Posted on 07/27/2007 7:37:53 AM PDT by JayAr36
Two quick examples. How many of you have ever gone online to check the location of a package at UPS or FedEx? In a room this sophisticated, it’s virtually universal. So I’m going back to the point Cliff is making – this is not a theory. The market has led to the capital investment and the information technology and a corporate culture which is that productive. It can track millions of packages simultaneously in virtually real time. This is a fact. You experience it in your own life.
Over here is, for example, the federal government, which cannot find between 11 and 13 million undocumented workers. Look at these two information systems. I’ve argued as a public policy matter, and I would be glad to have Cliff analyze it later and tell me if it’s correct, that if we simply allocated $200 million to send a package to each person who’s here illegally, that within 48 to 72 hours UPS and FedEx would have found them, we’d know where they are. It is so grotesque, it’s funny, right? And yet in this city and frankly in most of the public administration and public policy and government courses in the country, you cannot get them out of the world that failed. You can’t get them over here and say, gee, how can we have this radical improvement in productivity?
Second example. How many of you have gotten money out of an automatic teller machine outside the U.S.? Very traveled group. Again, this is not a theory. You can walk up to an anonymous machine 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in a foreign city, put in a plastic card, punch in a four-number code, it reaches out 7,905 miles, validates who you are, verifies you have the cash, translates it into the local exchange at a slightly bad rate but better than your hotel, gives you the cash. It took eleven seconds. So this is a system that works.
Now there’s a hotel in California under injunction by a California state judge for trying to fire thirteen people with false documents, on the grounds that false documents is not a firing offense in California. One of them is a person who is the 43rd person to have the same social security number. Take the difference in efficiency and effectiveness between your automatic teller machine card, which you trust enough to open up your bank account across international borders, and the fact that the federal government couldn’t figure out not just that number 2, 3, 4 and 5 were – they haven’t figured out that number 43 exists. Which is why I’ve said that when we inevitably go to a worker identity card with biometrics and probably a thumbprint and retinal scan, that it has to be outsourced to Visa, MasterCard or American Express. There is no possibility that the federal bureaucracy could do this.
They need to get a bar code tattoo.
Newt is laying the groundwork...Go Newt Go!
Satire is one way of illuminating uncomfortable truth.
Agreed. Fedgov sucks so very much at nearly everything it (they) lay their hands on. They should get back to their Constitutional duties and leave everything else up to local Gov and private industry.
I am no longer interested in Newt. I don't like his global warming triangulation. His health care emphasis on promoting wellness is an expansion of the nanny state I want no part of.
Source please.
Both of the examples - FedEx/UPS and the ATM - rely on reference to a central database for IDENTITY verification. The concept of a stand-alone SECURE ID card is a myth, and anyone espousing the idea is misinformed at best, or lying at worst.
The purpose of an ID card is to establish the identity between the PERSON - the bearer of the purported ID card - and the PERSONA - the identity, including the history, status, bank balance, or other specific.
Virtually by definition, the first is rather easy. If we are not blind, we are well equipped to recognize and match a picture to a person. We might even take a stab at matching a fingerprint, but until the $25 DNA analyzer comes to market we probably cannot go that far. However, the point is that we can carry this as far as necessary for the level of security required.
The problem here is that the verification site must be able to access the biometric data stored on the ID card, or it has no value. SO DOES THE DOCUMENT FORGER!
Forged documents ov every kind are readily available, and forged ID cards needed by illegal aliens to secure jobs are the MOST freely available. My guess is that forged “secure” ID cards will be available within less than two months of the issuance of the official ones - and an ample supply of names and birthdates can be found in any cemetery.
The real difficulty is to connect to the PERSONA - and that can ONLY be done through a central database.
Newt is really an independent.
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