[Reader-list] News Items posted on the net on Multipurpose National Identity Cards-118

[Jeebesh]

If you have the capacity to stop the State in it's most intimate and  
phantasmic act with it's citizen, go ahead. I do not think it will  
stop. It will accelerate and build a huge arsenal of effects and  
affects. Since a discussion list lives in time, it will be nice to  
track it. Tracking its various edges and claims will be something a  
list with so many articulate individuals can do well and carefully  
observe the MNIC over time and hopefully will be able to provide some  
insight into its operation and social life. That may help various  
collective actions to be informed by.

On 30-May-09, at 4:23 PM, subhrodip sengupta wrote:

> Many of us have earlier also stated that it will not work. But the  
> problem as one can see is not about individual
> convictions but the process of law and how it gets manipulated>  
> Without any opposition this scheme is proceeding if not as a safe  
> abode definitely for building abodes for many. The question is how  
> we may stop it, how the public can get it's voice heard, and what  
> assumes that the govt will follow. Well, with a section of  
> intellectuals inclined with such style of reasoning that terrorists  
> terrorize people, masses only follow. A sctientific analysis or need  
> to provide data is rejected and wishful thinking resorted to. Alas,  
> but who will stop it? Constitution and the citizenship act put the  
> onus on the state to provide identity to people. But this provision  
> made compulsory is just a way for hardline politics to surface and  
> that poses an inner contradiction. For that means onus shifting to  
> citizens to prove an id. Luckily, the EC was looser on the rules,  
> but how many of Indians, not us, have their own photo-ids, issued by  
> state?
>
> From: Jeebesh <jeebesh at sarai.net>
> To: Sarai Reader-list <reader-list at sarai.net>
> Sent: Saturday, 30 May, 2009 4:03:08 PM
> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] News Items posted on the net on  
> Multipurpose National Identity Cards-118
>
> It is not my disquiet. I am sure MNIC will not work. It will only
> create confusion and threats. And then will become another document
> among many with some level of magic and violence associated with it.
>
> The disquiet is something we will see growing around us among the
> people who initially would have lauded it as a great project for a
> great nation!. Indian Express is the biggest supporter of State's new
> found technological fantasies. Yet it can see the coming danger. I am
> interested in how they articulate this disquiet and what ways they
> think will deal with it. Indian Express can clearly see how thin the
> line is towards a "police state". I would like to follow how it
> reports on MNIC and what ways it sees it's unfolding.
>
> best
> jeebesh
>
>
>
> On 30-May-09, at 3:40 PM, Kshmendra Kaul wrote:
>
> > Dear Jeebesh
> >
> > Sometimes I feel many of us thrive on 'disquiet'.
> >
> > - either the MNIC will be "illegal" or contravene some essences of
> > COI guaranteed to citizens ...... in which case any further work on
> > it should should to be pre-empted through "legal" challenges
> >
> > - or the MNIC will not be "illegal" but there are reservations on
> > the extent to which it will incorporate 'information' which is
> > suspect in it's usefulness or will not further the benign uses of
> > MNIC ... in that case the 'legal' challenge should focus on
> > rerstricting the ambit of 'information' incorporated in the MNIC
> >
> > - another concern over the MNIC would be the collation of
> > information generated by "user transactions"  and such collated
> > information being susceptible to be abused .... in which case
> > suyitable "walls" will have to be incorporated in such flow and
> > collation of information and access to it or it's distribution.
> >
> > "Disquiet" will serve no useful purpose. The concerns over MNIC
> > should be pro-actively addressed through Legal Challenges including
> > pre-emptive ones.
> >
> > """""""MNICs should not become compulsory until there is an
> > established judicial overview to ensure that the privacy rights of
> > India’s citizens are not unlawfully violated. It is important that
> > India confront and manage these risks and consider all alternatives
> > before implementing the MNIC programme nationwide. """""""""
> > http://www.hrdc.net/sahrdc/hrfeatures/HRF169.htm
> >
> > "Judicial Overview" will also not be enough if it only concludes
> > agreement with the concerns over MNIC. It will have to extend itself
> > into "intervention" of a kind that will "oversee" the design and
> > architecture of the MNIC software and will not simply accept "self-
> > certification". This could be done only by a non-governmental
> > regulatory body comprised of IT professionals.
> >
> > Kshmendra
> >
> >
> >
> > --- On Sat, 5/30/09, Jeebesh <jeebesh at sarai.net> wrote:
> >
> > From: Jeebesh <jeebesh at sarai.net>
> > Subject: Re: [Reader-list] News Items posted on the net on
> > Multipurpose National Identity Cards-118
> > To: "Sarai Reader-list" <reader-list at sarai.net>
> > Date: Saturday, May 30, 2009, 3:06 PM
> >
> >
> > On 29-May-09, at 6:03 PM, Taha Mehmood wrote:
> >
> > > That its security value will overshadow the MNIC’s more benign use
> > > leads to another worry — the possible misuse by an overbearing
> > > security apparatus. It is one thing for a national identity card  
> to
> > > help prevent terror attacks, quite another for permanent check
> > points
> > > to insist that crossers produce ID cards as a matter of routine.
> > There
> > > is a fine line between a well-policed state and, well, a police
> > state.
> >
> > The last line of this editorial from Indian Express confirms the
> > general disquiet that MNIC will produce as it becomes more and  
> more a
> > reality.
> >
> > best
> > jeebesh
> >
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