| | This is hardly a "secret conspiracy." At the time of my false arrest in 1999, it was already possible for forensic scientists to determine whether or not any specific document had been printed on any specific printer. It was thanks to this forensic technology that it was possible for my defense to prove my innocence. Had it not been for this capability, it is likely that I would have been convicted and, given how unlikely it is for a person my age to survive a prison sentence in New Jersey, probably dead.
Until a few years ago, printers were identifiable by means of accidental variations. As manufacturing techniques assured greater precision, those natural variations would have disappeared, and with them the ability of those falsely accused to prove their innocence. Of course, it would be better to have a criminal justice system in which the prosecution actually bore the burden of objective proof. But given that the presumption of innocence has become a legal fiction that prosecutors can practically "work around" at will, any step that makes it possible for those falsely accused to prove their actual innocence objectively is to be welcomed.
As for totalitarian regimes, they seldom care whether or not those whom they murder for the "crime" of dissent are actually guilty or not. The more primitive among them are theocracies that go by "kill them all, God will know his own" anyway. The more technologically advanced can put this technology into printers for the domestic market even without American help - and criminalize the possession of unregistered printers, as most of them have. In short, deploying this technology in America is good for falsely accused Americans who need to prove their innocence, and irrelevant elsewhere. It is hardly objectionable in our current context.
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