Nobody particularly likes the idea, but let’s examine it. First of all, we already have a national id card, a social security card and number. A driver’s license is pretty much the same thing. If they were smart cards, it could help track people after the fact and find accomplices. The Supreme Court already allows DUI checkpoints (which I oppose) but y’all didn’t say much then. There seems to be a lot of the fallacy that “it wouldn’t 100% solve the problem, so let’s not do it”. It would reveal a lot of the people who helped and who might be affilitated even after the fact.
Going into public buildings, stadiums, and airports, it might be good screening.
But let’s have a serious discussion beyond the fact that we all just hate the idea.
But that makes no sense. If they can be forged (and forging them will be a whole new industry to the delight of organized crime), and if identities can be stolen (as some of the WTC terrorists and accomplices did), then how do these internal passports constitute “good screening”?
Terrorists won’t forget to bring their cards. But ordinary citizens will undergo inconveniences every day because their cards were lost or stolen, or they simply forgot.
…you know, aside from all the matters of civil liberty (could confiscation of ID be tantamount to house arrest? Could this be used to target specific groups since, given an average group of people, at least one will have probably forgotten his-or-her ID?) and Nazi echoes (Fenris et al., you’re not the only ones to have visions of soldiers questioning us in bad accents), I have another, more personal reason for disliking this idea:
I would end up breaking the law.
Let’s face it people; I’m one of those chicks who’s lucky if she has a matching pair of socks on in the morning. The only way of making sure that I have my license when I drive has been to clip it to my sun visor and to never, ever let it leave the car. Unless I had to go flying with it. If I had to carry an ID, I would either forget it at home every day or lose it. It’s not because I’m being difficult; it’s because I’m a ditz when it comes to these things.
Well, dollars can be forged, but we make them too, don’t we? The idea is to make them difficult to be forged, not impossible (which would be impossible). The thought needs to be completed. So if someone shows up with a forged card that gets swiped through a reader, it accesses the computer and finds, lo and behold, that the information left on the card does not match the information of where this person was previously on the computer, or suddenly shows up with no record at all, you suddenly have their photo and location and they get detained for questioning.
The problem with newbies to politics (and some who have been at it a while) is that they insist that because a solution won’t be 100% effective, that nothing at all be done. It just isn’t a valid argument. The valid type of argument in this case is to say that the benefits of catching the stupid ones does not outweight the costs of implementing the program and having us all tracked. Now guys, I’m willing to be the devil’s advocate here, so don’t make me argue both sides.
I did. I wrote letters to the paper, to my reps, etc. Randomly stopping people on the assumption that they might be guilty again presumes guilt. And I objected/object to it strenuously.
I don’t know who is arguing what you’re complaining about. Nothing is ever 100% effective. Nobody here is saying that that’s the problem. Your reduction of our manifold problems with the ID card into that simplistic summary will become irritating if you continue it.
The press release above enumerates specific problems — lots of them — and the rest of us have added our own. If you want to list these and argue against them, fine. Otherwise, you’re just arguing with yourself here.
And let me say that this is downright spooky:
(emphasis mine)
Are you saying their intention is to track us? Where we go? What we do? And you have no problem with this? Are you American?
hogwash, Waverly. If any individual did such an action it would be stalking. nothing changes except the legality of the action when the government does it. The moral incorrectness remains.
Why should i care if I’m not doing anything illegal anyway? Well, we’ll just install this camera in your bedroom, then. You aren’t doing anything illegal there, are you? No problem. Oh, and don’t worry, its just the government that is looking, we won’t release such information to the public.
Shyeah, right. If identity theft has proven anything it is that any system of cataloguing people helps criminals do their deeds, if not create new crimes out of whole cloth.
But wait, I know your (possible) response before you even make it. “I have a reasonable right to privacy in my bedroom.” Well, I feel I have a reasonable right to anonymity in public. How’s that sit with ya?
Ah, the slippery slope can run all directions, can’t it?
You are right, though, DP. We should consider things that could have long term benefits even though the short term provides us only with losses. I feel that there is nothing to be gained here (since we already have many things which act, basically, as a national ID system) and only loss: economically and personally.
Anyone here ever had to produce an ID just to go home?
