Obama Eyeing Internet ID for Americans Posted by Declan McCullagh STANFORD, Calif. - President Obama is planning to hand the U.S. Commerce Department authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet ID for Americans, a White House official said here today. It's "the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government" to centralize efforts toward creating an "identity ecosystem" for the Internet, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said. That news, first reported by CNET, effectively pushes the department to the forefront of the issue, beating out other potential candidates including the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. The move also is likely to please privacy and civil liberties groups that have raised concerns in the past over the dual roles of police and intelligence agencies. The announcement came at an event today at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, where U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Schmidt spoke. The Obama administration is currently drafting what it's calling the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, which Locke said will be released by the president in the next few months. (An early version was publicly released last summer.) "We are not talking about a national ID card," Locke said at the Stanford event. "We are not talking about a government-controlled system. What we are talking about is enhancing online security and privacy and reducing and perhaps even eliminating the need to memorize a dozen passwords, through creation and use of more trusted digital identities." The Commerce Department will be setting up a national program office to work on this project, Locke said. Details about the "trusted identity" project are unusually scarce. Last year's announcement referenced a possible forthcoming smart card or digital certificate that would prove that online users are who they say they are. These digital IDs would be offered to consumers by online vendors for financial transactions. Schmidt stressed today that anonymity and pseudonymity will remain possible on the Internet. "I don't have to get a credential if I don't want to," he said. There's no chance that "a centralized database will emerge," and "we need the private sector to lead the implementation of this," he said. Inter-agency rivalries to claim authority over cybersecurity have exited ever since many responsibilities were centralized in the Department of Homeland Security as part of its creation nine years ago. Three years ago, proposals were were circulating in Washington to transfer authority to the secretive NSA, which is part of the U.S. Defense Department. In March 2009, Rod Beckstrom, director of Homeland Security's National Cybersecurity Center, resigned through a letter that gave a rare public glimpse into the competition for budgetary dollars and cybersecurity authority. Beckstrom said at the time that the NSA "effectively controls DHS cyber efforts through detailees, technology insertions," and has proposed moving some functions to the agency's Fort Meade, Md., headquarters.
The ACCELERATION of the Technological Police State is rolling right along as planned........ENJOY! :eek: BTW, don't forget to listen to BIG SIS at your local Walmart today!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcAPGD8xgNo Please DON'T get mad about the unwarranted mobile X-Ray vans blasting your family in your local neighborhood !!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWXyuqKhWEk Hey, DON'T "opt-out" of full naked DNA DESTROYING body scanners today at your local airport!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHwh-ZIq0Ls Also, make darn sure you stop at your new local NO REFUSAL police checkpoints!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6ZvBGGA578 Getting the picture yet all you BOILING FROGS? :eek:
What we are talking about is enhancing online security and privacy..... ." I wonder how that wikileaks thing is working out for the gov't.
Government double-talk for, "We'll soon be implanting an RFID chip into your neck so we can monitor your every move, action, and thought. We're just breaking you into it slowly with this kind of crap so that y'all don't wake up violently revolt".
Well in all fairness most of them need someone to control their life. They're too stupid to think for themselves. Unfortunately they want the rest of us to be controlled as well.