Re: Smartcards are coming to the US

At 03:15 PM 4/21/96 -0400, Brad Dolan wrote:
>Saw a CNN story Friday about an interesting special debit card 
>application in Mexico.  They're being issued to poor Mexicans, who can 
>use them to buy tortillas and a few other foodstuffs.  The cards are tied to 
>a behavior-control database and failure to send kids to school, get 
>mandatory medical exams/treatments/vaccinations, etc. results in card 
>deactivation.

Interesting method of social control.  "Do anything we don't like and we
revoke your ability to spend money through government approved outlets."

What a Brave New World we live in...
---
Alan Olsen -- alano@teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction
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On Sun, 21 Apr 1996, Alan Olsen wrote:

> At 03:15 PM 4/21/96 -0400, Brad Dolan wrote:
> >Saw a CNN story Friday about an interesting special debit card 
> >application in Mexico.  They're being issued to poor Mexicans, who can 
> >use them to buy tortillas and a few other foodstuffs.  The cards are tied to 
> >a behavior-control database and failure to send kids to school, get 
> >mandatory medical exams/treatments/vaccinations, etc. results in card 
> >deactivation.
> 
> Interesting method of social control.  "Do anything we don't like and we
> revoke your ability to spend money through government approved outlets."

Just the next logical extension of removing professional licenses for 
failure to comply with government edicts, removing driving licenses for 
failure to pay government imposed fines.

See Reich, "The New Property" and "The New Property after 25 Years"  
(Harvard Law Review I believe).  He suggests constitutional protections 
for these and other entitlements (like welfare), including due process.  
An entitlement to entitlements so to speak.  I believe that the better 
solution is to protect the rights ex ante (anonymous drivers/age and 
entitlement credentials) rather than ex post through the constitution 
but he has a very interesting survey of the various largess that 
government withholds to get its way.

> 
> What a Brave New World we live in...
> ---
> Alan Olsen -- alano@teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction
>         `finger -l alano@teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key 
>                 http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ 
>   "We had to destroy the Internet in order to save it." - Sen. Exon

---
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On Sun, 21 Apr 1996, Alan Olsen wrote:

> At 03:15 PM 4/21/96 -0400, Brad Dolan wrote:
> >Saw a CNN story Friday about an interesting special debit card 
> >application in Mexico.  They're being issued to poor Mexicans, who can 
> >use them to buy tortillas and a few other foodstuffs.  The cards are tied to 
> >a behavior-control database and failure to send kids to school, get 
> >mandatory medical exams/treatments/vaccinations, etc. results in card 
> >deactivation.
> 
> Interesting method of social control.  "Do anything we don't like and we
> revoke your ability to spend money through government approved outlets."
> 
> What a Brave New World we live in...

I had read it rather differently: "Do what we want and we'll give you 
food and maybe some other essentials."

One can argue about the government's right to do this, the source of the 
money, etc. But if private charity or industry had chosen to do this, 
we'd probably look on it rather differently.

It's still scary, though; sometimes smart cards are too smart.

Jon Lasser
----------
Jon Lasser (410)494-3072                         - Obscenity  is a crutch  for
jlasser@rwd.goucher.edu                            inarticulate motherfuckers.
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