's like other banks, no, it didn't. Just as banks and the TSA and Homeland Security get more adept at spotting fakes and such, criminals also get better, and manage to stay one step ahead of the game.
The thing is many, if not most, of these measures simply won't be effective because the there has been a huge shift away from forging documents(though that still goes on) and towards simply getting the necessary documents, only have them in name different from your own. Thus one can travel, do business, etc. all on a real live ID that stands up to scrutiny, but it still won't be under your name.
It used to be, up until the end of the twentieth century, ridiculously easy to get the mother lode of all documents, a birth certificate in the name of somebody else, even somebody who had died. Things haven't advanced much since then, and despite all of these security measures, a person who is clever enough, or who knows somebody in the right position, can still obtain a birth certificate in a name other than their own. After that, it is a simple matter to get a SS card, driver's license, etc.
As far as why we're complaining about it, it is simply another time waster, another way for petty bureaucrats, under the cloak of security, can exercise their petty power over the masses, making our lives miserable. In addition, this is another advance towards an all encompassing surveillance society, where we will be watched, monitored and tracked every minute of every day. Much of this surveillance society isn't even coming under the auspices of the federal government, where we would have at least some sort of nominal accountability. No, it is being done by the corporate world, where it falls under the cloak of "normal business practices," except for the fact that more and more of this information is being shared with our government.
Sure you say, if you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about. Except for false reads from biometric scanners, resulting in your arrest or interrogation. Except for the fact that your EZ pass record could be used in a legal case, perhaps a divorce, against you. Same with your cell phone records(including the record of where ever you went, since it is now regular practice to track people via cell phones), even conversations that you have in your car(if your car is Onstar, or similarly equipped, which more and more are). Hell, even the records retained by the car's computer can be retained to be used against you. Not to mention the security system you installed in your home, which not only can record when you left and returned, but new models that can tell how many people are in the house, where they are at, and some of what they're doing.
And not only can these records be used against you in divorce cases, but insurance claims, and a plethora of other ways. You may personally comfortable with such a surveillance state, but that's probably because you really don't know the scope of it. Those who do find it appalling, and this is simply another brick in the wall they're building. People look at these individual measures, and think there's no harm. But if you add them together, and there are now lots of them, what it adds up to is something that is quickly exceeding Orwell's worst nightmare. Are you really comfortable with such a surveillance society?
|