Police State USSA

One of the most common accusations of hypocrisy leveled at anarchists is that many of us use public roads, which are financed by taxbux. It is very difficult to lead any sort of typical life these days without doing so, of course—but leave it to the state to provide some motivation for changing that.

And it’s becoming something of a habit, apparently.

Preemption could be coming to pharmaceuticals. Supreme Court considers the reach of drug warning labels, reads the LA Times headline, which gives barely a hint of how profoundly things might change with the Robed Nazgul’s ruling.

That’s what I consider a more reality-oriented headline for the New York Times article, Congressional Leaders Stunned by Warnings. Some excerpts from throughout the article [links omitted, all emphasis mine]:

It was a room full of people who rarely hold their tongues. But as the Fed chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, laid out the potentially devastating ramifications of the financial crisis before congressional leaders on Thursday night, there was a stunned silence at first. ....

As Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, put it Friday morning on the ABC program “Good Morning America,” the congressional leaders were told “that we’re literally maybe days away from a complete meltdown of our financial system, with all the implications here at home and globally.” ....

“What you heard last evening,” he added, “is one of those rare moments, certainly rare in my experience here, is Democrats and Republicans deciding we need to work together quickly.”

Although Mr. Schumer, Mr. Dodd and other participants declined to repeat precisely what they were told by Mr. Bernanke and Mr. Paulson, they said the two men described the financial system as effectively bound in a knot that was being pulled tighter and tighter by the day.

“You have the credit lines in America, which are the lifeblood of the economy, frozen.” Mr. Schumer said. “That hasn’t happened before. It’s a brave new world. You are in uncharted territory, but the one thing you do know is you can’t leave them frozen or the economy will just head south at a rapid rate.” ....

Lawmakers in both parties described the meeting in Ms. Pelosi’s office on Thursday night with Mr. Paulson and Mr. Bernanke as collaborative, and that they were prepared to put politics aside to address the needs of the American people. ....

But it was clear they continued to examine ways to make clear that the government was stepping up not just to help the major financial firms but also to protect the interests of American taxpayers and families by safeguarding their pensions and college savings, and by preventing any further drying up of consumer credit.

I would have hoped that part of that “stunned silence” included these bozos realizing—finally—that no group of individuals, no matter how bright nor how many degrees and pedigrees they bring to the table, can manage all the vast markets that comprise an economy. And really, can we even separate out “economies” that correspond to the imaginary lines on our maps in a meaningful way? With individuals and groups from all over the globe buying property and corporations in the USSA, and of course the importing and exporting that goes on constantly, and foreign investment/support in Treasury instruments and the FRN itself, where does the USSA economy end and another entity’s begin? But such a hope is always in vain, and thus it was revealed yet again that the hubris of the ruling class knows no bounds: more intervention will save us all!

The question is, how? How does one save the taxpayers by stealing even more of their wealth and redistributing it? How does it help them when that process props up the very companies that misrepresented their goods, allowed applicants to lie about assets and then didn’t even bother to check out the lies in approving mortgage loans far beyond their ability to repay? Since when do such crappy businesses deserve to even stay in business, let alone to receive even more corporate welfare? Oh, right: since crony capitalism became synonymous with “free markets” and passed off as what underpins the USSA economy.

I have never claimed to be an economics whiz, but I know enough to realize that shuffling paper around does not inherently add value—yet that was precisely what drove much of the last growth cycle. I also understand that one cannot indefinitely create credit out of thin air; there will be a reckoning when the “assets” that back it are found to be insufficient. And thus, I think that a Mr. Wolfgang Münchau was spot on when he pegged the current crisis as one of solvency, not liquidity—way back in March, no less. People all around the world understand the basics of budgeting and running a household, and successfully resist the temptation to overextend themselves. It is not terribly complicated, except in the heads of central bankers who cannot resist pushing the buttons and pulling the levers; nor in the minds of the politicians who make contradictory promises out of both sides of their mouth without a thought as to who will bear the costs (or how they will be borne).

No matter what action they take, it hurts, because it limits the freedom that markets must have to operate properly. Letting companies that were imprudent and/or unethical fail is the swiftest course out of the mess that’s coming, but we can already see that is not the course the central bankers and politicians will choose. It will be more intervention, more pain, and a very protracted correction that will be far worse than marking everything to market now and clearing the debris. Ma and Pa Main Street do not have lobbyists on the Hill, you know; but the investment bankers, real estate brokers, and other “market sectors” all do.

