On Tue, Dec 31, 2002 at 11:02:48AM -0800, Tim May wrote: > On Tuesday, December 31, 2002, at 09:49 AM, Kevin Elliott wrote: > > >At 12:12 -0500 on 12/31/02, Adam Shostack wrote: > >>Rummaging through my wallet...a grocery card in the name of Hughes, a > >>credit card with the name Shostack, and an expired membership card in > >>the name Doe. > > ... > > * Dossier compiling at grocery stores is not very useful for Big > Brother, either. Who consumes Midol, Attends, Trojans, etc. is not > interesting even to George Bush and Dick Cheney. And few hardware or > electrical supply stores have courtesy cards. In any case, no > requirement to use cards, etc. > > * All in all, not a very interesting example of ID and tracking. Things > will get much more interesting, and worrisome, if there is ever a > national ID system (in the U.S.) and some kind of legislated > requirement (albeit unconstitutional!) that citizen-units must ID > themselves with valid ID for all purchases, or at least of certain > classes of purchases (beyond guns, for example). > > I don't see this happening in the next 15 years unless some major new > terrorist incident occurs. >
But what if this data is used as part of a larger picture, such as in TIA. It definitely can be used, along with gas purchases, to track where a suspect, aka a citizen, is living. Also, many possible weapons such as perscription drugs, box cutters, and kitchen knives can be purchased at a grocery store, which combined with case data could be useful in framing, aka finding, the suspect. -- michael cardenas | lead software engineer, lindows.com hyperpoem.net | GNU/Linux software developer people.debian.org/~mbc | encrypted email preferred Listening to: A Tribe Called Quest - Scenario "Each molecule preaches perfect law, Each moment chants true sutra; The most fleeting thought is timeless, A single hair's enough to stir the sea" - Shutaku [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]
