Dean On Individual Liberty

I just got a note from Charlie Stross asking if I knew anything about this. I confess I didn’t, but after reading the article, I am concerned. I’m one of those “left-libertarian” types on the political compass (I score in the same area as Noam Chomsky, if you can believe that) so privacy and civil liberties are a huge deal to me.

Do any of you internet Deaniacs out there have some information about this?

Dean’s current stand on privacy appears to leave little wiggle room: His campaign platform pledges unwavering support for “the constitutional principles of equality, liberty and privacy.”

Fifteen months before Dean said he would seek the presidency, however, the former Vermont governor spoke at a conference in Pittsburgh co-sponsored by smart-card firm Wave Systems where he called for state drivers’ licenses to be transformed into a kind of standardized national ID card for Americans. Embedding smart cards into uniform IDs was necessary to thwart “cyberterrorism” and identity theft, Dean claimed. “We must move to smarter license cards that carry secure digital information that can be universally read at vital checkpoints,” Dean said in March 2002, according to a copy of his prepared remarks. “Issuing such a card would have little effect on the privacy of Americans.”

Dean also suggested that computer makers such as Apple Computer, Dell, Gateway and Sony should be required to include an ID card reader in PCs–and Americans would have to insert their uniform IDs into the reader before they could log on. “One state’s smart-card driver’s license must be identifiable by another state’s card reader,” Dean said. “It must also be easily commercialized by the private sector and included in all PCs over time–making the Internet safer and more secure.”

This article indicates that there might be something more to the story. I reserve judgment. But, I’d like to hear from people who could shed some light on this.