First, I didn't really specifically identify YOU as a HHMS, but you seem to have taken a fancy to the acronym, so let's go with it. If someone at Sam's Club rejects my entre' to their business without a membership card, there's an armed government entity known as the local police who'll gladly arrest me if I push the issue. If I can't produce a ticket to get into Lambeau Field, and I enter anyway, guys with guns will soon be on the scene.
I've witnessed a lot of dire predictions here regarding proposals for the additional tools to identify bad guys within our borders. "Like the War on Drugs, this is another opening for feds to break down doors." Well, I don't believe Feds breaking down the doors of the homes of innocent citizens in the exercise of the War on Drugs is any issue at all. It happens so rarely as to be a non-entity. This image of Federal police randomly storming the private property of law abiding citizens looking for drugs, or soon to be terrorists, is a paranoid delusion.
I guess I don't see the great Constitutional peril in having a way to identify yourself as a legitimate citizen of the United States of America. We have passports, employee badges, driver's licenses, Social Security cards, etc. that are used EVERY DAY to verify that we are who we say we are and to demonstrate our legal status. If I need to show and ID for a legitimate security priority, I don't feel like I'm in Cold War Bulgaria. We need to show identification to secure employment, verify our status to drive a car, pass through customs, get on an airplane, cash a check, prove our age, obtain a rack of billiard balls, borrow a library reference book and any number of scenarios where it is to the benefit of some entity, public or private, to verify that we are who we say we are.
Under what circumstances do you envision, in a country of 270 million people, any government entity tracking your activities? Because you own a gun? You and 50 million other people. Because you post to Free Republic? Too late. Because you don't pay your taxes or have an outstanding warrant? Well, that might be a problem.
We have a problem with illegal immigration, I'm sure that you've heard. We need to have some means to identify those individuals that are operating within our borders illegally. We need to somehow account for, and track all these foreign nationals who are flitting around this country without any documentation or verification that they're conducting the activities for which they've been authorized. You can't get away with this kind of stuff anywhere else in the world.
I have a vision of using a swipeable identifying card to demonstrate eligibility for public entitlements. Not to mention as the vehicle to disburse and track cash entitlement benefits from ATM type units and as a method to account for, and attack the fraud, in Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps but .... that's for another rant.
Who's Lon Huiriuchi? A new Seattle Mariner?
Correct. You would be committing an illegal act. That's why we have police. But Sam's Club cannot arrest you.
I've witnessed a lot of dire predictions here regarding proposals for the additional tools to identify bad guys within our borders. "Like the War on Drugs, this is another opening for feds to break down doors." Well, I don't believe Feds breaking down the doors of the homes of innocent citizens in the exercise of the War on Drugs is any issue at all. It happens so rarely as to be a non-entity. This image of Federal police randomly storming the private property of law abiding citizens looking for drugs, or soon to be terrorists, is a paranoid delusion.
Then we have no common basis for interaction. Just let me ask you one more question.
Who's Lon Huiriuchi? A new Seattle Mariner?
Is that question a joke or a symptom?