[mindslight]

> There's absolutely no straw man. Among other reasons, things like this are exactly why there is opposition in some segments.

Sure, technically there is a sliver of actual people out there worried about "mark of the devil". I'd still say it's a straw man to use that to characterize general opposition.

> You've literally argued "You're making a strawman by describing what I think!"

Uh, not at all. I accept that the government wants to be able to identify citizens. I'm not calling this government overreach. What I have a problem with is the ongoing failure to pass any corresponding laws that prohibit companies from abusing these identification systems to build limitless privately-owned completely-unaccountable surveillance databases. These abuses need to be stopped first, rather than brushing off the problems we're already suffering and giving even more to the surveillance industry.

As I said, pass a US GDPR that gives me the right to opt out of most of the surveillance industry, lets me drastically curtail and audit the parts I don't completely opt out of, and make sure any new types of identity attestation are still refutable in the legal system, and I am generally on board with stronger identification through something like a smart card.