PENALTIES
FOR VIOLATING
THE NATIONAL IDENTITY DATA-BASE
SYNOPSIS:
Even before a National
Identity
Bureau is created,
methods of ensuring complete privacy
and security must be
included.
The following six kinds of crime might be associated with the NIB:
creating false data, inserting impermissible data, identity-theft,
unauthorized copying of data, data-mining, & snooping.
OUTLINE:
1.
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING.
2.
INSERTING FALSE DATA: 10 YEARS IN PRISON.
3.
INSERTING IMPERMISSIBLE DATA: 2 YEARS IN PRISON.
4.
IDENTITY-THEFT: 9 YEARS IN PRISON.
5.
COPYING OF DATA: 5 YEARS IN PRISON.
6.
DATA-MINING: 7 YEARS IN PRISON.
7.
SNOOPING: 1 WEEK IN PRISON FOR THE FIRST OFFENSE.
8.
FUTURE REVISIONS OF PUNISHMENTS.
9.
PUT 1,000 DATA-CRIMINALS IN JAIL BEFORE CREATING THE NIB.
RESULT:
Serious
jail-time should be imposed for every form of data-crime.
When we are assured that our facts will be well-protected,
we will have less reason to worry about adverse consequences
emerging from the National Identity Bureau.
PENALTIES FOR VIOLATING
THE
NATIONAL IDENTITY DATA-BASE
by James Leonard Park
The National Identity Bureau of the United States
will have basic facts about every man, woman, & child
living in America or visiting the USA.
Only those facts already part of official records
will be included in the National Identity File for each of us.
No
sensitive
or private facts or opinions will be included.
In this respect, the National Identity File for each
of us
will be less worrisome than
private data
already collected by
commercial enterprises.
Other laws might have to be created to prevent and punish
the assembling and sharing of private information.
But the punishments in the law creating a National Identity
Bureau
(or its precursor services such as a work-authorization data-base
or a list of foreign nationals settled in the USA)
will be focused just on this
particular body of information
assembled and made accessible for legitimate government purposes.
1. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING.
Whenever government data-collecting is proposed
the first response is overwhelming
negative.
We do not want 'the government' to know everything about us.
And we begin to recall stories of 'government' intrusion
on the privacy
of individual citizens.
In 2013, it was disclosed that the National Security
Agency
had been collecting data on our telephone calls and Internet searches.
This was done in the name of protecting us from terrorists.
But what if only one-in-a-million Americans is a terrorist?
If this was not "unreasonable search" prohibited by the Bill of
Rights,
then what kinds of spying by the government would be unreasonable?
The authorizing law was later revised
so that such spying on all Americans to identify a few terrorists
was outlawed more explicitly.
But those who had conducted and cooperated in such data-mining
were not arrested or punished.
In the United States of America, we do have a right
to be private,
but if we want to receive government services—such
as Social Security—
we do not have a
right to remain
anonymous.
The computers of the National Identity Bureau are
not conscious beings.
The computers do not care
about whatever data they record.
Electronic memory is no more intrusive than the same facts on
paper.
In short, there is no Big Brother watching us.
Rather, there are individual, living, conscious human beings,
who are employed by various government and private agencies
who are allowed to look at our pictures and read our
data.
Whenever individual men or women look at our Identity Files,
they do such reading for legitimate
government purposes.
If ever any government employee misuses this access for snooping,
that employee can be fired and/or sent to jail for a short time.
Would it be possible to redirect our first anger and
hostility
toward the actual employees
of the federal government
who do the snooping, copying, corrupting, or stealing?
Severe penalties justly imposed on violators
should make us feel more secure about our data.
The following six kinds of behavior would be
federal crimes.
And violators would serve their time in federal prisons.
Existing privacy laws in various states might also apply.
2. INSERTING FALSE DATA: 10
YEARS IN PRISON.
The facts already known about the false-document
industry
show the high value
of being permitted to live and work in the USA.
Billions of dollars are spent every year on fake documents:
Foreign nationals who have no right
to be in the United States
purchase fake Green Cards, Social Security names and numbers,
false
drivers' licenses, etc.
The creation of a super-secure National Identity File for each person
will replace all such
plastic and paper forms of identification.
Thus, the thousands of people who have been making
lots of money
creating and selling false identity-documents will change tactics.
Instead of false passports, visas, Green Cards, Social Security cards,
people who wish to avoid detection
will attempt to create false
identities in the computer
records.
And a new electronic occupation will arise from this
demand:
Hackers will claim they can put fake persons into
Directory USA.
