
From The SPOTLIGHT, 300 Independence Ave., SE, Washington, D.C. 20003, (202)
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 "SMART CARDS", PART I: TOO "SMART" FOR OUR OWN GOOD?

 Powerful, Computerized "Smart Cards" Are Spreading -- and Clinton Plans to
 Make Them Compulsory for All Americans.

 By Clark Matthews


 Like it or not, smart cards have arrived. They're here and spreading fast,
 thanks to experimental programs started during the Bush administration.
 Those test programs forced Americans in certain regions to accept smart
 cards -- and become dependent on them -- in order to receive public
 assistance or government paychecks. Now, with a big push from the Clinton
 administration, the cards are quickly marching out of today's experimental
 welfare offices and food stamp centers -- and directly into your life.

 You say you don't want a smart card?

 Then you'd better study some of Clinton's pet legislation -- like the
 "Childhood Immunization" bills described in this article. The real reason
 for these proposed laws may have nothing to do with "helping children":
 These laws call for all newborn children (and at least one parent) to be
 "smart carded" at birth with a device that can monitor them 'across
 geographical areas'.

 Forcing Americans to Use Traceable "e-Cash"

 Technically speaking, today's smart cards aren't very "smart." They simply
 "remember" lots of things about the person who owns the card. They can
 keep track of dollar amounts, food-stamp allotments, social security
 numbers, personal security codes, addresses, phone numbers, or even your
 cable-T.V. descrambler code. They must rely on other computers -- like ATM
 machines, supermarket checkouts, or hospital admitting desks -- to update
 their "memory" with correct information.

 In countries around the world today, smart cards usually work like bank ATM
 cards: They replace cash electronically -- creating traceable "e-cash."
 In many cases, the "cash" on the card can be electronically "switched off",
 so smart-card "money" or "food stamps" can be electronically confiscated on
 command by cash dispensing machines, retail stores, welfare offices, or
 other places where the card is used.

 Indirectly, the cards can be quite intrusive, too. Even though they're not
 "smart" enough to keep track of your transactions, they permit every
 purchase can be stored and tracked by computer. Surprisingly, some
 governments protect the privacy of citizens with the cards -- for example,
 people in Denmark can get advanced cards that contain a personalized,
 "public key" security code to protect the user's transactions. (Compare
 this with the U.S., where the National Security Agency goes to great
 lengths to suppress "uncrackable" public-key encryption software and punish
 the geniuses who create it.)

 But the Australian experience is more typical. Aussies can get similar
 "cash cards" -- but people are troubled by revelations that all cashless
 transactions are monitored and permanently stored in a huge national
 computer database. Any "cashless" transaction in Australia can be
 instantly matched to the person who made it.

 Electronically "Created" Central-Bank Money -- Instant Public Debt?

 In Japan, government and business decided to "go slow" issuing smart cards.
 The reason is a 1988 study by Japanese economists that uncovered an
 important problem with smart card money: When a bank (or the government,
 or the phone company) issues a smart card, it instantly creates money. And
 since all bank-issued money becomes public debt under a fractional-reserve,
 central banking system, smart cards create corresponding debts for the
 taxpayers at the same time.

 Forced Dependence: America's Experimental Smart Cards Aren't Voluntary

 In ominous contrast to more-or-less voluntary foreign smart-card programs,
 over one million Americans with experimental smart cards were forced to
 accept them in order to receive government benefits or paychecks. As a
 result, these citizens are now completely dependent on the cards to receive
 welfare, food stamps, medical services, or -- in the case of the Marines at
 Parris Island, S.C. -- their paychecks. The circumstances of the people
 chosen for these programs make it highly unlikely they will challenge the
 program.

 Clinton's "Childhood Immunizaton" Program: "Stealth" Smart-Carding Forced
 on All Americans

 Forced participation in a universal American smart card program is a
 cornerstone of the Clinton agenda. It has been endorsed enthusiastically
 by Clinton Administration social monitors and engineers, notably longtime
 Clinton associate Ira Magaziner, who sees the cards as the lynchpin of
 Hillary Clinton's Health-Care Plan -- and for governing "the kind of world
 we want to produce". [See You Can't Hide From the Computer, The SPOTLIGHT,
 June 28, 1993.]

