From The SPOTLIGHT, 300 Independence Ave., SE, Washington, D.C. 20003, (202) 546-5611. Subscriptions $36.00 per year "SMART CARDS", PART I: TOO "SMART" FOR OUR OWN GOOD? Powerful, Computerized "Smart Cards" Are Spreading -- and Clinton Plans to Make Them Compulsory for All Americans. By Clark Matthews Like it or not, smart cards have arrived. They're here and spreading fast, thanks to experimental programs started during the Bush administration. Those test programs forced Americans in certain regions to accept smart cards -- and become dependent on them -- in order to receive public assistance or government paychecks. Now, with a big push from the Clinton administration, the cards are quickly marching out of today's experimental welfare offices and food stamp centers -- and directly into your life. You say you don't want a smart card? Then you'd better study some of Clinton's pet legislation -- like the "Childhood Immunization" bills described in this article. The real reason for these proposed laws may have nothing to do with "helping children": These laws call for all newborn children (and at least one parent) to be "smart carded" at birth with a device that can monitor them 'across geographical areas'. Forcing Americans to Use Traceable "e-Cash" Technically speaking, today's smart cards aren't very "smart." They simply "remember" lots of things about the person who owns the card. They can keep track of dollar amounts, food-stamp allotments, social security numbers, personal security codes, addresses, phone numbers, or even your cable-T.V. descrambler code. They must rely on other computers -- like ATM machines, supermarket checkouts, or hospital admitting desks -- to update their "memory" with correct information. In countries around the world today, smart cards usually work like bank ATM cards: They replace cash electronically -- creating traceable "e-cash." In many cases, the "cash" on the card can be electronically "switched off", so smart-card "money" or "food stamps" can be electronically confiscated on command by cash dispensing machines, retail stores, welfare offices, or other places where the card is used. Indirectly, the cards can be quite intrusive, too. Even though they're not "smart" enough to keep track of your transactions, they permit every purchase can be stored and tracked by computer. Surprisingly, some governments protect the privacy of citizens with the cards -- for example, people in Denmark can get advanced cards that contain a personalized, "public key" security code to protect the user's transactions. (Compare this with the U.S., where the National Security Agency goes to great lengths to suppress "uncrackable" public-key encryption software and punish the geniuses who create it.) But the Australian experience is more typical. Aussies can get similar "cash cards" -- but people are troubled by revelations that all cashless transactions are monitored and permanently stored in a huge national computer database. Any "cashless" transaction in Australia can be instantly matched to the person who made it. Electronically "Created" Central-Bank Money -- Instant Public Debt? In Japan, government and business decided to "go slow" issuing smart cards. The reason is a 1988 study by Japanese economists that uncovered an important problem with smart card money: When a bank (or the government, or the phone company) issues a smart card, it instantly creates money. And since all bank-issued money becomes public debt under a fractional-reserve, central banking system, smart cards create corresponding debts for the taxpayers at the same time. Forced Dependence: America's Experimental Smart Cards Aren't Voluntary In ominous contrast to more-or-less voluntary foreign smart-card programs, over one million Americans with experimental smart cards were forced to accept them in order to receive government benefits or paychecks. As a result, these citizens are now completely dependent on the cards to receive welfare, food stamps, medical services, or -- in the case of the Marines at Parris Island, S.C. -- their paychecks. The circumstances of the people chosen for these programs make it highly unlikely they will challenge the program. Clinton's "Childhood Immunizaton" Program: "Stealth" Smart-Carding Forced on All Americans Forced participation in a universal American smart card program is a cornerstone of the Clinton agenda. It has been endorsed enthusiastically by Clinton Administration social monitors and engineers, notably longtime Clinton associate Ira Magaziner, who sees the cards as the lynchpin of Hillary Clinton's Health-Care Plan -- and for governing "the kind of world we want to produce". [See You Can't Hide From the Computer, The SPOTLIGHT, June 28, 1993.] Without waiting for the Health-Care Plan, however, Clinton's allies in Congress have already proposed laws with "stealth" provisions to compel parents to submit their families to "smart carding" -- or risk losing their children. The "Childhood Immunization" bill, introduced by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), calls for a national computerized registry of all children under six years of age, together with at least one parent. There's no doubt about the priorities of the Clinton plan -- Kennedy's legislation calls for children to be "smart carded" at birth, and innoculated later! Vaccinations will be tracked by smart cards issued to the children and parents. According to Kennedy's chief legislative aide, Keith Powell, this card system "will create a [national] registry with the capacity to do tracking and surveillance of all U.S. children." The companion House bill, introduced by Rep. Leslie Byrne (D-VA) states: "The purpose of the system is to provide for national surveillance of childhood immunization status through age six .... [and] develop a registry to cover the entire nation with the capacity to link and process all birth certificate records through a central registry .... [and for] tracking children in mobile populations across geographic areas." The "Opening Wedge" of Computerized Tyranny? Either way -- through Hillary's Healthcare Plan or the mandatory Childhood Immunization program, Clinton's agenda clearly intends to force Americans to accept today's limited smart cards and drive in the opening wedge for future, "ultra-smart" cards -- card-size computers with frightful possibilities. If Clinton succeeds, he and his successors may soon have the power to simply "switch off" the lives and property of opponents like a light bulb. Future articles will describe some of the frightening new technologies in future smart cards. "SMART CARDS", PART II: TOO SMART FOR OUR OWN GOOD? Tomorrow's "Smart Cards": Technical Marvels That Give