[pp.int.general] 120 Days Left for Utah in the USA

[Amelia Andersdotter]

On 19/10/2007, Rick Falkvinge (Piratpartiet) <rick at piratpartiet.se> wrote:
>
>
>  Juxi Leitner wrote:
> > I have to agree with Rick, getting the signatures by hand is a pain in
> > the ass we had to try to that last year here in Austria, it's easier
> > to get the support online, much easier :) (how do they check if the
> > signatures are from Utah?)
>
> Here in Utah, the privacy laws are such that they openly ask for a
> person's home address. Using this method, each signature is considered
> valid if the address matches the voter registration form, and if it
> doesn't, then the SECONDARY match is the signature. The other option is
> to use the social number, which is considered even more private, yet
> which almost anyone will tell you if you ask them for it, almost without
> thinking about it. It's a dangerous state of affairs, and I'm just now
> beginning to understand the depth of the problem.
>
>  I'ts noteworthy that the signatures in Sweden required four things;
>
>  1) The signer's name
>  2) The signer's city of residence
>  3) The signer's signature
>  4) The signer's full personal ID number (like, mine is 720121-4819: 1972,
> January, 21, 481st baby born on that date, 9 as a checksum digit)
>
>  The item in (4) is like a turbocharged SSN on steroids. Any data anywhere
> is tied to that number and not your name - be it data in governmental,
> corporate, medical or banking. And the number is present on every ID card --
> identities are usually checked against photo and personal number, not photo
> and name.
>
>  Outside of our personal sphere, as when dealing with authorities, banks and
> hospitals, we are numbers and not names. If you guys think you have it bad
> with the Real ID proposals and people being careless with SSNs, you have no
> idea where the slope leads.
>

What is really stupid is of course that the state still cares about
you having a name, or what you're called. I couldn't, for instance,
change my surname to Andersson (despite this being strikingly similar
to my current name which merely denotes me as Anders' daughter
instead).

Personally, I think it would be better if to the state we were only
numbers. Discrimination from the state wouldn't be possible neither
due to gender nor ethnic origins and everyone could go by whatever
name they liked rather than what they were registered as.

/amelia

>  And of course, people don't see it as an issue at all. It's just a natural
> state of things that the government and large services can keep a perfect
> tab on everyone. On the other hand, we did lose about half of the potential
> signatories due to the personal number being required on the form - which, I
> guess, is some kind of a healthy indicator.
>
>  (So anyway, it's kind of odd that the name and city of residence was
> required on the form as they are totally redundant when the ID number is
> included.)
>
>
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