God, Golem, UID: Singularity As An Object In The Mirror
By Binu Karunakaran
30 April, 2010, Countercurrents.org
"In societies of control the individual is doubled as code, as information, or as simulation such that the reference of the panoptic gaze is no longer the body but its [digital] double, and indeed this is no longer a matter of looking but rather one of data analysis." B. Simon
Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram was right when he said the gravest threat to Indian democracy comes from within. There's a slight change though - the threat does not stem from the Maoists who are waging a war to ususrp state power by the year 2060. It comes from a super-panopticon project that aims to create a 12 digit UID/Aadhar number for the 1.2 billion citizens of India.
The UID/Aadhar, in reality a tracking, profiling and surveillance project fast-tracked post 26/11 attacks on Mumbai is being sold to us as an ICT panacea - a one-click fix for all the ills of a modern welfare state.
For Nandan Nilekani, the czar of India's silicon valley, who paratrooped straight from a corporate boardroom to the helm of the UIDAI and the UPA's neoliberal mandarins the UID project is nothing but the translation of the world into a problem in coding. The society re-interpreted as a cybernetic system with informational flows as control loops. A society subject to social and political control where privacy and dissent will remain - to borrow a phrase from Rondald Rumsfled - known unknowns.
It is to hide this real and devious intent that the UIDAI sings a lullaby of welfare and shows us its silicon (forgive the pun) mammaries. Who wouldn't love a technology that will plug the leaks in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) and optimise the PDS delivery of food grains to the country's poorest of poor. All by de-duplication of identities of the 'fraudulent' Indian citizens, a good 37.2 per cent of population according to the Planning Commission falls under the Below Poverty Line (BPL).
Democracy can now cut the long story of its upstaging short. Why wait till 2060 for the gun-toting Maoists if you can cut five decades of crap with the UID that will roll out in early 2011? A bloodless coup in the digital realm.
The birth of UID also mean that the singularity so far discussed in the realm of science fiction is already here. Not the technological singularity of domination by a super-human intelligence, but a panopticon singularity described by Charles Stross, that arises from a situation in which the human behaviour is deterministically governed by processes outside their control. With the advent of the UID, citizens will cease to be individuals and their relation with the state will be drastically altered forever. From individuals with power over our destinies we will turn into dividuals in perpetual cybernetic slave mode. Our'databased selves' acting as our body doubles conditioning our behaviour in realtime and transforming our physical selves into zombies.
The metaphors of Orwellian Big Brother and Bentham's prison architecture pales in comparison. If in the Foucaultian vision of prison the object of surveillance was the physical body, in the panoptics of UID, the object of control is the digital representation of the body. It is no longer necessary to create a real cyborg - all you need is a virtual cybernetic double that can hold your biometric and other ID info and authenticate the Real You in all virtual and physical transactions.
UID should be opposed because it's an assault on our privacies which form the basis of freespeech, autonomy and personal dignity. Privacy is a solemn zone and a powerful right by which we form opinions and express them fearlessly. We concede in private, what cannot be said in a public sphere - often political opinions and radical thoughts germinate within the four walls of a room. Journalists know the volatile power of information that is shared in private conversations with bureaucrats and politicians and of the solitary acts of whistle blowers - all which help democracy to flourish.
The UID seen in the context of its linkages with the National Population Register and the NATGRID that involves sharing of information by 11 agencies which run over 20 different databases, ranging from IT returns to bank accounts, and telephone records to internet search histories is sure to undermine democracy by infringing on our privacy in a way not visualised before. When the row over illegal phonetapping by NTRO surfaced recently the opposition was indignant. If a foxy Rs.7 crore sophisticated snooping instrument can unnerve them what about the consequences of the UID whose potential for datamining and human rights infringement cross every imaginable threshold?
In his essay Future Map US born theorist Brian Holmes quotes from scientist Norbert Wiener's seminal workGod & Golem, Inc.: “Can God play a significant game with his own creature? Can any creator, even a limited one, play a significant game with his own creature?” The question we need to ask Nandan Nilekani and the UPA government is the same.
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By Citizens Against UID
Government of India's Unique Identification number (UID) which is one of the greatest threat to Indian democracy. Please endorse the statement by clicking here
Why this Blog ? News articles in the Wide World of Web, quite often disappear with time, when they are relocated as archives with a different url. Archives in this blog serve as a library for those who are interested in doing Research on Aadhaar Related Topics. Articles are published with details of original publication date and the url.
In 2009, I became extremely concerned with the concept of Unique Identity for various reasons. Connected with many like minded highly educated people who were all concerned.
