Furthering the Paranoia of the Reich Wing

There are some people that just have no business being in Cabinet, and Stockwell Day is one of them. Over here, we learn that while Mr. Day wants to scrap the Gun Registry, he would dearly love to create what amounts to a People Registry.

Why is it that I can just see an era coming where we will be stopped at random on the street by guys in trenchcoats asking to see our "papers"? Whilst I am not completely opposed to the notion of an ID card, I'd like to know its purpose first. My driver's license has a purpose, as does my passport - for what good reason would I need another ID card (national or no)?

If it's being spawned in the name of the bogeyman of "security", then I think we can be pretty sure that its declared purpose is spurious. While the Bushies spout off about security and the like (and Canadian "conservatives" spew much the same drek), we get the following brilliant piece of decision making - what's this - handing over control over major shipping ports to a foreign company - one that's specifically owned by a foreign GOVERNMENT for goodness sake? There's stupid, then there's this.

Second, any "ID" program is going to prone to fraud on a scale that will make the overspending on the gun registry look like small potatoes. As a taxpayer, I believe that not only must Mr. Day justify this expenditure of monies to the public, he also had damned well be prepared to control the costs and the uses of the resultant data in very precise terms. Identity theft is a huge risk today, and the risk will only increase with time - any scheme that is vulnerable to such attacks must be carefully controlled and it's purpose must be carefully considered before it is implemented.

Of course, such consideration on the part of Stockwell "Doris" Day is unlikely.