To all the commentators and “analysts” who are now bemoaning the end of the free market in this country, I can only ask: Where the fuck have you been? There has been no systemic free market here, ever. Even whatever black markets exist are pressured by rules and regulations and their promised punishments in the mainstream marketplace.

What can we do to minimize the coming pain? Being in this country, that’s a very tough question, as we will not be able to avoid the dollar crash that is gathering momentum already. But we can minimize the damage by finding and creating agorist networks, and using them to step outside of the crashing mainstream economic system as much as possible. I’ve been meaning, for far too long now, to create a list of pro-freedom businesses and entrepreneurs; I’ll do my best to get something up before the weekend is out, even if it’s very rudimentary. If you have an agorist business and want to be included on the list, let me know. Other ideas are of course welcome in the comments.

Systems rise, and systems fall. Through it all, enterprising individuals can be amazingly resilient, in part because they stay outside the system and can see and act on trends more nimbly. That kind of activity is what’s needed now, both for enhanced survival and for teaching others what a true, freed market is. The faster we escape from the dog–chasing–its–own–tail pseudo-solutions offered by the federal government, banksters, and others of that ilk, the better.

Many smart people look at the current turmoil in the investment/financial sphere and wrongly conclude, “That won’t affect my savings and investments. My bank is FDIC insured.” It may be; but it turns out, despite all the headlines about the FDIC fund drying up, that the truth is far, far worse: like Social Security, it doesn’t exist.

I found a very interesting story a few days ago, covering how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac execs abused their political connections and hybrid private–government status to hide fraud and extend their reach. I tried to find the story late last night, but got a message that “the page has expired” instead. I tried the Washington Post web site, as the text suggested, but my detailed searching came up blank. Thinking that highly unusual, I checked around some more this morning, and found my suspicions confirmed. A number of bloggers had commented on the story or posted a link to it; his post is dated 9/14/08. A bit more digging revealed that the story still existed on the MSNBC server, in a mobile format. Lest it be memory-holed there too, I have copied the story in its entirety here, because it contains very important information (although coming too late to do much good regarding the players involved) and because it is outrageous that such a revealing article has apparently been deemed unsafe for USSA readers to see. Expect similar shenanigans as more institutions get bail– nationalized, and the economic crises and political charades continue.

The text behind the curtain is as captured from the mobile page, but without page breaks and the accompanying image.

You might rightly be wondering why such a hard-nosed anarchist wench such as myself is celebrating Jury Rights Day. While it is true that I seek to avoid the state and its deadly systems as much as possible and encourage others to do likewise, this is one area where I’m happy to make an exception—for reasons that should be clear, but just in case they aren’t, I’ll elaborate a bit.

My, my, my. The bad news has been mounting fast for all the healthocrats protecting the USSA flock. Crows might become an endangered species soon. It could happen ... if all the nanny-ninnies were intellectually honest enough to admit that they’ve been wrong for decades.

It’s come to this at last. Governments around the world are calling for national ID (NID) cards, or for increasing the security measures on existing cards. The justification, of course, is the current war on terrorism. Ask “Cui bono?” (Who benefits?) of 9-11 and the answer looks increasingly like “Authoritarians everywhere.”

And I do mean everywhere. NID hype is playing loudest in the United States and Britain, yet other countries are working hard to join the goose-stepping. For example, Malaysia has recently instituted compulsory NIDs for citizens age twelve and up. The cards have computer chips which store copies of the subject’s fingerprints. Other places are considering similar moves.

NIDs—especially “smart cards” that can carry a great deal of encoded information—are viewed as the solution to many “problems” the Thought Police have. They can be used to: verify identity via biometric information; reveal banking, health, voting, and similar records; and track travel and purchases, for starters. Because of the presence of biometric information—supposedly unique body information, such as a fingerprint or retinal scan—these cards are touted as strong security against would-be terrorists. According to various polls, Americans are increasingly willing to accept a NID, primarily because they think that it will increase security.

Sovereign individuals ought to consider this NID movement as the most dangerous threat to liberty on the planet. (The enumeration-and-tracking fervor isn’t limited to the national scale; UN officials have heard a proposal for a global unique identifying number for each person in the world.) The more people can be tracked, monitored, and checked, the easier they are to control. The easier they are to control, the less free they are.