When the new national data-base of all persons is
created,
super-secure electronic methods will have to be employed
in order to prevent, detect, & correct any false data.
The computer system itself will keep all information
about
the identities of officers (and hackers pretending to be officers)
who have placed any information into the national data-base.
This will enable data-privacy specialists to identify the criminals
later
whenever any false data is discovered in any National Identity File.
Because so many millions of people all over the
world
would love to have a File in the U.S. National Identity Bureau,
large numbers of computer attacks can be expected by the NIB.
Every minute there might be hundreds of attempts to insert false data.
Because it is so important to have only true facts
in the data-base,
the penalty for inserting
false data will be 10 years in prison.
This will apply to everyone who cooperated in inserting the false data,
both employees of the National Identity Bureau
and other persons anywhere on Earth,
including the person for whom the false identity was created.
When the officer who inserted false data
(or who cooperated in any way to corrupt the system)
was an employee of the Department of Homeland Security,
that person will be immediately fired from that employment.
Criminal charges will be made against the possible violator.
If convicted, he or she will be sent to federal prison.
And he or she will never again be permitted to hold a job
with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
In other words, not only will this person serve time in federal
prison
but after the prison sentence has been completed,
he or she will not be
permitted to work for the DHS ever again.
Also, whenever a data-criminal is caught by the
National Identity Bureau,
all of his or her past
work will be checked for accuracy.
Was this person previously guilty of creating false identities?
Such retrospective checking will be made possible
by the fact that each item of data in the national data-base
is connected with the officer who inserted it.
So if one officer is a data-criminal,
all of his or her
previous work (for all the years of
employment)
can be checked to see if other false data was ever inserted.
Because real people
have greater diversity than imaginary
people,
the false data might show some
repeating patterns
because the made-up people were imagined in the criminal's mind.
When imposing sentence for inserting false
information,
the judge will take all of the facts of the case into account.
The accused will be permitted to present mitigating circumstances,
which (if found to be true) could result in a shorter sentence.
3. INSERTING
IMPERMISSIBLE DATA: 2 YEARS IN PRISON.
The
legislation creating the National Identity Bureau
will explicitly name the kinds of information to be included
and what kinds of information or opinions will be explicitly excluded.
Whenever anyone attempts to insert
information not permitted,
that person will be immediately fired from his or her government job
and (if found guilty) will be punished by 2 years in a federal prison.
And if any higher-ups have cooperated in the criminal insertion,
they also will be dismissed and punished, using the same
standards.
We Americans value our civil liberties very highly.
And one way to protect our privacy is to define in the law
exactly
what
information will never be included in our Identity Files.
And anyone (no matter how high in the government)
who attempts to insert private
data not permitted
into our personal Identity Files
will be punished to the full extent of the law.
All will know in advance exactly what content is not
permitted.
And each person can read his or her own Identity File at any time
to make absolutely certain that no impermissible 'data' has slipped
in.
If and when anything that should have been excluded is discovered,
the individual has a right to demand that it be removed immediately
and that the person responsible for this violation
of inserting
impermissible 'facts' shall be fired and sent to prison.
In short, we can prevent and eliminate
impermissible data
by checking our own Identity Files for 'facts' not permitted.
4. IDENTITY-THEFT: 9
YEARS IN PRISON.
Millions of people have already had their identities
stolen.
Pretending to be someone else allows the criminal
to make credit-card
purchases,
to withdraw money from bank accounts,
to obtain employment when that would not otherwise be permitted,
to hide from the police who are hunting for a known criminal,
to stay in the country when one has already been expelled,
to get married if one already has a spouse, etc.
Once the National Identity Bureau is established,
it will be the first (and perhaps the only) place anyone will check
to make certain of someone's real
identity.
The picture and other facts will confirm that we are
who we claim to be.
And when the 'same person' is found to be living
in
two or more different places at the same time,
then questions will be raised about identity theft.
No one person can be in two places at the same time.
If the computer of the NIB gets any such indication,
then an immediate investigation will be launched.
Which of these persons is the real James Leonard Park?
And what is the real identity of anyone else claiming that name?
Identity-thieves will be sent to federal prison for
up to 9
years.
The exact term in jail will depend on the seriousness of the
crime.
Professional identity-thieves will receive the longest sentences.
Anyone who purchases
any element of someone else's
identity
will also go to prison for this violation.
This law could cover all
forms of identity-theft,
not just misusing the National Identity data-base.
5. COPYING
OF DATA: 5 YEARS IN PRISON.
The computer system established for the National
Identity Bureau
will attempt to prevent any copying of data.
Everyone authorized to read the facts in our National
Identity Files
can do so at appropriate times and for legitimate reasons.
