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Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies

swissinfo.ch

401–410 of 423 posts

Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies

#401
post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you so sure that your ideal is how they should live? What I admire about the Swiss is how they live and let live - they may disagree with the neighbour, but let them be.

Not allowing one group to have an equal voice is the opposite of live and let live

It’s worth noting that we are talking about a state of 16000 people, who live in a federation, and this federation allowed until 1991 this small state to keep their own laws regarding voting in their local elections. The other cantons were certainly let living their neighbour, and in response the people of AI (again, a state of 16k people) didn’t tell the neighbours what they should do. Again, this until UN influence forced them to be like their neighbours in 1991.

Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies

#402
post #397
post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was. And the face covering ban was spinned to be against the customs of a minority. It is still allowed indoors. Every country has some clothing requirements. Some mandate headscarfs (for women only), some mandate the face remains visible. No laws were needed for this in Swiss because no people were covering up. But now this has changed, so laws come. I dont find any problem with it, and hope that the "custom" of…

"But now this has changed, so laws come." A few dozen women in a country of 8.5 million do not need a law, especially one that doesn't really do anything for the victims, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26380029

Also, look at that image https://storage.googleapis.com/afs-prod/media/1aad669348cc4c...

Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies

#403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you could do it in six months, but the good news is you wouldn't need to. Passports already have an x509 certificate in them saying, "we are the government, and this is Jeff". So the government already know how to do this, they just were trying to give a gift to their buddies in private industry and they got caught and got their hand slapped by the citizens. There's actually nothing new here: digital ID…

> Passports already have an x509 certificate in them saying, "we are the government, and this is Jeff" No they don't but I can see why you might think that. ePassports (the ones with the stylised "chip" image on the cover) do have X.509 certificates baked into them. And ePassports do say "We are the government, and this is Jeff" (if you are Jeff) but that's not what the X.509 certificate says. Each X.509 certificate…

Nifty, where are the specs that explain that? I got as far as the ldif files from ICAO with all the signing keys in then, but couldn't find examples of the part you are talking about.

Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies

#404
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is saying you can't see your neighbor if you don't have errands to run.

Exactly, no one is saying you can't see your neighbor if you don't have errands to run. But the fact is you won't be doing that anywhere near as much if the way of doing the errands works against seeing people as if it works for. Defaults matter, a lot.

I agree that spontaneous interactions are important, but we get spontaneous interactions via density, whether it's tiny but compact towns (walled villages, even) or large cities.

Busywork and drugery should not be the foundation of social interaction. Period.

Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies

#405
post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to be precise here. Firstly "accepting a law" implies - in western liberal democracies - a legislative process in which a law is proposed and accepted by some kind of parliament. This is not what happened here - in Switzerland, laws can be given to the population directly by non-parliamentary, non-governmental organisations in referenda, which then become binding. The law you are referring to was accepted by…

The second part of the law in question disallows anyone to order someone else to wear this or that. Imho that was the deciding part.

Which is exactly what the first part of the law does.

Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies

#406
post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not allowing one group to have an equal voice is the opposite of live and let live

Taken to its conclusion should this not include every living being? Why not children, or animals? Ageism and speciesism indeed. My point is that while the majority of Swiss cantons decided to not have gender restrictions on voting, they allowed Apenzell to keep being the weird one, and in response the people of Apenzell don’t force their way onto others. If I don’t want my neighbour to tell me how to run my household…

Every time you say "the people of Apenzell" you really mean roughly ~50% of the voting age population. Would you make this same argument if only one person was allowed to vote in Apenzell? What about when that one person starts rounding up the people in Apenzell he doesn't like and imprisoning them?

Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies

#407
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, of course, each of those countries is internally very diverse, and in relation to the others. Each of those countries was made by a mix of native, European, African and Asian peoples of different kinds, in different proportions, at different times. Europe is made of just Europeans, and immigration is a very recent thing.

Is this what American education sounds like? Do you recall that European nations practically ruled the world at different times in history and gladly took in and integrated foreigners? Unlike Americans who mostly wiped out the natives and grandfathered in slaves.

> gladly took in and integrated foreigners?

