The Pete Townshend (WHO ARE YOU) Bill

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

WHEREAS in days of old when knights were bold, the application process for citizenship of Talossa included the requirement of identification materials, so as Talossa could know who we were admitting, and the sponsor of this bill remembers photocopying her birth certificate since she had no photo ID at that stage of her life;

AND WHEREAS this continued until the end of the Talossan Republic, but was at some stage abolished within the Kingdom;

AND WHEREAS this enabled a certain prankster to commit massive immigration/electoral fraud, as we all remember;

AND WHEREAS the Immigration laws (Section E of El Lexhátx) clearly envisage that all applicants for Talossan citizenship should give their real identification details, as reinforced by El Lexhátx A.16.1;

AND WHEREAS there is absolutely no way for the Immigration authorities, at the moment, to know whether any prospective citizen is telling the truth about what their name is, unless they find out by accident;

AND WHEREAS no-one is suggesting that people should use their "street names" in easily Google-searchable Talossan forums, but that the Kingdom should have confidence that everyone here is a real person with a first name, hind name and address (to quote Ezra Pound), even if this is not publicly disclosed;

BE IT ENACTED by the King, Cosâ and Senäts of Talossa in Ziu assembled that El Lexhátx E.2 shall be amended by addition of the following portions in bold:

The Minister of Interior shall ascertain to his own satisfaction, through correspondence or conversation, that the prospective immigrant is a real human being with genuine interest in becoming a citizen of the Kingdom of Talossa. The Minister shall be free to inquire of the applicant on any and every subject, and shall be required to collect the legal name or name used in daily life, postal address (optional if the applicant is under 18 years of age, except for information needed to assign the applicant to a province), telephone number, and e-mail address(es) of the candidate, which information the Minister shall communicate to the Secretary of State. The applicant shall affirm or swear, under penalty of perjury and under the provisions of Lexhatx A.16.1, that this information is accurate, and shall provide documentary evidence of the same if the Minister thinks it appropriate. Additionally, the Interior Minister shall be required to collect an essay, written by the applicant, entitled "Why I am Interested in Becoming a Talossan."

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

For your information, El Lexhatx A.16.1:

16. Except as provided in A.17, whoever does any of the following is guilty of a crime subject to punishment by banishment, revocation of citizenship, any combination of civil disabilities and any other authorized punishments: (36RZ10)

16.1. Makes any fraudulent or dishonest claims or statements on his or her application for citizenship, including his or her claims or statements to the Cort, the Interior Minister and any deputies of the minister or to Cosâ members. (47RZ8)

[Eðo Grischun]

Sept 30, 2019 23:58:20 GMT -6 Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN said:

AND WHEREAS this enabled a certain prankster to commit massive immigration/electoral fraud, as we all remember;

He was also caught, and his being found out had nothing to do with ID papers. Just saying.

[Ián Tamorán S.H.]

Despite there having been a (past, and paid-for) fraud in the past, my personal opinion is that this proposal goes too far. I, for example, would refuse to send any of my official identification information to Talossa prior to becoming a citizen. No nation, no collection of human beings, can avoid all problems - problems are caused by people, all the time - but can seek to *discover* any crimes committed, and then seek to redress such crimes.

If we cannot start from an initial stance of trust, then we shall start to live in more and more fear. Photocopy of your passport? National ID number from your other state? Medical records showing your identity? Blood tests verifying your genetic suitability? Sworn statements from your grandparents declaring that you are an upright citizen of such-and-such another state?

No! Let the word of the applicant be accepted on trust, with minimal verification. Yes, there can be fraud - but fraud (especially if later unmasked) is infinitely better than distrust and fear.

Remember the Greek Gods who gave you what you asked for - not what you thought you wanted, but what you asked for.

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

Oct 7, 2019 16:03:00 GMT -6 Ián Tamorán S.H. said:

No! Let the word of the applicant be accepted on trust, with minimal verification.

How minimal?

There is precisely nothing to stop someone giving a false name at immigration as it stands. You can make an argument that that's not a problem, but I disagree.

[Dame Litz Cjantscheir, UrN]

I would be inclined to agree with Ián Tamorán S.H. here. I wouldn't be too comfortable sending copies of any of my official IDs to strangers across the internet. Common sense and today's world where identity theft/fraud is sadly a reality would tell me not to.

Secondly, I would have concerns about how this information was stored. The bill is silent on how my IDs are to be treated when it has been received by the Interior Minister. Will they be retained on file? Will it sit in someone's unencrypted inbox? Will it be deleted? How safe is it? I am a believer that when data is requested by the Government/Organisations - they must be open about their reasons for obtaining personal data and what they plan to use it for. They should only use the personal data for the purpose they originally said it would be used for & if it is out of date, fulfilled its stated use or no longer necessary, it must be properly destroyed or deleted.

I would be more inclined to support the idea of the Interior Minister confirming the ID of prospective citizens by other means, such as making Skype/Facetime/Whatsapp (video) call etc...

My two bence,

[Ian Plätschisch]

Oct 7, 2019 18:26:49 GMT -6 Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN said:

Oct 7, 2019 16:03:00 GMT -6 Ián Tamorán S.H. said:

No! Let the word of the applicant be accepted on trust, with minimal verification.

