Obama and the Internet ID Plan

Obama Administration Unveils Internet ID Plan

Fox News

The Commerce Dept. unveiled a plan Friday to create a national cyber-identity system that would give consumers who opt in a single secure password and identity for all their digital transactions.

The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) will be a voluntary system designed to protect consumers from online fraud and identity theft -- which hit 8.1 million people last year, at a total cost of $27 billion. The problem: The current system of half-remembered passwords jotted down on post-it notes and based on pets and maiden names simply isn't good enough.

"Passwords just won't cut it here," said Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, who announced the initiative at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “We must do more to help consumers protect themselves, and we must make it more convenient than remembering dozens of passwords,” he said.

The "identity ecosystem" will create secure online IDs for Americans who elect to join the program, giving them a single credential -- such as a unique piece of software on a smart phone, a smart card, or a token that generates a one-time digital password -- which they can use to log on to a variety of websites.

Instead of having to remember all those disparate passwords, one for each site that conducts a secure transaction, a consumer would use that single credential to log in, with far more security than a password alone would provide, the agency said...[Full Article]

Obama moves forward with Internet ID plan

CNet

The Obama administration said today that it's moving ahead with a plan for broad adoption of Internet IDs despite concerns about identity centralization, and hopes to fund pilot projects next year.

At an event hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., administration officials downplayed privacy and civil liberties concerns about their proposal, which they said would be led by the private sector and not be required for Americans who use the Internet.

There's "no reliable way to verify identity online" at the moment, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said, citing the rising tide of security threats including malware and identity theft that have grown increasingly prevalent over the last few years. "Passwords just won't cut it here."

A 55-page document (PDF) released by the White House today adds a few more details to the proposal, which still remains mostly hazy and inchoate.

It offers examples of what the White House views as an "identity ecosystem," including obtaining a digital ID from an Internet service provider that could be used to view your personal health information, or obtaining an ID linked to your cell phone that would let you log into IRS.gov to view payments and file taxes. The idea is to have multiple identity providers that are part of the same system...[Full Article]

Download the report...
National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace

Obama Pushes Chinese-Style Internet ID System

Centralized government identity program dismissed as being too draconian for Communist China gets go ahead in United States

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, April 18, 2011

A new program being touted by the Obama administration as a solution to online identity theft actually increases the risk of identity theft while providing the government with a national ID system through the backdoor, paving the way for a world wide web in which users will need government permission to access the Internet.

The so-called “National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace,” created by NIST under the auspices of the U.S. Commerce Department, purports to offer an “identity ecosystem” under which Americans will be able to protect their information not with passwords but with a “single credential” stored on a smart card, a cell phone, a keychain fob or some other kind of gadget. This will then be used to access a myriad of data, including tax returns, health information, bank accounts and more, amounting to a passport for your entire life.

Companies like Siemens developed credit card-sized gadgets years ago that enable fingerprints to be used to approve online transactions and the technology is already well established. A series of workshops are planned for June to September during which the government will nail down specifics with companies who are on board with the project and pilot projects will be launched next year.

The program bears more than a passing resemblance to a 2007 proposal by China that threatened to force bloggers to register their real identities and personal details via a single centralized ID system as a means for the Communist government to control information and punish dissenters.

That idea was scrapped for being too draconian, but the Obama administration is pushing ahead with its own Internet ID system in pursuit of a wider cybersecurity agenda that Senator Joe Lieberman has publicly stated is aimed at mimicking Chinese-style censorship of the world wide web, casting doubt on assertions in the government PR video for the program embedded above that claim, “there is no central database tracking your actions”.

The irony of the fact that the program will be managed by a government that has routinely stolen and lost personal information (including that related to personal health data) through both malevolence and incompetence is not addressed in the propaganda video. Remember cash for clunkers? This is the same government that openly admitted it had seized control of data on Americans’ computers who used the cars.gov website.

Although the program will initially be voluntary, its widespread adoption by numerous internet hub giants will eventually make its use necessary for conducting any kind of transaction, creating profiles or engaging in any interactive process on the web.

Moreover, should there be a major cyber attack that cripples the web and leaves sensitive information vulnerable, the Obama administration would have all the political capital it needs to turn the “voluntary” program into a compulsory requirement for anyone who wishes to use the Internet. Given the fact that the Stuxnet worm attack was admittedly launched by the United States and Israel, the culprits are likely to be closer to home than we think.

“Although the White House is describing the NSTIC plan as “voluntary,” federal agencies could begin to require it for IRS e-filing, applying for Social Security or veterans’ benefits, renewing passports online, requesting federal licenses (including ham radio and pilot’s licenses), and so on. Then obtaining one of these ID would become all but mandatory for most Americans,” writes CNet’s Declan McCullagh.

“Taken to its logical conclusion, the program, “Could become the virtual equivalent of a national ID card,” he adds.