I have, as have thousands of fellow New Yorkers. For two days, the National Guard blocked the borough of Manhattan south of 14th Street, requiring anyone wishing to pass to produce identification indicating that they lived in the area. For two more days, they moved the exclusion zone south to Canal. For two whole weeks, anyone wanting to go to the Wall St. area had to produce ID indicating that their offices were located there. There is still an exclusion zone in the area immediately around the Trade Center and extending to Battery Park City. Want to go clean the asbestos out of your apartment? Show your papers.
These Guardsmen and women weren’t and aren’t tyrants. They were patriots, leaving their families during nervous times and coming downstate into a potentially dangerous area just to protect our sorry butts from terrorists and looters. But I’ll tell you, it was eerie, and scary, and just felt all wrong, even given the emergency situation.
The idea of a national ID is a bad one, for all the reasons listed here, but mostly because of the potential of the State to elevate a temporary state of emergency to a permanent or near-permanent one. As I said, our Guardsmen and women weren’t tyrants. But the next batch might be. As noted, the existing set of ID’s that we all carry is more than sufficient for any legitimate State purpose.
That’s right Liberterian, go right to the ad hominem arguments. Ann Coulter would be proud if she could read. Glad I’m irritating you. Next thing you know, you will be so irritated that you might form a complete thought, use of logic and all. Questioning someone’s patriotism seems to me to be pretty low. I actually know real libertarians and they never stoop so low. (I am a Reason subscriber myself, but not a libertarian. (Reason is the magazine for thinking Libertarians).)
No less an authority than Alan Dershowitz has supported National ID cards, and he is not ordinarily associated with reduction of liberties.
Intent to track “us”. No. Intent to track after the fact to help identify accomplices and prevent further attacks. Intent to enforce outsanding warrants, and possibly get a break. “Us” are already trackable by standard surveillance methods, it is illegal without suspicion.
I object to randomly stopping people without suspicion. I spend about 25% of my time advocating for civil rights though the political process. I do not object to having a search before going into a courthouse (which I do regularaly, or large gathering, or airport, which we all do). I do object to my house being searched.
There is a substantial body of U.S. Supreme Court opinions curtailing civil rights during war time. Lincoln suspended writs of habeas corpus to keep newspaper editors hostile to the cause in prison. The Court supported it. Japanese internment was upheld. What do you think? I am against these indefinite detentions without specific suspicion. But if a weak case of espionage or subversion can be made in time of war that no one would care about in time of peace, should that person be out on the streets? It is easy to say definitively one way or the other, but try it after considering the issues.
Failure to have the card is a crime? That is a straw man argument, I haven’t suggested it, and neither has anyone else, as far as I know. If someone is suggesting it, they should back off to the position of requesting it at specific points of need. It is to be used for things like going to airports. Leave it home and you get to stay out of the airport or other public place.
Typical “Irish” cops. This is an appeal to racism. That is illegal. Did you know you can sue the cop for improper searches? And even assuming this is true, an id card doesn’t lend itself to that either more or less. Remember, the card I am talking about is you bring it to go to City Hall or the Airport or the ballgame, not to cruise down to the mall.
Forgery assumption. Let’s assume that it has your picture, thumprint, authentication code and there is a database it links to showing picture, matching thumbprint and possibly history of public buildings you’ve been too. This makes it substantially more difficult to forge than money, and therefore not practical. If one of your ten hijackers gets caught with the forgery, the computer cross checks it against your homeboys and the plane never gets off the ground.
"Even in a time of turmoil, here are three words that no American should ever hear: ‘Your papers, please!’ " said Steve Dasbach, national director of the Libertarian Party. “Our victory over terrorism will be cheapened if we make America less of a free country in the process.”
Nice reference to Nazis, without actually doing it. Of course this is what we already do at airports and courthouses. It isn’t really an argument, except to make the current process more efficient. I don’t hear the LP asking to remove the ID requirement at airports currently. Straw argument.
Over the past several weeks, a number of House and Senate lawmakers have hinted that they are open to the idea of a mandatory national ID card, perhaps with “biometric identifiers” like a fingerprint.
Polls show that a significant number of Americans agree: A Pew Research Center poll released September 19 found that 70% favored a requirement that citizens carry a national ID card at all times.
Another mischaracterization of argument: the poll asks for carrying at all times, which just isn’t practical, not the Congress’s proposal. Good job of hyperbole LP! Invalid premise to argument. The government already has my picture and fingerprints (no, I’ve never been arrested).
