You Don’t Need To See His Identification
If you’re a jack-booted thug, one of the saddest moments in Star Wars is when Obi-Wan Kenobe and Luke Skywalker slip past the Imperial Stormtroopers, out looking for stolen property. Had the Stormtroopers been a little more on the ball, all of those innocents on the Death Star would still be alive.
You may not be surprised to find I have a different take on matters.
TROOPER: How long have you had these droids?
LUKE: About three or four seasons.
BEN: They’re for sale if you want them.
TROOPER: Let me see your identification.
BEN: You don’t need to see his identification.
TROOPER: We don’t need to see his identification.
BEN: These are not the droids your looking for.
TROOPER: These are not the droids we’re looking for.
BEN: He can go about his business.
TROOPER: You can go about your business.
Notice start of a perhaps useful line of questioning: How long have you had these droids… which could be followed with a series of in depth-questions. But instead the trooper goes to an identification check. Not like the Empire has any idea who its searching for on remote Tatooine. But that’s not the point of the roadblock. The point of the roadblock is to find a pair of droids, and the trooper becomes distracted by a desire to see some id. (Maybe he was about to offer Luke a drink?) The two droids the Stormtrooper is looking for are right there in front of him. Why doesn’t he look at them? (Presumably, they have Driod ID numbers engraved at the factory.) But its simpler and easier to check identification papers, rather than to examine the scene. The bureaucratic impulse crawls to the forefront of this rapidly aging clone’s mind.
It’s an impulse we see all too often: It’s easier to check ID than it is to make a judgment call. Maybe we can defer to the computer. We can fail to fix the voter registration system, and just check their IDs. We fail to secure the airplanes, and just check IDs. We let a fellow with a bloody sword into the country, but we checked his ID.
Better to take Obi Wan’s advice: You don’t need to see his identification.
Star Wars security
Adam Shostack explains how there can even be a lesson on security in Star Wars:
It’s an impulse we see all too often: It’s easier to check ID than it is to make a judgment call. Maybe we can defer to the computer. We can fail to fix t…
Obi Wan sensed that the trooper was onto them, and thereafter led his mind away from the droids and into the line of questioning which allowed him & Luke and easy exit.
Dude everyone knows that.
Of course everyone knows that. But Obi Wan led the trooper’s mind somewhere the trooper was willing to go. He didn’t distract him with a discussion of the meaning of the veil of ignorance in Rawls’ philosphy.
“This isn’t the societal arrangement you’re looking for.”
Behavior Privacy vs. Identity Privacy
Adam Shostack wants our border guards (and others responsible for checking ID) to validate our behavior instead of verifying identification, and make a qualitative judgement call on whether it is appropriate or not. I find this intriguing, given that m…
But the stormtroopers may have been on the lookout for Luke as well. After all they had found onkel Owen and aunt Beru earlier and I think we can assume they interrogated them first.