The National Council on Identity Policy (NCIDP)

The National Council on Identity Policy (NCIDP) was born of the struggles of one tenacious survivor of domestic violence and stalking. The NCIDP continues her work with the help of many. Read more about the NCIDP...

A "STATE ACTOR" is any person or entity that: acts with any authority or personated authority of any government or governmental body; that serves any function of, or is directed or paid by, any government or governmental body; that makes any act or imposition upon any person at the behest or direction of any authority of any government or governmental body; or, that demands any verification, validation or authentication of any person by any government, governmental body or authority. A state actor is an agent of government, however that agency appears or arises.

A principle objective of any police state is to co-opt as many otherwise private persons and non-governmental public entities (business entities not contracted or paid by government) into the role of state actors.

See a detailed Case Study of "privatized" state actors run so far amok as to proudly and boastfully enact murder and terrorism, both empowered and emboldened to cause greater harm by their infiltration into positions of authority as state actors - Case Study: Terrorists 'Own' San Francisco.

During the Reagan presidential campaigns, one principal mantra that Reagan espoused was the idea of shrinking government and the impositions of government upon the people of the nation. A wonderful sounding idea to many.

Unfortunately, at the same time and on the opposite hand, Reagan hypocritically espoused "privatization" of government and governmental functions.

Obviously, ANY person or entity serving the functions of a government or paid or directed by a government to do any particular thing, on contract or otherwise, is acting for and as an extension of that government. That makes such person or entity a state actor, an agent of the government. Thus, when a business is contracted by the government to perform any function or do any thing, the entire business and all of its members and employees become an extension of the government. Ultimately, "privatization" is a massive expansion of government.

The principle of "privatization", of enmeshing private sector persons and entities (businesses) in the operations and activities of government was not new. It was the brainchild of a movement that arose in the wake of the industrial revolution, spearheaded into the early Twentieth Century by a man named Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (1883 – 1945). Aspects of that movement had been advanced in the U.S. even prior to World War I. And still long before Reagan took office, post- World War II McCarthyism, another flavor of that same enmeshment movement, had radically advanced the enmeshment of government and the private sector, importing to the U.S. such activities as loyalty-security reviews, government identity documentation, blacklists, and so on.

In the United States, implementation of the enmeshing principles and ideologies of the Mussolini movement has had the very real effect of co-opting millions of private persons and entities into the pseudo-governmental roles and duties of state actors, many of whom don't realize it. It has also, as a footnote, worked to suffocate free market principles and install a largely oligopolistic modern economy – the antithesis of a free market, or a free society.

Clearly, anyone paid funds flowing from a government or governmental body or agency to perform a function or duty of any kind is a state actor. So too, however, are individuals not receiving funds but performing functions or duties by mandate of any law. Even soliciting any form of governmentally certified or issued identity verification information or documentation for any purpose, with or without legal mandate, constitutes adoption of the mantle of a state actor.

For example, one NCIDP case involves a car dealer demanding a Social Security Number before selling an inexpensive small used car to someone for cash. If the the car dealer solicited any form of government issued identification because a law requires the car dealer to do so, then the car dealer is a state actor. If there is no legal mandate to do so upon the car dealer, or other legal consequence to the car dealer for not doing so, the car dealer is NOT a state actor SO LONG AS the car dealer does not claim that any such law exists and accepts any form of ID proffered without requiring issuance by any governmental agency or body. If, in the latter situation the car dealer insists upon government issuance of the ID, then the car dealer again adopts the mantle of state actor.

There are some great legal significances to these distinctions. That is to say that, upon becoming or adopting the mantle of state actor by any means or for any reason, the individual or entity becomes subject to portions of Federal law that truly private citizens are generally immunized from. As examples, only state actors are required to adhere to the Privacy Act, and only state actors or those claiming status as a state actor can be prosecuted under 18 U.S.C. §§ 241 and 242 (The Civil Rights Cases (S Ct., 1883)).

In the case of the car dealer, the request was specifically for a Social Security Number, which is a specially protected form of identity information. Whereas a private party, even acting as a state actor in soliciting legally mandated or governmentally issued identity documentation, generally (arguably) retains the right to refuse to do business with an individual for refusal to make such disclosure, that is not true in the specific case of soliciting or obtaining a Social Security Number. No service or benefit may be denied to an individual for refusing to disclose a Social Security Number in response to any solicitation where such disclosure is not mandated upon the number holder by a specific Federal statute. (The Privacy Act, P.L. 93-579 § 7, subsumed at 5 U.S.C. § 522a(note), in turn subsumed by the Patriot Act at P.L. 107-56 § 403(c)). Moreover, it directly a federal felony to compel disclosure of a Social Security Number as a precondition for anything, or in any way at all (42 U.S.C. § 408).

So, in the above car dealer example, as a state actor, the car dealer must provide a written Privacy Act Notice for each solicitation of a Social Security Number which: enumerates the Federal statute that authorizes or mandates the solicitation; discloses whether that statute makes disclosure in response to that solicitation mandatory or voluntary; and, discloses what uses of that information will be made. Moreover, the entire financial and personal information record associated with that solicitation or possession of a Social Security Number becomes sealed against all but warrants issued by a court for probable cause (42 U.S.C. § 405, as subsumed by the Privacy Act and Patriot Act).

Note here that the Privacy Act is an anomoly at law in that it differentiates some state actors from others in different parts of the law. Consequently, some portions do not apply to some state actors. In the case of this car dealer case, the dealer is not specifically required to provide a written Privacy Act Notice, but is barred from denying any service or benefit to anyone refusing to provide a Social Security Number that is solicited without a proper Privacy Act Notice declaration that "Disclosure is Mandatory". Consequently, while the clause mandating such notices does not apply to the car dealer, as a practical matter the car dealer must provide it in order to avoid violating 18 U.S.C. § 241, 242, 1028 and several other criminal statutes in any case where the dealer refuses to provide a benefit or service to an individual who refuses to disclose a Social Security Number without such Privacy Act Notice.

In the case of this car dealer (the dealer in the actual NCIDP case study), the dealer falsely claimed that the Patriot Act (P.L. 107-56) mandated solicitation upon that dealer, as well as mandated disclosure upon that cash buyer. As we discuss more at length elsewhere, the Patriot Act does quite the opposite, reiterating and renewing the Privacy Act, and nowhere mandating either solicitation of or disclosure of a Social Security Number upon anyone or any entity whatsoever. However, the false claim of authority and the illegal collection of identity information under such false pretenses for the criminal purposes of that false infringement renders the dealer legitimately open to prosecution under 18 U.S.C. §§ 241, 242, 1028 and others. More pointedly, in this case, the dealer committed "violent assault" upon the victim, as we know from the Keeble v. Hickeringill (QB, 1707) decision.

A great importance of this awareness is that a whole lot of people are assuming a whole lot of legal liabilities when they take on the mantle of state actor, often without realizing it. More still, however, are the grave infringements upon liberty and freedom, uninformed state actor and private citizen alike, that such fascist principles cause. Most profoundly, it incites a great many acts of violence across society as unknowing and knowing state actors come to trample the autonomy and freedom of individual persons as a matter of ignorant and violent routine. As the fearful disempowered confront such violence more and more, frustration often gives way to despair and the acting out of reactive frustration violence, such as gun and gang violence, murder, domestic violence, rape and more. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1966 wrote of this well understood sociological mechanism: "'Decency, security and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means . . . would bring terrible retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine this Court should resolutely set its face.' Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 485 (1928) (dissenting opinion)." (Miranda v Arizona (S Ct., 1966), quoting Olmstead v. U.S. (S Ct., 1928, Brandeis dissenting)).