[gg3]

What to do about this; speaking from the perspective of 20+ years of physical-address anonymity.

Get a private mailbox at a place like Mailboxes Etc.: look in the yellow pages under Mailbox Rentals.

These places also ask for ID, but they aren't the government, and presumably the government needs to come asking before they turn the data over. The mailbox service will need a physical address on record. Fine, ask a friend or family member to use theirs temporarily, ideally someone who is moving within the next year or so, so that address will become obsolete.

Once you have a private mailbox (cost about $15 / month and worth it) you can put that down as your legal address. When some form asks for an address, put it on there, and use the # instead of PMB, i.e. instead of John Doe, 1234 Main St. PBM 987, you'd say John Doe, 1234 Main St. #987. The "#" is the "number sign." If anyone asks, it's your "work address." As in "work from home, need home office mail service to handle packages."

If you're clever you can get that address on your drivers' license by just putting it on the form and not drawing attention to it. Put the mailbox number in the line for Apartment number or some such. Or if they ask, it's your "work address" since you're between houses at the moment.

One thing. NEVER lie to a cop who asks if the PMB address on your drivers' license is where you actually live. Lying to cops is a crime, go to jail, and even if the individual officer doesn't feel like hauling you in, he'll be thinking of you as a liar so whatever else you say won't be worth a damn to him. Just explain it's your permanent address, you're between houses or whatever is the case. In my case the situation is "interesting" i.e. court-ordered confidentiality of address, so I explain the circumstances including having helped send a violent felon to prison (expert witness testimony), and it's always been cool. Local cops are usually friendly enough; what you want to do is keep your physical address confidential as far as state and federal databases are concerned, including consumer databases (corporations can be every bit as much trouble as government when it comes to privacy issues).

[oowolf]

Thanks for the tips. I also don't pay income tax or buy licenses. I doubt there's anyone on this site-who actually lives in the usa-who's as far out of the loop as myself--and I'm proud of it. I've worked on it for decades and know 'they're' closing in on me. i.e. making it harder to exist outside the CFPS (corporate fascist police state). I'm beginning to empathize, more and more, with the plight of Ishi. But I have a fortress of solitude to escape to: 7 square miles of primeval box canyon a half hour walk out my back door; clifflike walls on 3 sides rising 1/2 mile into the sky and the entrance blocked by private ranches so no humans except a few ranchers enter and that's just to hunt in the fall. Beyond that its 35 miles, as the crow flies, to the nearest road in the headwaters of the Coeur d'Alene River. I am (perhaps) the only human who enters this area on a regular basis and one of the great joys of my life has been to watch the re-emergence of the WOLF into this environment. Sometimes, when I spot a wolf, I burst into tears. I love my animal "friends"; the elk and moose, the mountain lion. I love how preternaturally quiet it is. And in all honesty, I love them more than humanity. That's why, in over 30 years, I've only brought a few humans into this area that I consider sacred.

I guess I'm an anachronism, still trying to live in a time when everyone didn't feel the need to ask everyone else for "ID". A time, that I can remember, when people looked each other in the eye when they passed and a person's word was their bond. I've seen what we've lost as a society in the last 30 years and I don't like it and I'm not going to "go along" with it.

[Free]

I admire you guys for fighting for every inch of your rights, freedom and privacy, I really do.

On the other hand this kind of petty stuff seems rather ridiculous to me, but that's probably because I have been used my whole life to answer to the authorities, carry an ID, have the new adress registered immediately etc.
And this even makes sense to me, because I think to secure the freedom of everybody in a community, rules and laws are necessary and need to be enforced, as long as some lines are not crossed.
For example no policeman is authorized to enter my flat or spy on me without a legal warrant. As long as all the checks and balances are somehow working I don't feel threatened in my personal freedom at all.

But as I said, where you draw the line is probably a matter of culture and history:

A story:
Just recently I was witnessing a scene at a crosswalk. The pedestrian light was red, no car was coming, a couple of people were waiting, including myself.
Now in such a situation I very often cross the street, but then I didn't.

Why? Because I saw two policemen in the vicinity. I knew there could be trouble if I crossed. Not serious trouble, most probably not even a fine, but just hassle. Sure enough, one guy was crossing the street and immediately stopped by the pissed off policemen, which rudely demanded his ID and lectured him about red pedestrian lights. I think I assume right that most US citizens would just tell them to go fuck themselves in such a situation, and that you see this kind of law enforcing as almost police-state like?

I even agree - but it is very much like the Foucault theory of the panopticum, or the broken window theory in New York. The policemen couldn't let this go through. The law is the law.

Another story:

Once I was abroad in Spain, just about to get a foothold, and went to my embassy to get legal information about working etc.
From the beginning they treated me as a subject who wanted something from them, while I saw them as an institution which was made as a service to citizens like me.
As soon as I told them that I was already in Spain for quite a time they treated me like a criminal and asked why I hadn't come earlier to report that I was living there, because the law requires it for elections etc.
I was just shocked, laughed at them and left.

It is this kind of authoritarian style that makes me really sympathetic to your struggle, and think that you really should fight for every single one of your freedoms as long as you have them...
Because once you get used to live without them you probably won't get them back...

[NordicThora]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('oowolf', 'I') also don't pay income tax or buy licenses. I doubt there's anyone on this site-who actually lives in the usa-who's as far out of the loop as myself--and I'm proud of it. I've worked on it for decades and know 'they're' closing in on me. i.e. making it harder to exist outside the CFPS (corporate fascist police state).