[Reader-list] Is Kasab a Pakistani?

[Taha Mehmood]

Dear Javed,

Thank you for responding to my mail.

You state that:Pakistan has an amazingly developed system of recording data
and issuing ID cards for every citizen.

And then you add that that if some people are not added then it is bound to
happen given the scale of population. I think it is true but for the sake of
argument what if, we think about a situation where there is complete or near
total saturation of individual identification processes. By that I mean that
we are at a stage wherein we have mapped all the possible subjects and their
identities and we have created a database.

Then what are the possible situations we can encounter-

Consider this comment by the incumbent Prime Minister of Britain, Gordon
Brown-
"I profoundly regret and apologise for the inconvenience caused,"

He gave this comment in the House of Commons on 21st November 2007. The
Occasion being, theft of data containing personal information of 25 Million
people.

You may read the full story at this below-
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/nov/21/economy.uk

or for that matter if we hop across Atlantic we have a situation which is
not that different. Consider this report by the Federal Trade Commission of
the United States Government.

FTC Releases Survey of Identity Theft in U.S. 27.3 Million Victims in Past 5
Years, Billions in Losses for Businesses and Consumers.
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2003/09/idtheft.shtm

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Having said that I think on the level of polemic we can debate this issue
from various perspectives, the most obvious being that we should have a
national identity card. There many people in India who are of firm belief
that it is high time that India should have a national identity card. I have
no issues with what one believe in. I think every one of us must have a
right to what we believe in. However I would certainly like to subject any
believe to some form of questioning were it to refer to a policy because as
an Indian it involves me too.

So, were we to go for a national identity card like Pakistan and convert
personal information into digital databases then I would be interested in
the whys and why nots of the process. Wouldn't you?

Warm regards

Taha

On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 2:45 PM, Javed <javedmasoo at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Taha
> Thanks for clarifying in detail about why you sent the message about
> Pakistan's ID system NADRA. Before someone else answers your message
> and isolates your sentence "my heart goes out to Kasab..." and says:
> "see these bloody Muslims, their heart really goes out to Kasab the
> terrorist", let me say a couple of sentences about Pakistan's ID
> system.
>
> Someone might respond to your message saying that "what is this
> missing of the name in a database you are talking about. Man, it is
> Pakistan... the rouge state... does the missing of one name matter in
> that state? We in India have millions whose names are missing - how
> can you even imagine that Pakistan will have a system by which all
> citizens are counted and data-based?"
>
> Yes this is what I am talking about (since you are interested in ID
> systems): Pakistan has an amazingly developed system of recording data
> and issuing ID cards for every citizen. While in India, we are
> requiring to show our photo IDs for some essential services only now.
> In Pakistan, one needs to show their ID for every little job. If you
> go to a post office to send a speedpost, they need to see your ID.
> They need to see it while purchasing bus and train tickets. And all
> this not recently, but since at least 10-15 years. I noticed (in a
> trip) that an average Pakistani carries a number of xeroxes of his/her
> photo IDs in the pocket as it may be required anywhere.
>
> Same goes with the passports. Pakistani passports have bio-metric
> information and several other types of coding to identify and keep
> track of the person. I think all this is due to the constant pressure
> from the world to contain the terror thing. And I would be surprized
> if Kasab's name is not there in the database. But certainly, how does
> one trust what the authorities or the Pakistani media say about this.
> It is certainly possible to beat the system, even by those who manage
> the system. See the link below for the official version:
>
>
> http://www.nadra.gov.pk/DesktopModules/top/topmore.aspx?tabID=0&ItemID=57&bID=0&Mid=3026
>
> Javed
>
>
>