Re: Constitution and Contract [Was: CIA & FBI]

[Black Unicorn <unicorn@access.digex.net>]

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> Unicorn writes:
> 
> > Will a passport be issued to a non-citizen?
> 
> Do you anticipate an enduring role for passports?
 
Yes.
 
Assuming that strong cryptography is going to destroy all world borders 
in either of our lifetimes is a stretch.  Strong crypto is a powerful 
tool to entitle the individual to resist state will, not a force that 
will cause by itself the dissolution of the nation-state system.  Even 
assuming that there are no tariffs, no transaction costs, the human 
elements of religion, race and belief, among other factors will always 
enforce borders by themselves.  Strong crypto does nothing to stop this, 
it merely evens the odds in the Individual v. State game of intelligence
collection.
 
> What would be the
> point of strong cryptography if it leaves intact institutions able to
> enforce a demand for passports? 
 
Your question hinges on the erroneous assumptions that:
 
1> Passports are per se a requirement to travel.
2> Cryptography can destroy the institutions to which you refer.
 
 
1> Passports as a per se requirement for travel:
 
They are not today, and were less so in the past.  
A passport at the core is merely a request to treat the bearer as a 
citizen of the issuing country.  Such is even reflected in the 
anachronistic language on most passports today.  The United States 
example is below:
 
 
	The Secretary of State of the United States of America hereby 
	requests all who it may concern to permit the citizen of the 
	United States named herein to pass without delay or hindrance and 
	in case of need to give all lawful aid and protection.
 
It was in the McCarthy period that the passport began to be used as a 
weapon.  The upshot was that as a requirement to travel it was a 
discretionary limitation on the right to travel.  The passport was 
finally afforded procedural due process protection in 1958, after 7 
years of use as a blow to political dissenters.  _Kent v. Dulles_, 357 
U.S. 116 (1958).  By this time, however, airline requirements and 
discretionary issuance were so ingrained as to make passports a prime 
candidate to regulate a person or keep track of travel.  These issues 
are discussed in detail in Comment, Passport Refusal for Political 
Reasons: Constitutional Issues and Judicial Review, 61 Yale L.J. 171 
(1952), and were partly the inspiration for Reich's New Property Note in 
YLJ on which I have written extensively before.  Reich, The New Property 
73 Yale L.J. 773 (1964).
 
What affects this change is the increasingly widening category of 
government largess where the individual finds that liberty is threatened 
by the control of organized society. 
 
I liken the change to the social security number.  It was not (on the 
surface) intended for identification, it just became a primary 
identification tool because it was so fitted for that role.  (Each 
person only had one, almost everyone has one).
 
It is the oppressive uses of passports, and not passports that are the 
source of the evil you seek to eliminate.
 
Cryptography helps dissenters remain anonymous, and helps you if you 
want to fund projects without being watched or tracked.  It does not 
destroy state regulation, eliminate oppression or present some cure-all.
 
> Are they [passports] not as much an invasion of
> privacy as eavesdropping?  If passports continue to be of significance
> in the future, wouldn't that indicate that strong cryptography has
> failed to achieve its promise?
 
2> Cryptography will eliminate the institutions that you seem offended 
by:
 
I find it hard to envision how cryptography will eliminate passports.  
In fact I think public key cryptography strengthens the ability of the 
state  to regulate in some ways, especially in terms of citizenship and 
immigration.  It's pretty hard to forge a smart card passport that uses 
a signature from the State Department as an authenticator.  This is 
especially true if it contains a digitized photo that is also signed.
 
The promise of strong cryptography was never that it would topple 
governments and destroy borders, only that it would even the playing 
field in issues of privacy where the individual is at a distinct 
disadvantage.  Cryptography is not used merely by the "good guys" any 
more than atomic power is.
 
The source of the problem is in how states will seek to regulate and 
influence the citizens.  This will continue to be a problem with or 
without strong cryptography, and incidentally, with or without 
passports.
 
Additionally, I'm not sure citizenship is necessarily "bad."  What is 
disadvantageous about citizenship is merely which legal sphere of 
influence it places you in, and how oppressive said sphere is.  It's not 
in itself evil for a state to keep track of immigration or who is given 
government benefits, only the systematic logging, sorting, and 
utilization of this information that is disturbing.  Were 
citizenship authentication checked blindly at the border via zero 
knowledge proofs (that is the correct term yes?) would the potential for 
privacy concerns be somewhat reduced?  Sure.  Will it end oppression?  
Of course not.
 
 
And if cryptography really will topple nations?
 
The right to exclude would merely fall to private hands and 
corporate type interests in the place of governmental influence were the 
borders destroyed.  Largess can take on ominous dimensions be it 
under private or pubic monopoly.  Look at DeBeers.  The diamond 
"markets" under DeBeers and the Oppenheimer family are great evidence 
that a system of private exclusion to territory and largess would be in 
many ways much more vicious and discriminatory than a public one.
 
What's the difference if your passport is enforced by a state or a 
private conglomerate empowered with cryptography? 
 
Focus on cause, not tools or effect.
 
 
> 	John E. Kreznar		| Relations among people to be by
> 	jkreznar@ininx.com	| mutual consent, or not at all.
 
- -uni- (Dark)
 
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