 Without waiting for the Health-Care Plan, however, Clinton's allies in
 Congress have already proposed laws with "stealth" provisions to compel
 parents to submit their families to "smart carding" -- or risk losing their
 children. The "Childhood Immunization" bill, introduced by Sen. Ted
 Kennedy (D-MA), calls for a national computerized registry of all children
 under six years of age, together with at least one parent. There's no
 doubt about the priorities of the Clinton plan -- Kennedy's legislation
 calls for children to be "smart carded" at birth, and innoculated later!

 Vaccinations will be tracked by smart cards issued to the children and
 parents. According to Kennedy's chief legislative aide, Keith Powell, this
 card system "will create a [national] registry with the capacity to do
 tracking and surveillance of all U.S. children." The companion House bill,
 introduced by Rep. Leslie Byrne (D-VA) states:

 "The purpose of the system is to provide for national surveillance of
 childhood immunization status through age six .... [and] develop a
 registry to cover the entire nation with the capacity to link and
 process all birth certificate records through a central registry ....
 [and for] tracking children in mobile populations across geographic
 areas."

 The "Opening Wedge" of Computerized Tyranny?

 Either way -- through Hillary's Healthcare Plan or the mandatory Childhood
 Immunization program, Clinton's agenda clearly intends to force Americans
 to accept today's limited smart cards and drive in the opening wedge for
 future, "ultra-smart" cards -- card-size computers with frightful
 possibilities.

 If Clinton succeeds, he and his successors may soon have the power to
 simply "switch off" the lives and property of opponents like a light bulb.
 Future articles will describe some of the frightening new technologies in
 future smart cards.


 "SMART CARDS", PART II: TOO SMART FOR OUR OWN GOOD?


 Tomorrow's "Smart Cards": Technical Marvels That Give Government Fearful
 Power


 By Clark Matthews

 [Last week, "Smart Cards," Part I described America's primitive, present-
 day "Smart Card" programs and the Clinton-backed "Childhood Immunization"
 legislation designed to force the cards on each newborn American infant and
 at least one of the child's parents. This week, we'll look at real smart
 cards. These advanced "super-smart" devices are here -- right now -- and a
 high-tech national infrastructure capable of supporting them is a top
 priority on President Clinton's domestic agenda. Are these frightful new
 devices the real reason for Clinton's "stealth" smart-card bills and his
 hurry to tag and track every one of today's children?]

 Hostage to a Smart Card

 Imagine your whole life held hostage to a "smart card": a credit-card-
 sized device with enough memory to hold every detail of your personal life.
 It's your I.D., your driver's license, passport, voter registration card,
 medical insurance, credit report, bank accounts, pension plan and much
 more, all contained on a pocket-sized card.

 But your card is also a computer -- an Application-Specific Integrated
 Circuit (ASIC) card, to be precise. It can be programmed to control a
 built-in cellular phone or wireless transmitter, so it could "phone home"
 to the department ofmotor vehicles or FBI's NCIC computer whenever you use
 it in a toll booth, airline baggage check, or your car's ignition. It
 could act as a personal beeper, too, when people have official business
 with you -- for example, the police, the IRS or child-welfare authorities.

 Conversely, your card could be programmed to transmit its identification
 code whenever you use it. So you (or your card, anyway) could be instantly
 located anywhere on earth via the satellite-based Global Positioning System
 (GPS). Just in case someone really wants to talk to you.

 Now imagine someone pressing a few buttons, thereby seizing all your
 assets, instructing your smart card to turn itself off and call the police
 to come and get you. Get the picture? You'd better not leave home without
 it.

