[Reader-list] What after MNIC? The MIND, the final frontier.

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta]

Dear All, Dear Taha, Dear Kshmendra,

While I have enjoyed reading the thread on identity cards greatly, I  
find some of the more recent exchanges counter-productive. They have  
now brought us down to the level of attempts at reading the minds of  
the leading correspondents of the exchange. I doubt if any technology  
exists, or can ever exist that can help us read the intention of  
others with complete lucidity and transparency, let alone the minds  
of those who read and write on this, list,  and were that to happen,  
I at least would consider it to be a terrible tragedy. The loss of  
enigma is not something to be celebrated, at least, not in my book.

So, please let us refrain from hurling invectives about who has lied  
and who has been reasonable and unreasonable, and let us get back to  
discussing the matter at hand. This is a sincere request, coming from  
one list member to all others.

  I fail to understand what reason there is to take needlessly  
antagonistic positions on this matter. A mailing list, because it  
stands at a remove from a physical, face to face interaction,  
sometimes becomes a den of suspicion, where we begin reading clues  
about each others negative responses in the silences and spaces  
between words, phrases and postings, even when they may not actually  
exist.

As a fellow reader of this list, I would request everyone concerned  
to please refrain from name calling and letting this important debate  
degenerate into abuse and counter abuse

Now, coming back to the matter at hand. My two penny worth in the  
debate is as follows. I think that generally, any discourse that  
comes attired in the costume of expertise needs to be thoroughly  
examined and questioned before its truth value can be established,  
The problem with surveillance and identification technologies is that  
they spring from the recesses of the security-technology induestry,  
and come attired in a lot of performative self proclaimed expertise.

There was a by now famous case of a murder trial in western india,  
where a judge was so impressed with the buzz of cognitive forensics  
in the form of neural imagery of a suspects silent responses to a  
series of leading questions that he awarded a guilty verdict while  
overruling the normal rules of evidence. This goes to show how  
willing we are to abdicate the restraints that we normally operate  
with when it comes to something that comes wearing a lab coat and  
speaking the jargon of science. Perhaps this is the disturbing  
consensus that Taha has hinted at.

I think that the whole MNIC and surveillance technology issue as it  
is playing out in India is an instance of the abdication of the  
normal processes of doubt. I fee that that a dangerous emerging  
consensus (that cuts across party and ideological lines) demands a  
bloated infrastructure of suspicion and the performance of a  
misplaced certainty. This list is perhaps one of the rare platforms  
where a sustained level of questioning and scepticism about these  
issues has been maintained by some list members. I would especially  
point to Taha's posting titled -
"Survey of the spectrum of arguments regarding MNIC as they exist in  
the public domain followed by questions.(1998-2004)" dated January 3,  
2009 as a starting point for a detailed discussion on these issues  
because it summarizes the arguments made in favour of identity cards  
and then asks a series of pointed questions about each of these  
questions. I have read the thread carefully and I have not found any  
place where Taha makes a claim that MNIC cards can weed out  
terrorism. On the contrary, he reports that such claims have been  
made, and then goes on to question the basis on which such claims can  
be made. The questions he has raised, in my opinion, deserve our  
careful attention.

I am curious to know what others think about the questions that have  
been raised about the issues pertaining to the MNIC and about claims  
made for pre-cognitive neural imagery.

regards

Shuddha