“Although these poll numbers are probably inflated because of the September 11 attacks, it does appear that many Americans equate bigger government with more safety,” said Dasbach. “But there’s considerable evidence that a national ID card would do nothing to combat terrorism, while giving the government extraordinary new power.”
Let’s see. Admission the previous argument was based on false data, and then leap of logic about public wanting bigger government and belief it would result in safety. Assumption that ID card would do nothing to battle terrorism, assumption of new government power beyond basics of proposal, assumption of “considerable evidence” without citation to any of it. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks if I had tracking information for public building entries for the past year on the perps, I could find virtually every single person who helped them during that year, regardless of whether they were on that flight, simply by cross referencing on a computer. This can be done now by accessing several databases, but the amount of time and effort it takes is unreal.
It won’t work. “Of the 19 hijackers who have been identified in the September 11 attacks, all but six were in the country legally,” said Dasbach. "That means they could have shown a valid national ID card before boarding – and then proceeded to commandeer four planes and slaughter 5,000 innocent people.
We are not trying to go back in time to prevent 9/11, and we don’t claim that. We are trying to find out when these people are in the same place at the same time and find out who they are. Finding even one person in the country illegally in proximity to someone he/she has met with before could prevent furture incidents. The argument just makes no sense. Computers can profile all of this, automatically, in seconds. The assumption that it wouldn’t do any good is pure begging the question. There are hundreds of ways it could be very useful.
"And terrorists who come into the country illegally will be able to get national ID cards as well – either by forging documents, stealing someone else’s identity, or bribing public officials.
How please? These are all assumptions and assume 100% inefficiency. More question begging. As mentioned elsewhere, forgery can be made a practical impossibility, using someone elses ID won’t work with a photo and thumbprint or retinal scan.
12. “As a recent USA Today article on ‘Do-It-Yourself’ forgery found, teenagers using new digital technology make fake IDs that are good enough to ‘astonish authorities’ and even fool police officers. Does any sensible American believe that a terrorist organization with a $200 million budget can send dozens of people to flight school, hijack four jetliners simultaneously, and terrorize a nation – yet be unable to create fake IDs?” asked Dasbach.
This is a straw man argument. We are not talking about a national ID card to allow drinking or driving, and by the way, all these teenagers were caught, weren’t they? We are talking about a photo/thumbprint id card with data connecting to a computer that verifies all of it every time and notes suspicious patterns. I know that you want the right to do suspicious things, but when you keep doing them, I’d like the police to talk to you just to be sure.
“In the end, the only people who will be inconvenienced by such cards are law-abiding Americans. You’re the one who won’t be able to board a plane, write a check, or even enter a movie theater if you forget your ID card – while terrorists and other criminals blithely circumvent that law, just as they do every other law.”
I’m an adult and carry my wallet doing all these things and have to bring it out for all these things. Not a persuasive argument at all, is it? We do not as Americans have a right to avoid inconvenience (as much as we would all like it). I would find it very convenient not to have to deal with idiot LP press releases by a party that cannot even put together an argument, but it’s part of participating in the political process, being an American, so I do it.
It’s un-American. “In Nazi Germany, citizens had to produce a compulsory ID on demand, or face arrest, and the Taliban government in Afghanistan forces non-Moslems to wear an identifying mark on their clothes,” said Dasbach.
Ah, finally the Nazi argument in full. Our country is heading into fascism headlong by allowing corporations to dictate policy and excluding people, but that still isn’t Nazism. The ID on demand is the pollster’s argument. The Congressional proposal is for an id card for airports and public buildings, for which you must already produce ID or be searched. Having non-Muslims be identified is not the same as having everyone use ID for certain uses.
“Other countries that have mandatory ID cards include Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and many socialist European nations. Do we really want to become the kind of country where Americans are forced to produce internal passports to police officers?”
How does one follow from the other? This argument once again conflates ID cards for airports and such with becoming a police state. Make the real argument about how one is the equivilent of the other, not merely theories about how it might get real bad, or maybe not.
It will give the government more power to track, monitor, and catalog law-abiding citizens – permanently.
I disagree. The government already has this ability. It may actually make it illegal for the government to do so. It will make it a hellavu lot easier to nail the government for doing so illegally.
