Most people either support or oppose Obama's health care bill usually based on the collectivist argument. Either you support socialism or you oppose it. Essentially it's being argued in terms of economic policy.
I think that's the red herring.
The real issue is the continued development of our technocratic surveillance society - one more building block in constructing the 21st century Panopticon.
It's easily the most insidious component of the bill...it's going to create the American version of the Dang'an.
The Dang'an doesn't sound so bad based on the wikipedia desciption I linked. Here's how John Taylor Gatto described the Dang'an in The Underground History of American Education:
The Western-inspired and Western-financed Chinese revolution, following hard on the heels of the last desperate attempt by China to prevent the British government traffic in narcotic drugs there, placed that ancient province in a favorable state of anarchy for laboratory tests of mind-alteration technology. Out of this period rose a Chinese universal tracking procedure called "The Dangan," a continuous lifelong personnel file exposing every student’s intimate life history from birth through school and onwards. The Dangan constituted the ultimate overthrow of privacy. Today, nobody works in China without a Dangan.
If you read the Obamacare bill, and you pay close attention, you'll see that the new bill calls for a consolidation of personal information and documentation into a single, accessible record.
Take a look at page 161 of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
The standards and protocols for electronic enrollment in the Federal and State Programs described in sub-section (a) shall allow for the following:
(1) Electronic matching against existing Federal and State data, including vital records, employment history, enrollment systems, tax records and other date determined appropriate by the Secretary to serve as evidence of eligibility and in lieu of paper-based documentation.
Once you enroll, they will crosscheck your enrollment info with all other info the Government has on you in various computer systems.
(2) Simplification and submission of electronic documentation, digitization of documents, and systems verification of elegibility.
Once they cross check all of your enrollment info with all they data they can find in State and Federal computer systems, they'll compile it all - including digitizing documents that only exist in hard copy - and compile it all into a single record...all under the guise of "assessing eligibility."
(3) Reuse of stored eligibility information (including documentation) to assist with retention of eligible individuals.
See, that documentation - all of it that they used to cross check your enrollment info - will be available for "reuse."
(4) Capability of individuals to apply, recertify and manage their eligibility information online, including at home, at points of service, and other community based locations.
So if a person is able to access this compiled information from the internet...what do you think this will do in terms of identity theft? Or do you really TRUST the government will be able to securely keep all this compiled info private and secure?
Ah, but here's the real kicker:
(5) Ability to expand the enrollment system to integrate new programs, rule, and functionalities, to operate at increased volume, and to apply streamlined verification and eligibility processes to other Federal and State programs as appropriate.
Essentially other Federal and State programs will than be allowed to use all of that compiled private info as they "deem appropriate."
Do you think this is appropriate?
5 comments:
Now you're just scaring folks. And succeeding.
The key phrase is "existing Federal and State data". The gummint already has this information - i.e., the Dangan already exists. Of course "they" already have your vital records, employment history, and tax records -- and if they want to use that information to "get you" for some reason, "they" can. Therefore there is nothing really new here to get excited about. Or, looked at another way, we're already completely doomed from a libertarian privacy rights perspective.
Well, yeah, the info is all out there, and yes, they can get it if they want to-- but most of it is scattered through multiple levels of government (Municipal, County, State, and Federal) and geographical locations (Courthouses, City Clerk Offices, State Registries, etc.). Hell, some of it is still in print format. The Feds can still get it, but it's a labor-intensive search, which means it's expensive and infrequent.
What the Obamacare plan does is place it all in one easily accessible database for Federal agencies to call up on demand. It also means that it can be altered through the same system-- and as the WikiLeaks Incidents show, confidence in the ability of the Fed to secure its systems isn't exactly warranted.
"The Feds can still get it, but it's a labor-intensive search, which means it's expensive and infrequent."
Nah. The Feds can do this level of search (tax records, criminal history, credit report) very easily without leaving their desks. Heck, a good private detective could probably get this info. The only time and labor-intensive investigation would be if they started asking all your friends and neighbors about you - and those kinds of opinions aren't going to make it into the Obamacare database anyway.
Anon - "Or, looked at another way, we're already completely doomed from a libertarian privacy rights perspective."
While I largely agree with this point...I still don't think this Obamacare action is as benign as you seem to think. This is just based on a=my cursory reading of the bill. I'm sure it's implementation will be far worse...after all, this is the Federal Government.
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