Good exercise in logic

I do not like the concept of photo id, but that’s basically from a libertarian perspective. I do not need to prove to anybody who I am, believing in freedom of self. As soon as somebody has the power to ask for my identity, my identify is compromised. At the same time, I do believe some element of self identification is required, if nothing else but for making sure assets, property, etc. etc. can be suitably linked to individuals. So for example, some form of identification will always be required.

That said, this was a great little argument.

In March, the Justice Department denied the Lone Star State the necessary clearance for this new law, arguing that it would disproportionately affect Hispanic voters. Texas officials appealed.  To preserve the access of all citizens to the right to vote . . . the District Court should follow the Justice Department’s lead and strike down this highly suspect and unnecessary law.

What is interesting here is the role disproportionality plays in these leftist attempts at argument.  Let's see if we can uncover the 'logic' of these arguments.

Suppose people of Italian  extraction are disproportionately affected by anti-racketeering statutes.  Would this be a good reason to oppose such laws? Obviously not.  Why not? The reason is that the law targets the criminal behavior, not the ethnicity of the criminal. If it just so happens that people of Italian extraction are 'overrepresented' in the memberships of organized crime syndicates, then of course they will be 'disproportionately affected' by anti-racketeering laws.  So what?

Conditions of nationality

This bewildered me. I quote:

They need to have iqamas (residence permits) and obtain exit-reentry visas every time they want to leave the country.

Under the citizenship rules and regulations, children born to Saudi women with foreign husbands are not automatically entitled to Saudi passports at birth.

Boys can, however, apply to obtain the nationality when they are 18, while girls can only get it if they marry Saudi men.

The boys should be born in the Kingdom and lived here until they are 16 years of age. Saudi men married to foreign women do not face such a problem. Their children are automatically entitled to citizenship at birth.

Children born to Saudi women and foreign fathers need sponsorship.

Al-Sharif said many Saudi mothers register their sons and daughters under their sponsorship as drivers and housemaids regardless of their education in order to save them from deportation.

“These particular job titles will prevent their sons and daughters from getting proper jobs and prevent the mother from recruiting a driver or a housemaid from outside,” he added.

“These children feel humiliated in their motherland, the very place they were born in.”

Al-Sharif said that if the mother was able to register her children as companions to her, they would not be granted work permits regardless of their financial needs.

Al-Sharif said the husband would not have declared in his iqama that he is married to a Saudi, while the wife will not have made the same declaration in her civil records. “They have to have their marriage contract with them always to prove that they are husband and wife,” he said.

He also noted that daughters from such marriages are given cards when they are 18 years old stating that they should be treated like Saudi citizens, but added this would not allow them to work.

He also noted that foreign husbands would not be given any preferential treatment when they apply for Saudi nationality, no matter how long he remains married.

Al-Sharif said Saudi men who marry foreign women without permission from the authorities concerned have a different kind of problem. “They find great difficulties in documenting their marriage contracts or getting their wives and children into the Kingdom,” he said.

Al-Sahrif said children born to Saudi mothers and foreign fathers also have problems in obtaining free medical treatment in government hospitals.

He said the society has come across cases in which children from such marriages were not allowed to obtain their mothers’ pensions or social security assistance.

He claimed that children born to Saudi women and Palestinian men are not even allowed to apply for Saudi citizenship.

Simply bewildering why this kind of gender based discrimination would occur at this day and age. At one point, the UK also treated women differently from men but thankfully this has been resolved now. For example, if a British woman married a foreign man, her British citizenship would be lost but not so if you were a British Man marrying a foreign woman. There are still gender based differences, see here for example.

Finextra: UK banks tap passport validation service

This is an interesting example of financial institutions coming together with government security operations to reduce the incidences of money laundering and corruption arising from fake identities. Obviously, it will be impossible to stop all fraudsters but more checks we have, the bigger the chances of catching these chaps out. This is also an example of what I was referring before to about financial institutions working closely with the government.



UK financial services firms are saving hundreds of thousands of pounds a year by using a passport validation service to screen and security check their customers, according to a Financial Times report.
Reports first surfaced in 2005 that the UK's passport office was working with Abbey and HSBC to set up a service that willl enable banks to cross-reference passport details with information held in the passport database. Although the Data Protection Act prevents the passport service handing out data, banks are now able to use a call centre to check passport details provided by customers.
James Hall, the chief executive of the Identity and Passport Service, told the FT that the service has now been running for one year and has been a success. Firms regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) are able check and validate passports provided by customers by calling a special hotline.
In one case, a check on a customer applying for a business loan from a bank showed the passport had been forged, even though the customer had passed other checks, says Hall.
Several arrests have been made and 211 forged or stolen passports have been seized, he adds.
The service is a precursor to the sort of customer checks that the national ID cards will be eventually be used for, says the FT.