When government is in the realm of the actual and not the theoretical, bureaucracy is only as good as the individual bureaucrats.

In other words, anyone individual can screw up the system. And the government can screw it up royally. In many states, driver's license information can be purchased by anyone. This means your name and your address are for sale to anyone that wants them--solicitors, stalkers, slime-buckets--and the state profits.

If the government has your DNA, this means that any time a crime is committed and the DNA data base is searched, you are automatically treated as a suspect.

But mostly, it is that this information is mine and mine alone. It does not belong to the government or my parents or my husband, it belongs to ME, and it is up to me to decide with whom I share that information. No one else needs to know my weight or hair color or eye color or propensity for cancer or heart disease or if I have a gun collection or any other information about me because I am not a criminal. I have not committed any crimes, and so no one has any reason to know anything about me or track information about me.

Databases work both ways. The database that says you do own guns also says that I do not own a gun, and that information can be abused in two separate ways. First, if the government decides to collect all the guns and declare Marshall law--they know where the gun owners are. Second, if someone wants to cause trouble, I am obviously a good person to start with because I have no means of defending myself.

Yes, it is paranoid, and I'm probably more paranoid than you already have guessed. Perhaps it had to do with the people I hung around with during HS and college. Having a police car circle the block seven times while I'm standing on the corner talking to friends doesn't endear one to authorities. Having friends pulled out of their cars and searched by the police for no reason other than the cops didn't like their looks doesn't make one trust the authorities. Knowing that little more than half a century ago governments rounded up people and took away their property based upon their nationality (or religion or sexual status or whatever) doesn't cause me to have faith in the authorities.

I'm scared that the members or the Christian right will get into power because I know that many of my friends would have laws targeted against them. I think of McCarthy-ism and the guilt-by-association and black-listing that went on, and I fear it could happen again, only it would be me and my friends who were being targeted.