Particularly insidious are the so-called “voluntary IDs”. While originally used for apparently benign purposes (such as getting social welfare benefits in some Scandinavian countries), it’s usually an easy matter to expand their use, and the information required of the subjects. It’s also easy to take something that’s widely accepted on a voluntary basis and quietly make it mandatory. A clear case of function creep is the American Social Security Number; old cards stated that the number “is not to be used for identification purposes”. (The law says these ID uses are illegal too, not that the Department of Justice cares.) Anyone who’s tried to get a driver's license, passport, or even see a doctor without giving the number knows how antiquated that notion is. Many businesses won’t do business with someone who doesn’t give a number.

The databases collected by various interests are often sold, in whole or part (in America, this can include birth, marital, and driving records, banking information, medical records, credit card usage, and buying habits at stores with “discount” cards, such as supermarkets). If all these databases—plus whatever the Thought Police require on the card—use the NID number, it won’t take much to build a formidable dossier on anyone, without that individual’s knowledge or consent. The potential for misuse by petty bureaucrats becomes even greater, particularly against those who are viewed as unfriendly to their interests. And what might law enforcement officers with a license to destroy lives in pursuit of “state security” do? In the US, true patriots—and just about anyone who questions the war and any action relating to it—have already been given notice that they’re potential Thought Police targets.

Given the dire consequences, both of submitting to a NID and of refusing to be numbered, the choice to be made isn’t an easy one. Nor should it be made lightly. Let’s consider the pros and cons of each choice. First, the negatives:
1. If you submit to the NID, you are in the system, in the database, and along for the ride wherever the Thought Police and busybody bureaucrats decide to take you. Your every non-cash purchase may be trackable, along with all bank transactions. Your travel will certainly be monitored, and you could be required to register with the local Gestapo every time you move (it happens in many countries, and has been suggested in the US). Your medical records could be opened up to potential employers as well as LEOs who check your papers. Anyone who sees your number could access all kinds of sensitive information about you, without your knowledge or consent. It’s possible that inept busybodies—or malicious Thought Police types—could wipe you out of existence, or otherwise wreak havoc with your records, and therefore your life. If certain demographic information were included, you could be discriminated against. Much of your life will be open to The State, and your business will be conducted at their pleasure, not your need or desire. Your pro-freedom friends may call you a sellout, and you yourself may begin to question your adherence to your principles.

2. If you forego the NID, you’ll be outside the system, and depending on how diligently the state tracks and punishes those outside, your life may be better or worse than those inside. Already, getting meaningful employment without papers is all but impossible in many places, including the US. You may be severely limited in any aspect of living a normal life: no dealing with checks, credit cards, or anything but cash; no home mortgage or rental agreement; no driving; no flying; no medical care; and no respect from the mainstream community for holding fast to your principles. Indeed, if function creep proceeds so that a NID is required for every activity or transaction, you’ll not be able to set foot inside “civilization”. That may seem like a benefit, rather than a negative; but being outside isn’t always easy. While you are outside, many of your choices and opportunities are constrained by the very fact that you are free. You may become depressed if you choose to focus on this aspect of the situation. You may become a pariah, or worse, in your family or community. You yourself may begin to question the wisdom of your choice, as its challenges wear you down. You can be targeted by the state for “crimes” real or imagined. You can be separated from those you love. You can be killed.

Now, the positives:
1. Being in the system makes you much more able to transact business. This includes pursuing other pro-freedom strategies. Having papers gives you some degree of protection, so you can conduct whatever smash-the-state business you wish with fewer concerns about being an immediate target. Using the system against itself is a monkey-wrenching choice available mainly to those within the system; it’s an activity that can bring success and amusement. While in the system, you can help those who remain outside in a variety of ways. You can help them to do things they otherwise couldn’t. You can employ them, barter with them, support the grey market they rely on, or be a stop on the freedom underground railroad. With a little creativity and effort, many more possibilities offer themselves. Some offer little risk, others more. They all help you be true to your principles while appearing to go along.