So why were non-white populations in Europe negligible until about 60 years ago? Statistics are hard to come by, but do these pictures of London shortly after the fall of the British colonial empire look like a capital that "gladly took in and integrated foreigners"? https://www.vintag.es/2012/12/london-in-color-photographs-in...

Or Paris? https://flashbak.com/24-color-photographs-of-paris-from-may-...

Or if you don't like to go by random photos: "Historical migration into or within Europe has mostly taken the form of military invasion" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Europe

> Is this what American education sounds like?

Having been educated in Europe myself, there was no hint of this "gladly took in and integrated foreigners" you speak of in the curriculum. May I ask where you got this idea?

Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies

#408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This only gives more power to government to harass people whom they don't like and who are poor minorities. > having a central ID for each citizen at birth, and then a way to prove that you match that ID This seems a trivial and no-brainer and yet you will be surprised how many Americans will be simply denied this sort of service after birth. Racist law makers would put severe restrictions on people they dont like. I…

> This seems a trivial and no-brainer and yet you will be surprised how many Americans will be simply denied this sort of service after birth The whole "centralized ID means your government will oppress minorities" narrative seems like a mostly american concept. I imagine part of it is due with the US's particularly bad history with minorities, and part of it is a general defiance against any kind of centralization t…

> mostly american concept

True. It is an American experience.

Different admins have harassed different Americans at different points in time. Jews, Blacks, Chinese, Indians (India) and so on. Donald Trump showed us just how much evil US admin can get on matters of paperwork. Since he could not legally stop legal immigrants from working, he changed rules and created such a long backlog that it takes now 24 months to renew some work permits which use to take 15 days 4 years ago. Immigrants were deeply hurt. He also adopted several tactics which can be called "voter suppression". He used ridiculous logic such as "extreme vetting" to deny visa approvals for 4 year old children of an already approved immigrant.

Trump admin harassed a lot of Hispanics born in border towns of USA, refusing to use their birth certificates as evidence of citizenship.

>it feels really weird to see people describing what a dystopian future American would become if it did that thing we do right now.

USA is much much larger and far diverse than France. It also does not have the groups who hate each other as Americans have. I highly doubt if there are any French politicians who bear certain hatred for specific groups.

I am not at all denying that centralized IDs are bad for everyone, but for Americans it is going to be pretty bad.

Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies

#409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This only gives more power to government to harass people whom they don't like and who are poor minorities. > having a central ID for each citizen at birth, and then a way to prove that you match that ID This seems a trivial and no-brainer and yet you will be surprised how many Americans will be simply denied this sort of service after birth. Racist law makers would put severe restrictions on people they dont like. I…

Is there any issue with minorities receiving birth certificates now?

I do not know about 2021.

But few years ago this was definitely a problem and especially in border towns of Texas and Arizona.

But not just about brith certificates. You can look at legal immigrants. A lot of them are forced out of job because USCIS is taking their own sweet time of 24 months to approve their work permits. This means these legal immigrants have to quit their jobs, they can't drive as their driving license is expired and so on.

This is sheer caprice enabled by a hostile administration.

I am not against Americans having tighter immigration. Pass whatever tough laws you want and enforce them to hearts content. But when you have an admin that can be hostile to specific groups you have to be really suspicious of all government powers.

Re: Switzerland votes against electronic ID system provided by private companies

#410
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could probably check out RV and van life forums. One question would be the degree to which you can get away with giving the state (for drivers license/ID/tax purposes), company, etc. a "fake" address that is not a residential address. A lot depends on what you think you're guarding against and how many compromises you're willing to make. For example, you can't actually buy a house and remain anonymous unless you…

> you can't actually buy a house and remain anonymous unless you set up some shell company which I assume is expensive It is not. Under $100/year in most states. > and probably has tax consequences. It doesn't. The LLC has no income (assuming you're not renting that "decoy house"), so there's nothing to report to the IRS. > doesn't even really solve the problem of having to give your address to someone if you want an…

Is there anyone solving this problem for a fee?

Also, what do people usually do if they don't have a residential address? (specifically for example people who live in RVs or off-grid but maintain a modern lifestyle with driver licenses and credit cards and all)

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