 The Anvil of Tyranny: Smart Cards, High-Tech Infrastructure

 Does this nightmare device actually exist? No. To do everything you just
 read about, you'd probably need three cards. More important, you need a
 powerful, high-tech, national communications infrastructure to support the
 step-by-step monitoring of all Americans. And if you wanted to make
 Americans completely dependent on their smart cards, you'd need to force
 each citizen to accept and carry the cards.

 The cards are called Class 1 and Class 2 PCMCIA devices. They're the size
 of a credit card, but a little bit thicker. They're modular: You can
 stack them up, one on top of the other, to form a kind of "silicon
 sandwich." So you can start with a memory card, add a "wireless" card or a
 modem card, and then top the assembly off with an "execute-in-place" (XIP)
 integrated-circuit (IC) card programmed to transform the whole "sandwich"
 into an infernal, Soviet-style internal passport. Voila! You've
 constructed a smart card from hell.

 Pay a visit to your local computer store and ask to see a first-rate laptop
 computer, like the IBM ThinkPad(R). You'll see an assortment of smart
 cards that can go along with the computer. Why not ask for a demonstration
 of:

 A Class 1 Flash Memory Card. A triumph of miniaturization, these 3.3mm-
 thick cards can permanently hold between 4 and 20 Megabytes of information
 about you (16,000 - 80,000 typewritten pages) and update your "profile"
 whenever necessary. One card can hold all your bank and brokerage
 accounts, motor-vehicle, pension and property-tax records, your insurance
 policies, medical and criminal history, your immediate family and where
 they live, and much more. With plenty of room to spare.

 A Class 2 Integrated-Circuit (IC) Card. These little cards are complete,
 low-power computers. An IC card can store instructions (update your stock
 portfolio daily with closing quotes), execute instructions by itself (erase
 your bank balances; forfeit your home and Keogh plan to the IRS) and
 control other cards attached to it (instruct ATM machines to "retain" your
 card; call the police; transmit your ID code for location by satellite).
 Future generations of these cards will be much more powerful.

 A Class 2 Wireless Card. Wireless telephone cards are still being
 prototyped, so you might have to settle for a local-area network card for
 now. You'll see a device the size of a Visa card that can send or receive
 up to 16 million bits of information per second. That's 8,000 pages of
 stuff about you, give or take a little. Wireless modem cards aren't as
 fast, but these little dillies can tell Big Brother all about your comings
 and goings in the blink of an eye.

 After snapping these cards together and trying them out, you might pause
 and ask yourself ...

 "Could It Happen Here?"

 Technically, it's not a problem. The cards exist now. But Big Brother
 isn't ready for them. PCMCIA cards are incompatible -- and far too "smart"
 -- for today's ATM machines, hospital admitting offices, tollbooths, etc.
 And an ultra-high-capacity national communications network is vital for
 monitoring American smart cards in "real time". But the most important
 element is completely absent: Americans haven't been forced to accept
 smart cards. Yet.

 Not coincidentally, all of these shortcomings are top priorities of the
 Clinton administration. The president has made the high-tech
 infrastructure a national priority. And laws designed to force Americans
 to accept smart cards at birth are before both houses of Congress,
 sponsored by heavyweight Democrats.

 Stacking the Deck Against Privacy and Liberty

 The Clinton administration understands these technologies. So do the
 international financial interests that bankrolled him -- international
 bankers are uniquely qualified to appreciate the immense power of computers
 to liberate and control, to reveal and conceal.

 Computers liberate the people who own them -- they control the people who
 are forced to depend on them. Computers can reveal the daily routines and
 modest assets of everyday people, exposing them to scrutiny and
 confiscation. But they can conceal the machinations and crimes of powerful
 people with private communications networks or access to "official" money-
 moving technology, like the Federal Reserve "wire".

 America needs a "high-tech information highway" -- but it doesn't need
 mandatory smart cards. Because the combination of the two adds up to an
 anvil for tyranny.


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(This file was found elsewhere on the Internet and uploaded to the
Patriot FTP site by S.P.I.R.A.L., the Society for the Protection of Individual Rights and Liberties. E-mail alex@spiral.org)