Despite government assurances that the “conspiracy theory set” are wrong in highlighting privacy concerns, critics have labeled the plan an effort to impose a national ID card via the backdoor.

Writing for Network World, Mark Gibbs slammed the proposal as, “A totally ridiculous idea. A great example of rampant, over-reaching, ignorant, and ill-conceived political foolishness.”

Gibbs highlights the fact that both the IRS and Homeland Security have recently been caught abusing and mismanaging online identity systems.

“In short, the government, at the heart of its most sensitive public and administrative services, is incompetent on a biblical scale. And now they propose to provide what is, in essence, the management of a single sign-on system that would impact tens of millions of its citizens,” he writes.

In addition, the centralized nature of the system will not protect identity theft, the entire raison d’être behind the program, but will instead make identity theft far more prevalent and easier for criminals.

“It remains unclear whether the White House proposal will solve this problem or create new problems,” said Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, warning that if the system was compromised it would be like losing your whole wallet, not just your keys or credit card. “There is the real risk that consolidated identity schemes will lead to ‘hyper’ identity theft.”

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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.

Are You Ready For The Universal Internet ID That Barack Obama Wants To Impose On All Of Us?

The American Dream

The Obama administration is developing a "universal Internet ID" program that would watch, track, monitor and potentially control your activity on the Internet. These "trusted identities" are being touted as a way to increase safety and security on the Internet and as a way to eliminate the need for dozens of different usernames and passwords. But is a universal Internet ID that is issued and controlled by the U.S. government really a good idea? Right now, Obama administration officials are trying to make it seem as non-threatening as possible. They are insisting that it will not be mandatory. They are insisting that it would be impossible for hackers to steal the universal Internet identities. They are insisting that none of our personal information will be gathered or used by federal agencies. But in light of how regularly the government has abused our liberties and freedoms in recent years in the name of "security", should we really believe what they are saying about this new universal Internet ID?

Perhaps to assuage concerns about "Big Brother", the Obama administration is proposing that the U.S. Commerce Department be the one to oversee these new universal Internet identities.

But how long do you think it would take for the Department of Homeland Security (along with several dozen other government agencies) to get involved in "administering" these "trusted identities"?

The potential for government abuse of such a system is absolutely staggering. As we have seen so many times over the past few years, when you give government bureaucrats an inch, often they end up taking several miles.

The video posted below is an excerpt from a CBS News report about these proposed universal Internet identities....

So what are some of the other potential problems of such a system?

Well, by creating a "master key" to the Internet for each and every individual, if it is lost or stolen you could literally lose everything you have worked so hard for in a single day. Imagine what could happen if a very evil hacker gained instant access to your bank account, your credit cards, your Paypal account, your email, your Facebook account, your Twitter account, your Ebay account, your Amazon account, your blogs, your websites and everything else of importance on the Internet that belongs to you.

Just imagine the damage that could be done.

In addition, it would only be a matter of time before this universal Internet ID becomes "a de facto national ID".

In fact, it is not hard to imagine that "in the name of security" Americans would soon be required to link the universal Internet ID to biometric information or even link it to a microchip implant of some sort.

Of course this new program is going to "start out as voluntary", but how many times before has the government introduced "voluntary" programs that later became mandatory?

Once this universal Internet ID is implemented, it is only going to be a matter of time until many different federal agencies and a significant percentage of large corporations begin demanding that people start using it. Eventually it would become extremely difficult to function on the Internet without one. Once that point arrives, it would only be a very small step to make it mandatory for everyone.

Of course right now the Obama administration insists that it is "doing us a favor" by creating a system that would enable us to be able to get rid of the dozens of usernames and passwords that we all use now.

But what all of this really sounds like is the kind of Internet controls that are being imposed in places like China.

The truth is that a universal Internet ID would give the U.S. government more power to license, monitor and police the Internet than they have ever had before.

In fact, some talking heads on the major news networks are already touting this new identification system as a way to "tone down" the "vicious" rhetoric on the Internet.

Of course what that really means is that they want to shut up a lot of the dissenting voices out there because they are not "politically correct" and they don't agree with the version of the "truth" that the establishment media is constantly pushing.

Hopefully the American people will realize that a universal Internet ID controlled by the government would be another gigantic step in the direction of becoming a Big Brother police state. Unfortunately, the American people have not been doing a great job of standing up for liberty and freedom at this point. There was an initial uproar when the new "naked body scanners" were installed at U.S. airports and when airport officials started feeling up our private areas as part of the new "enhanced pat-downs", but most Americans seem to have accepted these "new security procedures" at this point.

So now the Obama administration is ready to push even further. They want to put a chokehold on the last great bastion of free speech in America - the Internet.

Someday if you have to get a license from the U.S. government to read articles like this or to write articles like this, don't say that you weren't warned.