a passport is orwellian? i don't really get this fear of government issued IDs. if your government is so bad that it will abuse IDs for surveillance, then your government is the problem, and not having a national ID is not going to protect you.

Someone explained this to me the other day in a way that helped me understand the concern better.

Not already having a ton of easy and effective choke points on the whole citizenry (which such a card would eventually grow into due to its usefulness) is a safeguard against wannabe tyrants being confident they can crush dissent easily and thus to them seizing power in the first place. Just like I wouldn’t steal a car with a manual transmission because I know I wouldn’t be able to drive it successfully, and certainly not well enough to outrun the consequences.

If I were a fascist I’d be a lot more brazen if I knew that I could switch off every dissenter’s ability to travel, work, or even buy food, in an instant.