Everyone who is queasy about RealID will find this post to be helpful when explaining to people why:
The story of Fidencio Estrada, a drug runner who bribed Florida Customs agent Rafael Pacheco to (among other things) access multiple federal law enforcement databases on his behalf, suggests that when it comes to the government collecting data on innocent civilians for law enforcement purposes, privacy and security are essentially the same thing…
So the government wants to collect tons of detailed data on citizens in these large databases; meanwhile, the speed at which an attacker could siphon off that data is increasing, as is the frightening but real possibility that ever-larger swaths of that database can fit onto a single lost or purloined hard drive.
No less than two University-owned laptop computers with my social security number on their hard drives have been lost or stolen in the last year. I got a letter from a company I’d never done business with stating that my personal information may have been stolen by a rogue employee; turns out this was the company that handled debit and electronic check transactions for some store that I had done business with, although God alone knows which store.
Can’t wait for RealID. I’m beginning to grow accustomed to the low-level stress of knowing that pretty much anyone can find my information and fuck me over pretty much anytime and there’s little I can do about it, and I’ll need the sphincter-clenching awareness that identity thieves are about to be given convenient one-stop shopping to keep my anxiety levels at their usual high.
I mostly just feel kind of sorry for somebody who would waste the effort getting into my identity with its possibly outstanding warrants and bank account whose average balance is within $20 of zero and often negative.
Perhaps you would worry less if you became a broke petty criminal? I’m not saying you have to do anything big, just steal some shirts from an Urban Outfitters or something.