The data will be available to read but not to copy.
So whenever another computer attempts to copy
something from Directory USA, some crime is taking place.
And the computer system itself will trace all such attempts to
copy.
The penalty for copying or attempting to copy data
held secure by the National Identity Bureau
will be 5 years in federal prison.
And, if the person attempting to copy the data
is an employee of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security,
that person will be fired and barred from ever working for the DHS
again,
even after the prison sentence has been completed.
6. DATA-MINING: 7 YEARS
IN PRISON.
The U.S. Census Bureau will merge with the
National Identity Bureau,
so that all data is available for statistical analysis by the Census
Bureau.
But even employees of the Census Bureau
will be prohibited from
snooping into the
individual Files
of anyone listed in Directory USA.
Because even the statistical data would be valuable,
strong controls should prevent any unauthorized analysis
of the data.
Commercial enterprises will have to be content
with the data actually published
by the Census Bureau,
which will be all data the public has a right to know,
such as the number of people living in any Congressional
District.
Whenever attempted data-mining is discovered,
appropriate punishments will be imposed on these criminals.
Perhaps 7 years in prison would be appropriate punishment.
And, once again, the convicted criminal
will be offered the opportunity
to present mitigating
circumstances,
which could result in a reduced sentence.
7. SNOOPING: 1 WEEK IN PRISON FOR THE FIRST OFFENSE.
Snooping will be defined as unauthorized reading
of
the Identity File of any individual for personal curiosity.
This should not happen even as often as
reading of tax-returns by
curious employees of the IRS.
The facts in the National Identity File for each of us
will not contain
any data about income, etc.
But people are naturally curious about famous persons,
their own
relatives, and even their neighbors.
Snooping will be punished by one week in jail for the first offense,
one month in jail for the second offense,
four months in jail and
permanent dismissal for the third offense.
If additional offenses are discovered even years later,
the penalty imposed might be up to one year in prison
and permanent barring from the Department of Homeland
Security.
After a few people have actually lost their jobs and
gone to prison
for snooping into the Files of other individuals,
then all others will be warned away from snooping.
Snooping by people not employed by the National
Identity Bureau
will be more difficult to control,
but the computer system itself will always preserve the facts
about who
read each Identity File and when.
And the same program will record how often each Identity
File is read.
When an unusual number of accesses are recorded,
investigators should try to discover
who has been reading this File and what were their motivations.
Each person authorized to read any Identity
File will
be registered.
And each time a File is opened, who is reading it will be
recorded.
This computer-tracing will also record any attempts to copy the data.
How long was each
visit to a particular File?
Did that seem reasonable, given the reasons for viewing the
information?
Prospective employers might be the
largest number of users.
Everyone who hires another person even for a brief time
will register as an authorized user of the National
Identity Files.
And the computer system will record
which Files were viewed by each
authorized employer.
Employers may not use their
access for random snooping.
They will only see the Files of people actually applying for jobs.
This will be achieved by a password
provided by the applicant.
Employers will also be able to read
some parts of the Files of employees already on the payroll.
Law enforcement officials will have wide
access to Identity Files.
They will have authorization to read any File.
But even here, a full record of their use will be
preserved,
which will discourage random snooping
not related to their
law-enforcement duties.
Any pattern of misusing the National Identity Files
will result in withdrawal of the authorization to read Identity Files.
And the supervisors of any such police officers will be informed,
in case the violations of privacy might warrant further punishment.
8. FUTURE REVISIONS OF
PUNISHMENTS.
Every year the National Identity Bureau is in
operation,
new forms of misuse will be uncovered.
And when any such violations of privacy are discovered,
new laws or regulations will have to be created to prevent the abuse
and to punish the people who commit such crimes.
Members of the public will have easy ways to report
what they believe to be invasions of their privacy
when unauthorized persons consulted their Files.
And, as said before, complete records of who read what
will always be maintained by the computer system itself.
Individuals will be able to discover exactly who has read their Files.
The record of each and every reading of an individual File
will make it easy for the appropriate security officers of the NIB
to uncover and punish snooping.
Each time an individual's Identity File is accessed,
the purpose for that visit will be recorded.
Later investigation will discover
whether these were valid reasons for reading the
File.
The integrity of the system and the trust of the
public
will make the National Identity Bureau a benefit to everyone
without any of the negative side-effects
imagined by initial opponents
of the system.
All of the worries of critics shall be taken into account.
And new systems to prevent any possible abuses
will be created as those novel abuses become known.
Directory USA will exist for the good
of the American people.
And if ever any negative side-effects are discovered
they will be addressed with new controls and regulations.
