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    I don't think anyone's going to require an interbutt surfer license to access the internet in general or to use Hubski or Reddit. Is this what people are claiming is going to happen?

I think this is exactly what people are worried about. It's worth considering that people were initially very resistant to the census, then to SSNs. What seems outlandish to one generation seems perfectly normal to the next. These changes come slowly.

IMO it's likely that at a future point, you will need to use a government-issued ID to use the internet. I expect that the rationale will be that anonymity isn't a requirement of free speech, only the protection of it is, and that storage of private data isn't a breach of privacy, only the examination of it is. Of course, I completely disagree with this rationale, but that's not to say that I don't find it likely to win.

Obama obviously does not feel that people need or deserve extra-systemic protections from an abusive government.