http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,65154,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_4
I post this not as a refernce per se, but to ask the question:
Exactly Why Does the Government Not Want to Reveal Their ID Rules?
This would seem obvious at first, but upon thinking about it I have to admit to being a little confused.
For instance, is it indeed possible that revealing this rule would pose an additional security risk? If such a rule exists (and it does) then hijackers obviously already know about it. Could this rule also reveal some deeper secrets about how hijackers can be detected? I seriously doubt it.
Then of course, the argument may be that the government wanted to hide the rule for the very reason of making it more unassailable. In other words, if the rule were known, then it might be more easily contested in court. Hiding the rule protects the law which in turn protects national security.
This last idea is the only one I can think of that might be behind why the government would make such a rule secret.
If this is the case, then this reveals what I would argue to be a dangerous mindset: The government needs to protect the people from themselves...ie, from the normal operation of democracy.
On Cyperhpunks I would suppose this does not seem suprising. But it perhaps reveals that there is explicit, conscious thought occurring along these lines in the government. THAT, perhaps, is new.
-TD
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