“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,'” Declan McCullagh reports for CNET News.com.
“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,'” McCullagh reports.
“The presidential hopeful offered few details about his radical proposal. ‘On the Internet, this card will confirm all the information required to gain access to a state (government) network–while also barring anyone who isn’t legal age from entering an adult chat room, making the Internet safer for our children, or prevent adults from entering a children’s chat room and preying on our kids…Many new computer systems are being created with card reader technology. Older computers can add this feature for very little money,’ Dean said,” McCullagh reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: This was “fifteen months before Dean said he would seek the presidency,” so his position on this could have changed (perhaps multiple times) or not changed at all. Either way, this idea smacks of Big Brother. MDN’s offical response to this idea? YEEARGH!