|
The NCIDP idlaw Subdirectory All Rights Reserved (See "Content Reservations and Permissions" page) ~ The National Council on Identity Policy:
More About the NCIDP & This Site: Identity Information Care & Control: A Brief History of Identity & Documents: Pertinent Fundamentals of Law:
Identity & Law - The Facts May Surprise You:
CASE STUDIES from Firewire News:
|
The National Council on Identity Policy Basic Identity Terms & Meanings The National Council on Identity Policy (NCIDP) was born of the struggles of one tenacious survivor of domestic violence and stalking. The NCIDP continues her work with the help of many. Read more about the NCIDP... ~ IDENTITY - One's contemporaneous sense of self in relation to each and any context. IDENTITY INFORMATION - All of the information used or that might be used to indicate or describe oneself and one's own state and fact of being to any other person, or to the rest of society, by any person, whether quantifiable or not, whether noted or used in any manner by oneself or not. (Examples: name, age, sex, ethnicity, biometry, religion). TRUE IDENTITY or REAL IDENTITY - The same as "Identity" especially as specifically self-identified by oneself; the same as "Identity" but particularly removed from sociological, legal or any other externally-derived ideologies and/or inferences such that it most accurately represents one's own self-image. For example: in societies with governmental rules of law derived from totalitarianist principles, "Legal Identity" is quite often apart from, and largely or completely unrelated to, the actual "Identity" and "True Identity" of individuals; "True Identity" or "Real Identity" are defined entirely by the individual, regardless of those kinds of oppressive influences, or any other external influence. Also sometimes used as shorthand for "Truest Identity", especially in any context soliciting "True" or "Real" identity or involving any other third party. LEGAL IDENTITY - "Identity" as recognized by the prevailing Rule of Law. In the United States, as well as at English Common Law applicable in many parts of the world, the Rule of Law requires recognition of self-determined "Identity" as one's "Legal Identity". TRUEST IDENTITY - Used in legal contexts or any context involving a third party, often shortened to "True Identity" or "Real Identity", whatever "Legal Identity" of an individual is described or used by that individual most often and most broadly; can generally be construed to exclude any "Pen Name", "Nom de Guerre" or other "Legal Identity" of narrow and specific contexts. ALIAS (or "Also Known As", or "A.K.A.", or "False [Legal] Identity") - An "Identity" specifically and purposefully taken and used for the specific intended purpose of using it to commit fraud, thereby rendering the new identity an "Alias" or "False Identity" under the law (in the United States and most jurisdictions). A person who assumes a new identity loses the privacy protections granted by law to the immediately preceding "Former Identity" information if convicted in a court of law of assuming that new identity specifically with the intended purpose of using it to commit fraud. "Alias" (or other terms above) MUST NOT be confused with "Former Identity" or "Legal Identity" or any other aspect of "Identity". "Alias" ("A.K.A.", etc.) is a very precise, very limited legal term that has no validity or applicability to issues of "Identity" outside courtroom convictions for creating a newly adopted identity for the intended purpose of committing fraud. Misrepresentations of a properly adopted "Legal Identity", or of any "Former Identity" as an "Alias" IS the accusation of previous conviction of adopting a new identity for the intended purpose of committing fraud AND constitutes numerous felony crimes in most circumstances (so, really, just don't do it!). "Alias" is also entirely different from "Pseudonym", below. PSEUDONYM, ANONYM, NOM de GUERRE, NOM de PLUME ( or "Pen Name", "Stage Name") - An assumed "Legal Identity" that is not a "True Identity" in any broader context, and that is assumed for a specific purpose, venue or activity without intent of adopting it more broadly, and without the intended purpose of using it to commit fraud; almost universally for privacy purposes such as in literary, performance or political venues. A legal, legitimate activity done most often for privacy purposes, but also sometimes for marketability purposes (such as publishing books or engaging in very public professions, such as acting or politics). FORMER IDENTITY - Any or every part of "Identity" that may or may not have previously been used by oneself but which no longer describes or represents oneself and has ceased to exist in current reality. This includes childhood or birth identity information. One noted case that clearly demonstrated the legal IRRELEVANCE of "Former Identity" is Christianson v. King County (1915). In that case, the Supreme Court held that "Former Identity" information was immaterial to legal proceedings, affirming that an "Identity" chosen at will later in life by common law usage held the same legal weight "as if a legal identity from birth", asserting "the right to be known by such chosen identity" and firmly relegating "Former Identity" information to the private sphere of the individual. MOREOVER, any third party with an interest in an individual that failed to recognize a newly chosen identity of that individual gave up their rights to their interests in that individual by doing so. The total absence of "Former Identity" information in a legal proceeding bore no relevance to the validity of the proceeding even though it prevented third parties aware only of "Former Identity" information from recognizing the proceeding as potentially pertinent to them. More still, the decision made clear that no use of former identity in governmental or legal or public matters could be compelled by any third party. That is, no manner of post hoc risk to third parties justified infringing, even slightly or after death, upon individuals' rights in their own "Identity" - the fundamental essence of "freedom". According to the findings of the Supreme Court, "both the common law and the literal understandings of privacy encompass the individual's control of information concerning his or her person." (Department of Justice v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (1989)). They went on to state, also in this same case, "the fact that 'an event is not wholly 'private' does not mean that an individual has no interests in limiting disclosure or dissemination of the information.' Rehnquist, Is an Expanded Right of Privacy Consistent with Fair and Effective Law Enforcement?, Nelson Timothy Stephens Lectures, University of Kansas Law School, pt. 1, p. 13 (Sept. 26-27, [489 U.S. 749, 771] 1974)." The Supreme Court made clear in that case that even if information about an individual is made public contemporaneously, the individual still has a right to privacy in that information subsequently. Note that changing one's "Identity" for the purpose of committing fraud is inconsistent with the definition of "True Identity", and even the very definition of "Identity", as it is derived from extrinsic motivations to facilitate fraud and create an artifice of false identity rather than to most accurately represent one's own self-image to the world. The right to self-determine "Identity" also does not legally extend to such purpose, under Common Law standards, and therefore could grant room for valid abrogation of that change by the government or others (see "Alias", above) upon conviction for such fraudulent intent. In societies that value and respect individual liberties and freedoms, as well as under the rule of English Common Law (and, within the United States, further protected by the U.S. Constitution), it is the duty of the legal system and members of society to recognize the "Identity" stated by an individual as the "Legal Identity" of that individual. In such societies that, furthermore, value and respect privacy (and, within the United States, under the rule of the U.S. Constitution), "Legal Identity" represents "Identity" exclusively, bearing no representation of, or conflation with, "Former Identity". As the Supreme Court found it: "choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State.” (Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey (1992), borrowing from Entick v. Carrington and Three Other King's Messengers (1765); reasserted in Lawrence v. Texas (2003)). In the United States, arrogating the right of the individual to assert control over "Identity" and assert that "Identity" as "Legal Identity", including the right to change the information at will and without petition (and without conflation with "Former Identity"), constitutes numerous Federal felony crimes, as well as state crimes in most states. Moreover, infringing those same rights through legislation is, according to the Supreme Court, unConstitutional. Fitting for a nation that purports to value and respect individual liberties and freedoms. Not so fitting has been the abject apathy toward two things on this subject: using and enforcing those rights among individuals; and, prosecution of arrogations of those rights among Federal and State prosecutors. |