How minimal?

There is precisely nothing to stop someone giving a false name at immigration as it stands. You can make an argument that that's not a problem, but I disagree.

It's not great for someone to do that, but I think any cure would be worse than the disease.

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

I cannot accept any argument that a law saying "show us some ID and affirm/swear that it's real" is some kind of intolerable, fascistic burden.

I agree with Litz's points about the need for data privacy (what are our current laws on that?) but I don't see how a live Skype chat with someone can confirm that they are who they say they are. It can prevent "fake citizens" of the ESB type (unless the fraudster is a master of disguise), but the fact remains that our Kingdom has currently no way to ensure that people are giving their real details at immigration. Why do we even ask for identifying details if we can't verify, or don't care, whether they're fraudulent? Why do we have a law (Lexhatx A.16.1) which makes it a crime punishable by banishment to tell lies on our census applications if we consider it a violation of privacy to actually, you know, make sure people are telling the truth? How will we ever know if someone is violating A.16.1 - except by accident?

The current bill, if you read it, doesn't set any requirements for documentation, just that there be some documentation. However, thought experiment: what if I removed the documentation altogether, and just required prospectives to affirm/swear on penalty of perjury and Lexhtatx A.16.1 that they're telling the truth?

[Gödafrïeu Válcadác’h]

I have no issue whatsoever with requiring legal ID. What could be done, however, is to allow one to send their driver-license or passport with the relevant numbers blotted out on the image. Said forms of ID in most or all countries require photos, and if the individual is already on social media, that could suffice as a means of identification along with Skype chats.

One thing must be done, however. Everyone who keeps sensitive data must have their photos on a Talossan government page as well as their Talossan-language (and possibly their original-language names?) names clearly posted on an official Talossan page in order to say 'We are transparent. This is who has your data.'. Ben Madison was completely transparent with all of this.

The sock-puppeteer would never have been able to get away for so long with his theatrics had there been more stringent ID requirements.

The pre-Split Kingdom had very stringent ID requirements for years, and while it didn't always keep jerks at bay, I suspect it turned off a few souls who might have decided to do Talossa for sheets and giggles as well as to trash the place.

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

Have re-edited to make the "documents" only necessary at the Minister's discretion. Still intend to Clark this.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

It does seem like borrowing trouble to assemble a list of the legal name, birth date, address, and IP address and join it together with a thread of personal questions about that person that everyone feels free to ask and the person feels obligated to answer, but particularly so if it's combined with any form of legal ID and a willingness to give access to this information to basically any citizen who's willing to do some paperwork.

On the other hand, I would really like to retire. So if this passes I may ask if I can have Etho's job.

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

But seriously, this bill makes two EXTREMELY MINOR CHANGES to current law:

a) it requires the prospective to swear or affirm that they are telling the truth about their info that identifies them as a real human being.
b) it gives immigration authorities the option at their discretion to act for documentary evidence thereof.

I've changed the name of the bill to emphasise that "papers" would not be compulsory.

[Magniloqueu Épiqeu da Lhiun]

Question: Why require an oath as to their statements' veracity? Lying on your immigration papers is already punishable under Lexhatx, whether you do it under oath or not. And I do not actually think that including an oath to affirm the veracity on your immigration application requires a LAW.

Question 2: Why make this bill if papers are not compulsory? Under what guidelines will future Ministers decide whether to require papers or not? At whim? When suspecting something? What will they be suspecting? What about malicious intent on part of a future Minister?

And thirdly, I would certainly vote for the destruction of any kind of documentation that we received. Maybe this could actually be done via Skype, where they just flash their ID with their name or something, and the rest is just a friendly conversation. I think we should actually do that with or without requirement of ID, because I think it would make the immigration process more personal and thus more exciting.

[Eðo Grischun]

Dec 6, 2019 6:16:49 GMT -6 Magniloqueu Épiqeu da Lhiun said:

... Maybe this could actually be done via Skype, where they just flash their ID with their name or something, and the rest is just a friendly conversation. I think we should actually do that with or without requirement of ID, because I think it would make the immigration process more personal and thus more exciting.

I've thought about "application interviews" in the past. I kinda like the idea, but I do have a concern in that if we make them compulsory then some applicants will fail to make it through the process, who without such a requirement would ordinarily sail through immigration . Two main reasons; first, technical issues. For example, personally, I don't have Skype nor a webcam. I just don't have the ability to do video with my desktop computer. I could probably do something with my phone, but it would probably involve downloading something and signing up for something that I otherwise wouldn't have a need for. Putting myself in the shoes of an applicant, would I bother jumping through such hoops to join? Probably not. Second reason, perhaps part of the appeal of Talossa is it's online thing for certain people. Social awkwardness, phone phobias, on the spectrum. People with such problems might be frightened off by a mandatory video interview.

[Eðo Grischun]

Dec 6, 2019 6:16:49 GMT -6 Magniloqueu Épiqeu da Lhiun said:

What about malicious intent on part of a future Minister?

What kind of malicious intent do you foresee here?