The Ek’s Files

A few days ago I wrote about how efforts to increase the security of U.S. citizens have generally come at the expense of personal privacy. The government feels that collecting large amounts of data on its citizens as well as foreign nationals will allow them to better ferret out terrorists, making our nation safer. But over on ars technica, Jon Stokes makes some pretty convincing arguments that the existence of large amounts of personal data just makes it that much more likely that the data will be used against us.

Jon talks specifically about Real ID, but makes the point that the more data available, and the more people who have access to that data, the more likely it is that the data will be unintentionally compromised or even purposefully abused. It’s an interesting read.

It’s nice to see, too, that states like Montana are telling DHS to take Real ID and shove it. Despite the firm stance of DHS, Real ID seems a long way from a done deal.