And new punishments might have to be created
to prevent new forms of abuse.
When our National Identity Files are known to be
super-secure,
we will have less worry that our data might be misused.
And we might feel better about basic facts in a government data-base
when we realize that even
more information about us
is already known in many other places.
We do not object to photos on our driver's licenses.
We expect to have Social Security Numbers unique to ourselves,
so that our taxes and benefits will be correctly calculated.
If we travel abroad, we use passports with our
pictures.
We do not ask for our military records to be erased
after our service
has been completed.
Likewise, we would not want our schools and colleges
to purge their
data when we leave.
All such facts about us are maintained for our own benefit.
The only thing new about the National
Identity Bureau
will be that all of the public facts about us
will be gathered
in one very secure place.
These facts were already
recorded in other places.
But now they will be in one electronic 'location',
easily accessible by everyone who has a legitimate right to know.
All who read our Files will have their identities recorded.
And we whose identities are contained in those Files
should be able to discover who is reading about us.
Informing us when someone is reading our individual
Files
will empower us to do most of the policing ourselves.
Did someone look at our Files without a legitimate reason?
If we believe someone is snooping
in our National Identity Files,
we can ask for the alleged snoopers to be investigated.
A major exception to this rule will be
allowed for
law-enforcement:
When police search for someone in the National Identity Bureau,
that person should not
know that the police are looking for him
or her.
After the first few years of successful and secure
operation,
the National Identity Bureau will be accepted by everyone
as a meaningful improvement in our quality of life.
And because we have created
this way of proving our identities,
we can make continuous
improvements in the system
whenever problems or flaws are brought to light.
9. PUT 1,000 DATA-CRIMINALS
IN JAIL BEFORE CREATING THE NIB.
Because it will take several years for the National
Identity Bureau
to collect all of the required data for each person in the USA,
there will be a long period in which to enforce the data-privacy laws
that will be enacted to make our data completely secure.
The data-protection parts of the authorizing
legislation
might well be the first parts enacted.
This will prove to everyone that the U.S. government
is really serious about protecting the data being collected for the
NIB.
The laws protecting the data held by the government
should apply to the paper
records already in existence.
Each of the six kinds of data-crime discussed above is already happening.
(1) Millions of fake identity documents have been created and used.
(2) Government files have false information about citizens and others.
(3) Thousands of identities are stolen every year.
(4) Unauthorized persons are copying government data all the time.
(5) And government data has been 'mined' for private purposes.
(6) Perhaps most common of all, employees are snooping into our data.
Laws created now to protect the privacy of data
organized by the NIB
should also apply to the same crimes committed using paper records.
We will be convinced that our federal government can
protect our data
once 1,000 federal employees have gone to jail at least briefly
for the data-crimes mentioned above.
Unless the laws are actually enforced,
we will not believe that anything different will happen
once the National Identity Bureau is created.
Also, the fact that 1,000 people have served time in
jail
will be a strong deterrent for all future employees of the National
Identity Bureau.
The computers of the NIB will have better ways to detect the misuse
of the data.
Now, paper-files have no memory of who looked at
them.
But the electronic Files of the NIB will contain their own memory
system,
which will carefully record each and every time that File is
opened.
Did this specific employee have a valid reason for reading this File?
In the years leading up to creating the National
Identity Bureau,
proponents of this electronic collection of specified data
will be able to point to the data-criminals who have already served
time.
This should help detractors realize that our data can be kept securely
and that all people who violate the National Identity data-base
will be appropriately punished by meaningful terms in prison.
As long as meaningful penalties are consistently
applied of data-criminals,
the National Identity Bureau should become ever more secure and
useful.
RESULT:
If
this chapter has achieved its purpose,
you, the reader, are now convinced that data-criminals
can be sent to prison for any violations of the national data-base.
We can be confident that our data will be safer
than the same facts now recorded on paper.
Created
October 2, 2011; Revised 10-4-2011; 10-5-2011; 10-20-2011;
11-1-2011;
11-2-2011; 11-8-2011; 11-18-2011; 11-30-2011;
4-14-2012;
7-24-2012; 7-31-2013; 8-18-2013; 8-27-2013; 8-28-2013;
9-3-2014;
4-15-2015; 4-24-2015; 4-16-2016; 1-27-2017; 11-3-2017; 3-12-2020;
AUTHOR:
James Leonard Park is an independent thinker,
living and writing in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.
He was one of the first to propose a National Identity Bureau
for the United States of America.
And the penalties suggested above
would make the system more secure.
Go
to
the beginning of this website
James
Leonard Park—Free
Library