The National Council on Identity Policy (NCIDP)

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...

Any third party that fails to recognize an individual's chosen identity, chosen self-representation, assumes ALL liabilities arising from that failure.

The U.S. Supreme Court (Christianson v. King County, 1915) upheld a U.S. District Court (WA, 1912) decision (WA, 1912): and held that an individual had "the right to be known as if from birth by a chosen identity [common law identity change]"; and furthermore held that parties failing to recognize that identity thusly assumed all of the liabilities arising from that failure.

In the Christianson case, the plaintiffs were close relatives, potential heirs at common law to the estate of an individual who had undertaken such an identity change, unbeknownst to those relatives. Previously, the King's Bench had upheld the common law right of individuals to change identities at will (Jonson v. Greaves (KB, 1765)), but had stated that a small exception existed for third-parties to whom the individual had a close, intimate, long-term personal relationship. In Christianson, the court remained conservative, avoiding judicial activism, and refused to expand this loophole beyond such an intimate, personal, and tiny sphere: Christianson asserted that the right to a common law identity change, to be known as if from birth by a chosen identity, could not be infringed or impaired in any business, legal, governmental or public context.

This includes the identity of no identity, or the right to remain anonymous – the right of identity most essential to any principles of freedom and personal liberty, the right to speak and travel and congregate and worship or politic freely, as one choses and without examination by the state, public entities, or other third-parties.

Although the court did not directly address its prior private family sphere loophole left by Greaves in the right to choose an identity at will because the family ties had not been maintained, modern legislative and judicial advances in understanding the grave wrongs of domestic violence are certain to have effectively closed that one small loophole that still permitted such gross domestic violence in 1765. Only the most tragic judicial activism would attempt to reopen the Greaves family violence loophole in any modern case.

Perhaps equally intersting, the Christianson v. King County decision held that the "right to be known as if from birth by a chosen identity" did not include a mandate upon the individual to give notice of such a change of identity third parties. Here again, Christianson avoided expanding the one remaining loophole in any individual's "right to be known as if from birth in a chosen identity", which is that such a right is abrogable IF the intent and purpose of the identity change is to commit fraud. There was no such fraudulent intent and purpose driving the identity change at issue in the Christianson case, and so the plaintiffs were responsible fully and wholly for not recognizing and honoring the individual's chosen new identity with the same weight "as if held from birth".

Given the modern fraudulent sense of entitlement to private identities, nowadays it is essential for individuals to secure a legally binding, written commitment from many third parties asserting that they will respect that "right to be known as if from birth"; individuals must secure this before making any specific disclosures about a new chosen identity, let alone licensing any parts of such new identities. This means that businesses must commit to transferring all business and information to new files/accounts existing wholly and exclusively under the new chosen identity, with absolutely no cross-references between the two identities/files/accounts.

This is the law. This is the right.

Any third-party in such a business relationship refusing to honor a person's identity change assumes ALL liability, civil AND criminal, arising from that failure.

Any public entity (government entity or non-human business entity) that refuses to have such respect is engage in "dishonest service" (18 U.S.C. § 1346), making them guilty of wire fraud and mail fraud crimes (18 U.S.C. § 1341, 18 U.S.C. § 1343). If those crimes are done by "policy", that makes them, additionally, racketeering and RICO crimes (18 U.S.C. § 1952, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961-1968; al la U.S. v Cianci). Of course, as is obvious, it is also crimes of identity theft/fraud and civil rights violations, theft from interstate commerce (crossing any state line)... the list goes on, extensively, and each perpetrating participant is ultimately eligible for at least 80 years in federal prison for every person, and every victimization of each person, whom they victimize in this way.

Couple this with the U.S. Supreme Court further holding that a person's identity is personal, intimate property monetarily "worth more than any other possession that can ever be owned", and the pecuniary and criminal liabilities surrounding identity, the existence of identities and the wrongful co-opting of identities, adds up astronomically in a hurry. The wisest risk management professionals in business and government ardently advise their clients to avoid collecting or keeping any personally identifiable information about customers/private persons, at all costs. A single infraction against a private person, a single breach of their rights in their personal property of such high value, is guaranteed, by law, to be worth far more than the entire worth of the company and staff committing that infraction; the risk is too astronomical for any responsible or cautious business to take.

Fraud is a crime of intent. For example, as above, if the business-relationship third-parties and public entities refuse to respect a person's chosen identity "as if held from birth", then that is an intent to refuse to recognize a person's chosen identity "as if from birth." The intent is clear and stated, in the open, and therefore an obvious act of fraud.

The only reason, in law, that a CHOSEN identity can be legally invalidated, held "false" or "alias" or otherwise pseudonymous-at-law, where the right to be known "as if from birth" can be breached in any way, is where the chosen identity was chosen with the intent of, and for the purpose of, committing fraud. Such an intent and purpose must be proven in a court of law, beyond a reasonable doubt, and any demonstrable alternative intent or purpose whatsoever disproves such fraudulent intent. Consequently, ANY infringement of a person's "right to be known as if from birth by a chosen identity" constitutes accusations of: 1) fraud, 2) fraudulent intent, and 3) prior conviction for such fraud, and is a patently libelous/slanderous violent assault wherever any of those three accusations remain unproven.

Third-parties engaging in such assaultive libel/slander assume all liabilities arising therefrom.

This civil and criminal liability, likewise, includes any efforts to bridge identity contexts, or otherwise breach the contextual nature of identity and the right of individuals "to be known as if from birth" by a chosen identity in any given context and relevant contextual identity. For example, to reveal that the author of The Federalist, Publius, was known, in other contexts and communities as Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, is libelous/slanderous! The libel/slander does not arise regarding whether this cross-contextualization may be construed as accurate or not, but from the inherent accusation that the chosen identity is fraudulent in intent and purpose at law. The same is true for Cato, Brutus, Centinal and the other authors of The Anti-Federalist Papers. None of these authors were ever convicted of penning and publishing these papers under a chosen identity for fraudulent intent and purpose, rendering any accusatory cross-context identifications patently libelous/slanderous.

The U.S. owes its constitution, and a large part of a healthy debate about its formation, to the rights of individuals in their own identities, to the individual right to be known "as if from birth" in a chosen identity in a chosen context, to the right to remain anonymous. The moment that a free nation forgets that freedom means being free of inspection by the state, free of 'validation' by the state – that is the moment that a free nation ceases to be free.