Government Fearful Power By Clark Matthews [Last week, "Smart Cards," Part I described America's primitive, present- day "Smart Card" programs and the Clinton-backed "Childhood Immunization" legislation designed to force the cards on each newborn American infant and at least one of the child's parents. This week, we'll look at real smart cards. These advanced "super-smart" devices are here -- right now -- and a high-tech national infrastructure capable of supporting them is a top priority on President Clinton's domestic agenda. Are these frightful new devices the real reason for Clinton's "stealth" smart-card bills and his hurry to tag and track every one of today's children?] Hostage to a Smart Card Imagine your whole life held hostage to a "smart card": a credit-card- sized device with enough memory to hold every detail of your personal life. It's your I.D., your driver's license, passport, voter registration card, medical insurance, credit report, bank accounts, pension plan and much more, all contained on a pocket-sized card. But your card is also a computer -- an Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) card, to be precise. It can be programmed to control a built-in cellular phone or wireless transmitter, so it could "phone home" to the department ofmotor vehicles or FBI's NCIC computer whenever you use it in a toll booth, airline baggage check, or your car's ignition. It could act as a personal beeper, too, when people have official business with you -- for example, the police, the IRS or child-welfare authorities. Conversely, your card could be programmed to transmit its identification code whenever you use it. So you (or your card, anyway) could be instantly located anywhere on earth via the satellite-based Global Positioning System (GPS). Just in case someone really wants to talk to you. Now imagine someone pressing a few buttons, thereby seizing all your assets, instructing your smart card to turn itself off and call the police to come and get you. Get the picture? You'd better not leave home without it. The Anvil of Tyranny: Smart Cards, High-Tech Infrastructure Does this nightmare device actually exist? No. To do everything you just read about, you'd probably need three cards. More important, you need a powerful, high-tech, national communications infrastructure to support the step-by-step monitoring of all Americans. And if you wanted to make Americans completely dependent on their smart cards, you'd need to force each citizen to accept and carry the cards. The cards are called Class 1 and Class 2 PCMCIA devices. They're the size of a credit card, but a little bit thicker. They're modular: You can stack them up, one on top of the other, to form a kind of "silicon sandwich." So you can start with a memory card, add a "wireless" card or a modem card, and then top the assembly off with an "execute-in-place" (XIP) integrated-circuit (IC) card programmed to transform the whole "sandwich" into an infernal, Soviet-style internal passport. Voila! You've constructed a smart card from hell. Pay a visit to your local computer store and ask to see a first-rate laptop computer, like the IBM ThinkPad(R). You'll see an assortment of smart cards that can go along with the computer. Why not ask for a demonstration of: A Class 1 Flash Memory Card. A triumph of miniaturization, these 3.3mm- thick cards can permanently hold between 4 and 20 Megabytes of information about you (16,000 - 80,000 typewritten pages) and update your "profile" whenever necessary. One card can hold all your bank and brokerage accounts, motor-vehicle, pension and property-tax records, your insurance policies, medical and criminal history, your immediate family and where they live, and much more. With plenty of room to spare. A Class 2 Integrated-Circuit (IC) Card. These little cards are complete, low-power computers. An IC card can store instructions (update your stock portfolio daily with closing quotes), execute instructions by itself (erase your bank balances; forfeit your home and Keogh plan to the IRS) and control other cards attached to it (instruct ATM machines to "retain" your card; call the police; transmit your ID code for location by satellite). Future generations of these cards will be much more powerful. A Class 2 Wireless Card. Wireless telephone cards are still being prototyped, so you might have to settle for a local-area network card for now. You'll see a device the size of a Visa card that can send or receive up to 16 million bits of information per second. That's 8,000 pages of stuff about you, give or take a little. Wireless modem cards aren't as fast, but these little dillies can tell Big Brother all about your comings and goings in the blink of an eye. After snapping these cards together and trying them out, you might pause and ask yourself ... "Could It Happen Here?" Technically, it's not a problem. The cards exist now. But Big Brother isn't ready for them. PCMCIA cards are incompatible -- and far too "smart" -- for today's ATM machines, hospital admitting offices, tollbooths, etc. And an ultra-high-capacity national communications network is vital for monitoring American smart cards in "real time". But the most important element is completely absent: Americans haven't been forced to accept smart cards. Yet. Not coincidentally, all of these shortcomings are top priorities of the Clinton administration. The president has made the high-tech infrastructure a national priority. And laws designed to force Americans to accept smart cards at birth are before both houses of Congress, sponsored by heavyweight Democrats. Stacking the Deck Against Privacy and Liberty The Clinton administration understands these technologies. So do the international financial interests that bankrolled him -- international bankers are uniquely qualified to appreciate the immense power of computers to liberate and control, to reveal and conceal. Computers liberate the people who own them -- they control the people who are forced to depend on them. Computers can reveal the daily routines and modest assets of everyday people, exposing them to scrutiny and confiscation. But they can conceal the machinations and crimes of powerful people with private communications networks or access to "official" money- moving technology, like the Federal Reserve "wire". America needs a "high-tech information highway" -- but it doesn't need mandatory smart cards. Because the combination of the two adds up to an anvil for tyranny. ------------------------------------------------ (This file was found elsewhere on the Internet and uploaded to the Patriot FTP site by S.P.I.R.A.L., the Society for the Protection of Individual Rights and Liberties. E-mail alex@spiral.org)