2. Not being a cog in the immense state machine means that you do not support it in any way. The immense freedom that one feels as a result is amazing. The feeling of living in accordance with one’s principles is liberating, exhilarating. Knowing that you’re following the path that’s best for human nature can make many of the challenges of being outside worth bearing. You may become an inspiration to others, and may encourage others to follow the refusenik course. This will further weaken the state, helping us all to be freer of its poisonous influences. (If word of your non-cooperation gets around, you certainly will be an inspiration to others. It’s a difficult choice to make, but one very worthwhile if you’re committed to it and enter it realistically.)

I know from personal experience how lonely such a crusade can seem, particularly if you live in a statist haven and it seems you’re the only one who values freedom. I also know from personal experience that you aren’t alone. Part of the reason the thugs can institute wholesale destruction of liberty is the fear they instill. That fear is based on their willingness to back up their threats with force. Ruby Ridge, Michael New, Shirley Allen, Peter McWilliams, Elián González, Waco ... these are just a few examples.

Gandhi: the original refusenik?

I used the term refusenik earlier. If you aren’t familiar with it, refuseniks were the Soviet Jews who wanted to leave the USSR, but who were repeatedly denied permission. Because they wanted to leave, they were hassled in numerous ways, often for years. But they refused to go along with the Soviet system, enduring its worst until they died or were permitted to leave. They refused to cooperate.

If you think about it, Gandhi was perhaps the first well known refusenik. In both South Africa and India, he refused to cooperate with the tyranny of each state over its own citizens. His methods involved fighting back, to be sure, but in ways that were always calculated to show his opponent at its worst. (The movie Gandhi, starring Ben Kingsley, is an excellent introduction to the subject.) He did not initiate force, nor did he ever advocate the initiation of force by Indians. His path was that of non-cooperation.

In South Africa, where all “colored” individuals were required to carry identity papers and live as second-class citizens, Gandhi refused to carry the paper, and organized many Indians living there to join in. In India, he spoke out against British imperialism and through non-cooperation, brought about the end of British rule. One example from the movie is particularly compelling: salt manufacture and sale were heavily regulated, such that the British had a lock on both. In defiance of the law, Gandhi went to the sea and made salt. The British chose to ignore this action, but later decided to take action when hundreds of Indians followed Gandhi’s lead. In one scene, authorities loyal to Britain and Gandhi’s followers face off outside a salt-making company. The authorities beat off the Indians as they approach its gates. The Indians peacefully accept the blows, and keep coming. Some of the wounded rejoin the march, only to be beaten again. That demonstration encapsulated the essence of tyranny, and is widely regarded as the beginning of the end of British rule in India.

A difference in protests between the situations in India and the Soviet Union is that of organization. Gandhi became a symbol“and a lightning rod”for his cause. Millions of Indians came to join Gandhi’s cause, making their strength obvious. There is no comparable figure for the Soviet Jews who became the refuseniks. They acted individually, or in small groups. However, the results are essentially the same. With the world watching peaceable individuals who just wanted to be left alone to live their lives, and the tyrannical responses of the governments to them, tyranny backed off.

Making your choice

Let’s face it: the stakes are high. No matter how benign the stated purpose, no matter how trivial the information required by your local flavor of Thought Police, any NID is a privacy and security threat. With the ease of creating and altering computer records today, it would be a relatively simple matter for function creep to make that innocuous number the bane of your existence. It’s a shorter slide than any of us would like to consider from a NID to a Soviet or Nazi-style society. Your current situation may be tolerable, but how certain can you be that it will last? Do you really want the opposition forces who’ve just come to power to know you voted against them? Do you want your local sheriff to know how many and what kinds of guns you own? Do you think it’s anyone’s business what kinds of videos you like to watch?

Not cooperating will be uncomfortable, inconvenient, and ultimately, dangerous for many. But remember: sixty years ago, European Jews went along with Nazi requirements for papers. Then they went along with the yellow Star of David armbands. Then they went along with being herded into Jewish sectors. Then they went to the concentration camps—and into the gas chambers.

Life is full of difficult choices, and this time is no exception. But we do have a choice. In or out. Private protestor or active refusenik. I encourage everyone who values freedom to find some way of not cooperating with whatever identification or numbering scheme your local Thought Police have, or are working on. As Gandhi, the Soviet refuseniks, and others have showed, non-cooperation works.

Do you have a mental disorder? If you answered “no” with little thought, you may need to reconsider. According to information on the National Institute of Mental Health web site, a 1993 study estimated that over 20 percent of Americans 18 and over “suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year” (emphasis mine). In the same paragraph this fact was given, it was stated that “many people suffer from more than one mental disorder at a time”.

