Well it only took 20 years and a major terrorist attack on a Western nation, but the Australia Card is coming, and no one seems to care.

The Australian Government will soon issue smart cards to Centrelink staff, with eventual plans to dole one out (pun intended) to recipients of virtually every government service under the sun.

Why there is no protest over this horrible initiative is anyone's guess.

The Howard Government is, for the most part, trusted by most Australians to handle matters relating to domestic security. And having observed its approach to privacy law, data matching and other initiatives, it's not a reputation that's been unfairly earned.

But regardless of your politics, Australia Card II really should be giving you the willies, and here's why.

Each card will have stored on it a biometric scan of the holder's face. While this may not sound like such a bad thing -- such measures are already used on our new and shiny e-passports -- there is potential for this technical measure to be abused by future administrations.

It may sound like a tin-foil-hat-wearer conspiracy theory, but the combination of increased video surveillance, sedition laws -- which I will always oppose for the simple fact they look suspiciously like "thought crime" legislation -- and widespread data matching will give our government an unparalleled capability to oppress its citizens.

I'm not suggesting that's why the government is introducing the card, but it is an unavoidable side-affect.

It's entirely feasible, if we stay on this path, that all Australian citizens wandering around urban areas could be immediately located via a CCTV match to the biometric imprint stored on their Australia card.

Sure, we want to track down criminals and terrorists, but we don't want to make it too easy for any government to locate individuals so easily. It's probably not a problem now, but who can say what sort of government we'll have in 2050? Or even 2020?

Law enforcement is supposed to be hard. Locating criminals is supposed to be hard. This is why you don't get fined every time you j-walk, speed, park illegally or utter seditious words. Technology is cool, but a modicum of restraint in how it's used is much cooler.

Shouldn't we be getting of our arses and doing something about this?