On 18th May 2010, I started this Blog to capture anything and everything I came across on the topic. This blog with its million hits is a testament to my concerns about loss of privacy and fear of the ID being misused and possible Criminal activities it could lead to.
In 2017 the Supreme Court of India gave its verdict after one of the longest hearings on any issue. I did my bit and appealed to the Supreme Court Judges too through an On Line Petition.
In 2019 the Aadhaar Legislation has been revised and passed by the two houses of the Parliament of India making it Legal. I am no Legal Eagle so my Opinion carries no weight except with people opposed to the very concept.
In 2019, this Blog now just captures on a Daily Basis list of Articles Published on anything to do with Aadhaar as obtained from Daily Google Searches and nothing more. Cannot burn the midnight candle any longer.
"In Matters of Conscience, the Law of Majority has no place"- Mahatma Gandhi
Ram Krishnaswamy
Sydney, Australia.
Aadhaar
The UIDAI has taken two successive governments in India and the entire world for a ride. It identifies nothing. It is not unique. The entire UID data has never been verified and audited. The UID cannot be used for governance, financial databases or anything. It’s use is the biggest threat to national security since independence. – Anupam Saraph 2018
When I opposed Aadhaar in 2010 , I was called a BJP stooge. In 2016 I am still opposing Aadhaar for the same reasons and I am told I am a Congress die hard. No one wants to see why I oppose Aadhaar as it is too difficult. Plus Aadhaar is FREE so why not get one ? Ram Krishnaswamy
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.-Mahatma Gandhi
In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.Mahatma Gandhi
“The invasion of privacy is of no consequence because privacy is not a fundamental right and has no meaning under Article 21. The right to privacy is not a guaranteed under the constitution, because privacy is not a fundamental right.” Article 21 of the Indian constitution refers to the right to life and liberty -Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi
“There is merit in the complaints. You are unwittingly allowing snooping, harassment and commercial exploitation. The information about an individual obtained by the UIDAI while issuing an Aadhaar card shall not be used for any other purpose, save as above, except as may be directed by a court for the purpose of criminal investigation.”-A three judge bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar said in an interim order.
Legal scholar Usha Ramanathan describes UID as an inverse of sunshine laws like the Right to Information. While the RTI makes the state transparent to the citizen, the UID does the inverse: it makes the citizen transparent to the state, she says.
Good idea gone bad
I have written earlier that UID/Aadhaar was a poorly designed, unreliable and expensive solution to the really good idea of providing national identification for over a billion Indians. My petition contends that UID in its current form violates the right to privacy of a citizen, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. This is because sensitive biometric and demographic information of citizens are with enrolment agencies, registrars and sub-registrars who have no legal liability for any misuse of this data. This petition has opened up the larger discussion on privacy rights for Indians. The current Article 21 interpretation by the Supreme Court was done decades ago, before the advent of internet and today’s technology and all the new privacy challenges that have arisen as a consequence.
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP Rajya Sabha
“What is Aadhaar? There is enormous confusion. That Aadhaar will identify people who are entitled for subsidy. No. Aadhaar doesn’t determine who is eligible and who isn’t,” Jairam Ramesh
But Aadhaar has been mythologised during the previous government by its creators into some technology super force that will transform governance in a miraculous manner. I even read an article recently that compared Aadhaar to some revolution and quoted a 1930s historian, Will Durant.Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Rajya Sabha MP
“I know you will say that it is not mandatory. But, it is compulsorily mandatorily voluntary,” Jairam Ramesh, Rajya Saba April 2017.
August 24, 2017: The nine-judge Constitution Bench rules that right to privacy is “intrinsic to life and liberty”and is inherently protected under the various fundamental freedoms enshrined under Part III of the Indian Constitution
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the World; indeed it's the only thing that ever has"
“Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” -Edward Snowden
In the Supreme Court, Meenakshi Arora, one of the senior counsel in the case, compared it to living under a general, perpetual, nation-wide criminal warrant.
Had never thought of it that way, but living in the Aadhaar universe is like living in a prison. All of us are treated like criminals with barely any rights or recourse and gatekeepers have absolute power on you and your life.
Announcing the launch of the # BreakAadhaarChainscampaign, culminating with events in multiple cities on 12th Jan. This is the last opportunity to make your voice heard before the Supreme Court hearings start on 17th Jan 2018. In collaboration with @no2uidand@rozi_roti.
UIDAI's security seems to be founded on four time tested pillars of security idiocy
1) Denial
2) Issue fiats and point finger
3) Shoot messenger
4) Bury head in sand.
God Save India
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
143 - God, Golem, UID: Singularity As An Object In The Mirror By Binu Karunakaran
CLICK ON TITLE TO SEE ORIGINAL ARTICLE - Posted by
R.K
