Privacy Bites the Plastic

Are you wearing a hat? Are you bald? Do you experience heightened levels of progesterone during certain times of the month? It's no wonder that games like "Guess Who?" target players under the age of 10-it takes a juvenile mind to identify people by ocular paraphernalia. But after we grow out of overalls and put away the Super Soakers, big boys and girls don't use such superficial features to categorize individuals, right?

If you believe that, you can go ahead and pull my finger. Not only is there abundant evidence of our social narcissism in teeny-bopper magazines that plague supermarkets all over the country, not only can you see it in America's fascination with celebrities and diet trends, but you can see it in the White House, too-and not just when Paris Hilton visits.

Just this month, Congress passed the Real ID Act-a bill that requires citizens of the United States to carry a federally approved identification card starting in 2008. The act states that the cards must contain "machine-readable" information, yet fails to specify what nature of information is destined to become the machines' new Hooked on Phonics.

You'd think an act like this would be met in Congress with some degree of hesitancy. Well, like true political football players, supporters of the act faked a left and scored a touchdown by tacking it onto a bill authorizing funds for troops in Iraq. And what politician in their right mind would deny money to troops?

And now we're all going to have federal IDs. These identification cards, which will contain as-yet unspecified "personal information" (a matter being decided upon by the Department of Homeland Security), will be used for everything from boarding airplanes to ordering pizza to scoring prostitutes from Nevada. Well, maybe not that last one. But you never know.

So what are the implications for us? For those living in the Bay Area, a place that boasts many potential terrorist targets, the federal IDs are likely to put some people at ease. Access to office buildings will certainly become tighter, some high-risk historical sites may be restricted to those who can provide a viable "machine-readable" ID, and the proliferation of illegal immigrants into America may decrease if a good standard of living becomes dependent on ID access to services and goods.

This type of heightened security is the obvious motivation behind the Real ID Act. But might it, like so many of our government's haphazard attempts at problem-solving, create more grief than it prevents?

Suppose you're a regular Joe Schmo at UC Berkeley in 2008-it's Friday night, you've already waxed up your dreadlocks and you're heading out to your favorite oxygen bar. At the door, a bouncer scans your federal ID and lets you through. Consider this versus the system as it currently stands. On your state ID, Bruno can only see your name, age and unattractive mug shot. But with the federal ID, that information and more might easily be routed to a database where it would become fodder for data miners, a way to track your activities, and a target for identity thieves or your EECS roommate.

But maybe I'm jumping the anti-terrorist gun with all this. The Real ID Act is indubitably vague, and there could be any number of results come 2008, from Gaia to Gattaca. But these outcomes aren't what really merit my concern. It's the underestimated psychological implication of these IDs that will eventually cause me to need forehead microdermabrasion.

Just like "Guess Who?" the Real ID Act is yet another legislative item that treats individuals as static pawns within society rather than the molders, founders and drivers of it. Security is necessary-that is a given. But at what point do we submit ourselves to mediocrity-lives wherein every move is tracked, every interest noted, and every freedom allowable only through magnetic plastic?

Consider where we are. As an epicenter of learning and free thought, members of the UC Berkeley community should particularly question legislation like this. Federal IDs will turn state matters, everyday matters, into federal affairs. What impact could this have on our campus?

Until we start asking questions like this, we might as well continue to play childish games in an attempt to solve grown-up problems. Are you wearing glasses? What about a blindfold?

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