How did “mental disorders” come to be so common? Since the first Diagnostic and Statistical Manual was published in 1952, what has been considered a “mental disorder” has ballooned. Here are some things that are currently considered “mental disorders”:

• You could have a “substance-related disorder” if you use too much marijuana, alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, or a number of other substances—including many prescription medications.
• Get too much sleep? Not enough sleep? Have nightmares or sleep apnea? They’re all psychological disorders.
• Don’t desire sex much? That’s hypoactive sexual desire disorder. Don’t get aroused easily? That’s a disorder too, as is not having orgasms.
• Are you shy? Don’t like being in crowds? You could have a social phobia.
• Here’s today’s trendy diagnosis for being a nerd: Asperger syndrome.
• And we don’t want to forget the children, who can get diagnosed as having: a “feeding disorder of infancy or childhood” (essentially being a picky eater); attention deficit disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; stuttering; and something called “selective mutism”—where a child who’s capable of speaking will not do so in certain situations, usually school.

The short answer—and a telling explanation in its own right—for why diagnostic categories and “disorders” have increased is insurance coverage. Insurers are more likely to pay claims for things that are diagnosable—hence, lots of things are now “diagnosable”. And while this is scary enough for the bureaucratic nightmares it implies, there are other—and to me, much more important—considerations.

Although I’m a psychologist, I’m not a clinical psychologist; I’m far from an expert in this area. My interest is very personal. I’m someone who many individuals have felt comfortable talking with about these, and other personal matters. It also happens that, according to the list above as well as certain psychological tests, I could be considered as having several “mental disorders”.

I put that term in quotation marks because, as the examples above suggest, the concept has become so stretched as to lose its meaning for me (and others, including some experts). Making so many things “mental disorders” encourages individuals to consider themselves victims—somehow unworthy of appreciation, or unable to achieve goals, or inferior in some other way. It also encourages dependencies—upon the largesse of the state for support; upon the diagnostic label as an excuse for failure or a copout from even trying; and upon that victim status as a tidy means of summing up what an individual is.

For me, the worst aspect of this “psychological medicalization” is the influence it can have on an individual who isn't “disordered” or ill in any way. Let me use myself as an example.

From some of my earliest memories, I can recall realizing that I was quite different from others in my family—and that they didn’t appreciate my differentness. I was a dreamer, endlessly inquisitive, and a tomboy. When I was in college, as a psychology major I had the opportunity to take various psychological tests for educational (rather than diagnostic) purposes. According to one widely used test, I scored “deviant” (meaning outside the statistical norms) for introversion, and “borderline deviant” for masculinity. A retake of the revised version of that test just a few years ago gave essentially the same result, but added the possibility of “problems with authority and authority figures”—no doubt picking up on my individualist-anarchist principles. From the list above, I could have: caffeine substance-related disorder; sleep disorder; social phobia; and if I were a child today I would be very likely be diagnosed with “selective mutism”.

That’s seven disorders, without even breaking a sweat.

Despite all those possible “disorders” I am a highly functioning, responsible adult living a fairly contented life. I have never let them influence my actions, in large part because by the time I was in college and took the first test that labeled me as “deviant”, I knew that I was different—and I knew that was a good thing. Even so, it was a difficult struggle for me to come to terms with being different. There are many others who never do, and who lack the understanding of “mental disorders” to know how meaningless that term can be.

Many individuals close to me have confided (or demonstrated) their own differentness. Some, like me, have come to value them, while simultaneously realizing the challenges they may bring. Others seem troubled by them and seek to hide, deny, or “fix” them in some way. That, to me, is the real tragedy of the bloating of “mental disorders”.

Some of the most creative individuals in our history are those who’ve danced at the edge of normality. They include Vincent van Gogh, Georgia O’Keeffe, Edvard Munch, Mozart, Syd Barrett, Cole Porter, Kurt Cobain, Ernest Hemingway, Edgar Allan Poe, T.S. Eliot, and Emily Dickinson. Will today’s culture produce a powerfully haunting writer like Mark Vonnegut, or are we doomed to white-bread entertainment because those who dance at that edge feel so marginalized they don’t dare draw attention to themselves? With today’s children being forced into social situations (as a treatment for Asperger syndrome) or forcibly drugged so they stay in their seats at school, dare I even hope for a better future? It’s very hard to do so.

