I’ve said for a while that the SSA should do basically this exact thing. In a more controlled manner, but still the same result. Announce something like “in two years, we’ll make our database public. Every single name, DOB, and SSN will be publicly searchable.

It sounds radical, but SSNs were never meant to be a secure form of ID. Old cards even said something like “do not use this as ID” on them. But organizations quickly latched onto it because they wanted to have a way to identify individuals with the same name and DOB. And SSNs were convenient because people already had them.

It would force organizations to develop their own way to ID people. It would be a huge step towards making an actual secure form of ID. And the warning time would give people enough time to design the new system and roll it out, while still giving a hard deadline for when it needs to be done.

Nope, because they haven’t officially charged the person with a crime until the indictment happens. The grand jury has refused to indict multiple times, meaning the person hasn’t officially been charged with a crime yet.

Yeah, the old joke among lawyers is that a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich for murder if the prosecutor wanted them to.

For the unaware, there is no defense at the grand jury, because the person hasn’t been accused of a crime yet. The grand jury is when the prosecutor lays out the evidence and basically asks “do I have enough to actually charge them with a crime?”

But the key factor is that the prosecutor has full discretion in what evidence they show. They can present evidence that isn’t admissible in court. They can present evidence that they know was fabricated. They can exclude exculpatory evidence that would prove the person’s innocence. Hell, the prosecutor could just scribble a quick “lmao yeah I did it. Signed, [suspect]” on a napkin and present it as evidence. And there’s no defense lawyer, because the suspect hasn’t been charged with a crime yet. If the prosecutor wants the grand jury to indict, the grand jury will functionally always do so.

And the inverse is true too. If they don’t want to press charges on someone, (for instance, a cop in a high profile case), then they can just refuse to bring any evidence for the grand jury. The grand jury is only allowed to rule based on the evidence that was presented. If a cop strangles a black dude on the street while dropping N-words left and right, and surrounded by cameras? The grand jury won’t be allowed to use any of that evidence unless the prosecutor presents it. Prosecutors often use this to avoid pressing charges, by refusing to bring any evidence. Then they jump in front of the news cameras and cry about how they tried to prosecute, but the mean grand jury refused to indict. But vote for me, because the public wanted it and I tried! Since the members are kept secret, blaming the faceless grand jury is an easy out for prosecutors.

And that’s a large part of what makes this specific case so interesting. They’re going to charge the person even after the grand jury refused to indict multiple times. And again, getting an indictment is laughably easy. This means the grand jury is either rebelling despite the evidence, or truly doesn’t believe any of the evidence that the prosecutor has presented.

The old joke is that if you go far enough left, you get your guns back.

Exactly. It’s easy to say “make the states pay for it” until the states start pulling from their primary services to fund it.

Oh, you need to renew your car registration? Too bad, because the DMV is only open one day a week now, and they’re by appointment only. The earliest appointment you can get is six months from now. But at least we have boots on the ground, right?

So you need age verification for any Internet access? For any computer or phone that could connect to the Internet?

I mean, experts have said for a while that if you’re going to require age verification, doing it directly on the device would be the most secure way. Allow parents to verify their phones, while creating child accounts for their kids.

When the site needs to verify their age, it simply asks the device directly if the user account is age-verified. It all happens in the background, so the adults never even need to bother with it once it’s set up.

Which is an anticipated problem too. Because those free VPNs are harvesting all of your traffic to sell; If you’re not the customer, you’re the product being sold. Almost as if opponents of the ban said this would happen, and would only work to push kids towards sketchy sites…