andrel wrote:
> Indeed, although this might sound that it is a recent invention.

Not really. Wasn't Jesus supposedly traveling for the roman census? There's 
a reason it's a latin word. :-)

> Even a 
> one century or more ago it was useful to register your children. It is 
> easy to see that if you track children born and their parents for a few 
> generations (and register all immigrants) you know every legal person in 
> the country.

Yes. It's just not centralized. If you're born in Philadelphia, 
Pennsylvania, people might have to actually travel to Philadelphia to prove 
it. Just follow any of the Obama birth certificate nonsense.

> I have often wondered why the US do not track all citizens. E.g. why 
> does one city not notify the city someone has come from when they go to 
> live in that new city?

Because we have many levels of government. City, county, state, federal. How 
would you recommend you get every city and town in the country doing this? 
And yes, maybe now that everything is on computers, it might be easier, but 
roll back 50 years when stuff was done on paper, and you can see where the 
records today wouldn't be anywhere near accurate.

> It would also be handy to get useful information 
> like if someone was convicted for a serious crime and has therefore no 
> right to vote. 

We have that information. It's just not given to the people who make up jury 
lists, for example.

Plus, I just don't see where it's valuable for me, personally, to have the 
government track where I live. The people in the government that need to 
know about different parts of my life already get to know that: the 
governments where I have to pay taxes know how much money I make, the 
governments that run the schools know how many kids I have, the governments 
where I own property know who owns the property, etc. What benefit is it to 
me to have Texas know how much my house in San Diego costs, or how many 
children I have and how old they are?

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
   I get "focus follows gaze"?

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