I Am Not A Number!: Freeing America from the ID State [Paperback]

Claire Wolfe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1998

We're already compelled to carry a government-assigned number to get health care, enroll our children in school, open a bank account, drive a car, hold a job, buy stocks, or even rent a video. We endure scans, warrantless searches, and inspections. Cameras peer at us everywhere. Rude and often ignorant "security screeners" pat us down at airports while we cower submissively. This book is for people who want to take steps, within their own lives and their communities, to ensure that the Surveillance Stops Here. As Wolfe writes, you can't have both freedom and a convenient, secure, go-along-to-get-along life. If you aren't willing to take personal risks, don't read this book

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Thinking about going fishing? Enrolling your child in school? Getting a license to work as a plumber or hairdresser?

Think again - because in the coming years you won't be able to do any of the above without a federally issued ID number.

In one of the most compelling works on personal freedom to date, author Claire Wolfe describes how the abuse of the Social Security number will erode privacy. Intrusive identification systems make the concept of free communities impossible. Wolfe outlines ways to protect yourself.

In this book you'll find:
* The advantages and disadvantages of being out of the system
* How easy it is for anyone with a computer to abuse personal information about you - information you thought was confidential.
* How health care needs to evolve to escape the Number net
* The workings of an underground economy as the financial basis for a new nation

The only way to slow and eventually stop the "numbers game" is to take action, whether it be using fake I.D., participating in a free community, or organizing creative chaos. The first step, however, is to read this book. Before it's too late.

Product Details

• Paperback: 178 pages
• Publisher: Loompanics Unlimited (July 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559501812
• ISBN-13: 978-1559501811
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,497,552 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Level-headed and pragmatic radicalism, March 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: I Am Not A Number!: Freeing America from the ID State (Paperback)

Wolfe's cynicism towards both big government and violent political fringe groups, without any paranoia and hysteria, is a welcome change from books of this type (not unlike her previous book, "101 Things To Do 'Til the Revolution"). Instead of a typical "globalist conspiracy, grab your guns and head for the hills" type of book, this is an investigation of just how your rights are being eroded, not by plot and design, but by complacancy and apathy; how we are allowing our desires for security and comfort to build a prison for us with bars that we will never even notice. Included in the book are resources and suggestions (with plenty of "caveat emptor"s) on how to keep what privacy you have, as well as taking back some that you've lost.

You don't know how much privacy you've already lost? Frightening, isn't it?

Worthy of the title, taken from a line from Patrick McGoohan's TV mini-series "The Prisoner" (Available on tape, so rent it!), this is Wolfe's best so far. A rare voice in this field of writing, I look forward to more "rationally radical" works from her.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sane and reasoned with a dash of well struck humor, May 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: I Am Not A Number!: Freeing America from the ID State (Paperback)

Claire Wolfe first popped into view while researching National ID sites and electronic privacy forums. I was delighted with what I found. Perhaps enough of us will see the light Claire has given us before the lamp is extinguished.

For the interested reader, there are other gems to be mined. A "must read", fictional account of where we are headed if current trends are not reversed is a new novel by author Jerry Furland, "TRANSFER-the end of the beginning...". Chillingly topical and utterly believable, you should check it out right here at Amazon.com. Forewarned is forearmed.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Claire Wolfe: Culture Hero, March 16, 2003

By 

P. Hartman "of VirtualVenice.info" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: I Am Not A Number!: Freeing America from the ID State (Paperback)

Claire Wolfe, Culture Hero

The revised and expanded second addition of her recognized libertarian classic, I Am Not a Number! Freeing America from the ID State, is out now and even better than the first. She's written a bunch of other books, too. In fact that's the first question a person asks after reading one of them: "Is there more?" You find yourself wanting to take a couple of weeks off from work to check out the rest.

A sage once said, "If we keep on the way we're going, we're going to wind up where we're headed." So this is a book to get now, because when we do wind up where we're headed, a book like this is only one of the things we won't be able to get.

In the great tradition of Harriet Tubman, who led slaves out of bondage via the underground railroad, Claire Wolfe provides clear directions back to America. The America some of us love and miss. An America where, to give just one little example, paying for something with legal tender didn't used to be seen as suspicious behavior.

It's about "how to retain ownership of our lives."

Wolfe reminds us that the recipe for freedom is a willingness to take risks, combined with a re-evaluation of priorities, followed by making the appropriate changes in lifestyle. (As another sage expressed it, you can do anything you want as long as you're willing to pay the price. A lot of times you don't end up having to pay the price - but you have to be willing.)

She discusses the extremes: primitive living at a level so far below the radar that the authorities don't bother with you - which can be a life of deprivation and loneliness - or sophisticated hiding - which can be ditto. How to escape? Shooting the bastards is not a real good idea, since all it tends to do is make the next crop of bastards even nastier.

Millions of Americans, Wolfe feels, "have now reached their line in the sand" and are ready to stop being sheeple. The preferred method is to "creatively disregard" the rulers - emotionally, mentally, philosophically and if necessary even physically. Leave the government even if you can't leave the country. Many methods of non-cooperation are suggested here, along with advice about how to handle such things as financial and medical affairs. For someone who hasn't heard about, for instance, the Free State Project, this could be a major life-changer.

The slogan of the cyberpunk crowd was, "Information wants to be free." These days, it's much more useful to remember this - "Information want to help us be free." The opportunities for further self-enlightenment in Wolfe's generous "Freedom Resources" section prove it.