Several individuals I know who are “different like me” already self-censor in various ways, or have expressed concerns about his or her “disorder” (often self-diagnosed based on popular reports, rather than tests or mental health consultations—not that those are necessarily more accurate). Parents confide fears about their children’s futures while trying to force them into stultifying, safe categories.

Every time I see something like that happen, I cringe. The wonderful individuality that makes humanity so rich and fascinating shrinks a bit more. Because of a fear of being marginalized simply for being different—a fear that is sadly justified—an individual’s potential is limited. The world is dimmed for a loss, the scope of which we will never know. That’s infinitely more tragic than trying and failing.

Don’t let your unique light be needlessly sacrificed to the cult of conformity—to those who would marginalize some of the best things within us.

I don’t recall where I saw the link to the Harper’s article, The revolution will not be pasteurized: Inside the raw-milk underground, but I’m glad it came to my attention. The article is quite long, but very interesting, and mostly excellent. Oddly enough, it isn’t the subject of raw milk that leads me to write about the article.

I am quite undecided about this turn of events in the housing market. Banks’ mail jingles as borrowers walk is the headline on a commentary by James Saft. For anyone who hasn’t come across the phrase “jingle mail” yet, it describes the phenomenon of homeowners walking away from a home because the debt owed is greater than its current value—and so, they mail the keys to the lender. The unmistakable signal jingle mail sends is, “I’m done here. The house is yours.”—thus breaking the mortgage contract. Is that wrong? I’ve seen a fair bit of commentary arguing both ways; but none of it has been from a pro-freedom perspective.

That’s what CLS posted in the wee hours this morning, but without a link to back up the claim. A Wall Street Journal article has the details (emphasis mine):

The account of Client-9's [Spitzer] appointment is part of a larger case that broke last week when federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged four people with organizing and managing an international prostitution ring, known as the Emperors Club VIP.

According to the complaint and the sworn statement, the Emperors Club arranged connections between wealthy male clients and more than 50 prostitutes in locations from New York and Washington to Paris and London. The club's Web site showed photographs of prostitutes' bodies, with their heads hidden, and ranked the women with a "diamond" system. Fees varied by rank, from $1,000 an hour to more than $5,500 an hour.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation's inquiry began in October 2007, when it was triggered at least in part by a bank that filed "suspicious activity" reports on the New York governor with the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, according to a federal law-enforcement official and a lawyer involved in the matter. Suspicious activity reports are filed with the Internal Revenue Service when banks detect something unusual either through their tellers or software, including transfers of large amounts of cash, unknown counterparties, or the use of known tax havens and money-laundering centers.

The bank was concerned that Mr. Spitzer might have been engaged in "structuring," a money-laundering technique in which transactions are kept beneath $10,000 to avoid federal reporting rules, the official said. There has been a massive federal crackdown on money laundering in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and banks have been extremely diligent in filing such reports. Those reports often include details of transactions done by innocent people.

The suspicious transactions by Mr. Spitzer are a major part of the investigation, the federal official said, confirming a report by ABC News. It isn't clear if federal investigators were engaged in a crackdown on the prostitution ring when Mr. Spitzer entered their sights as an alleged client of the ring, or whether Mr. Spitzer's transactions helped trigger a probe of the prostitution operation.

So, as we were discussing previously, one can forget financial privacy from institutions. Cash is quieter; and with the economic turmoil cranking up, it may not be a bad idea for risk avoidance to keep a moderate stash on hand anyway.

The headline I saw this morning is cause enough for a bit of celebration: Real ID is postponed for 5 years. The main points:

The Bush administration hit the brakes Friday on a controversial law requiring Americans to carry tamper-proof driver's licenses, delaying its final implementation by five years, until 2017.

A number of states have balked at the law, objecting to it largely over cost and privacy concerns. But under the administration's new edict, states that continue to fight compliance with the law face a penalty: Their residents will be forbidden from using driver's licenses to board airplanes or enter federal buildings as of May 11 of this year.

Some might view that “penalty” as a negative, but I don’t, overall.

There’s been a lot of commentary over the USSA’s fall into blackness in the 2007 International Privacy Ranking, and rightly so. But when I look at their map, I see something far worse.