“One of the most basic civil rights is the right to be left alone if you’re doing nothing wrong,” said Dasbach. “Once the police have the power to compel you to produce an ID card, that right will be lost.”
The Congress does not have the right to pass a law that allows the police to bug you if you aren’t under suspicion. This is plainly ignoring the power of Congress to pass laws. But it does allow for statistical certainty in proving illegal ethnic profiling.
Unfortunately, at a time when Americans are vulnerable to terrorists, they’re also most vulnerable to politicians who want to pass laws that we’ll all regret later, said Dasbach.
And also for like Dashach who cannot make a real argument.
“And that’s why Americans must stand up and say no to a national ID card,” he said. “It’s time to let everyone know that we will never surrender – either to terrorists or to the misguided politicians who insist that Americans need to give up freedom in order to preserve it.”
Carrying identification when wanting to do certain things is not a reduction of freedom, we already have to do it. Making it work more efficiently than a driver’s license is not a problem as far as I am concerned.
In short, not one of these reasons in this press release is a valid argument under the rules of logic. That doesn’t mean that people shouldn’t be uncomfortable, we are. But that isn’t a real argument
In these discussions I often see a lot the argument “they can already do it with your driver’s license which is pretty much an ID card”. OK… so… if they can already do it with that why do they want me to carry one more piece of ID? If the ID does no more than the driver’s license then what’s wrong with just keeping the driver’s license? I object to more bureaucracy.
What might make sense and might be more acceptable is a national driver’s license – ID card, rather than them being issued by the several states.
Still, I have to repeat what Hayek said about giving power to the government. Power can be used for good and for bad. Yes, giving certain power to the government means they can do some good things but it also means they can do some bad things. A government with absolute power would be in the best position to do good things yet we choose to limit the power of governments even if it means they have more difficulty in doing some good things just because we would rather not give them the chance to do some bad things.
I find the argument that “if you are not doing anything bad why would you care if the government knows what you are doing?” particularly offensive. The government should know about me only what it needs to know for good reason, and no more.
I visited this thread a couple of times but it seemed like it was so one-sided. I didn’t have anything to add because I need more time on what I consider more important issues. So now I am glad to see other opinions. FWIW. I only want to add that I would not oppose a requirement that all airline passengers show a passport. I had to do this traveling through Europe on planes and trains. On a Czech train they checked my passport 4 times. The reason I support the use of passports is that they seem more difficult to forge and I think there are higher penalties associated with forging them as opposed to forging a driver’s license. It just makes life a little more uncomfortable and burdensome for potential “evil doers.” I also disagree with people who want to lie down and let the train of “We can’t stop terrorism” roll over them. How do we know if we don’t try?
Sailor, this is a good question. Thank you. My driver’s license does not have a fingerprint, but it does have a hologram (for authenticity FWIW) and a mag stripe on the back. Information must be confirmed with my state DMV and it is about my driving record, and presumably any warrants. A national ID (or driver’s license for those of us driving) would give an arresting officer access to data in any state, a photo via computer to verifiy the photo on the card and a thumbprint and/or retinal scan for secure verification. If I tell the officer I am doing a tour of all the national football stadiums, and he meets the other criteria for checking that out, then he might be allowed to access that data, if I’ve been swiping my card in readers to get into stadiums, or airports or whatever.
With sufficient computing power, let’s assume that I have a dead terrorits ID card number after a tragedy. Since he was so careful, we didnt catch him and thousands are dead. I run his information through the computer, and I find that there are a few dozen people nationwide who for the past several years always flew to the same cities within a day of his flights, so I conclude that perhaps these people are worth talking to. I find out that a few of them are also dead terrorists. Others, after talking to are just coincidence. Yet a few are highly suspicious for live accomplices. I run similar checks on them, and find other people who they have been meeting with, basically supporting different terrorist cells. Cells are not supposed to work this way, but terrorists are sometimes sloppy. The power of not having to check credit card databases, ticket databases (with multiple false names) makes this much more efficient. It is called data mining.
Before I debate with you further, I’d like to know a couple of things:
Why do you find it necessary to treat me with such condescension? Is it because of my lack of formal education?
A related question: why do you seem to hold me in such contempt? What did I do to upset you? Let me explain that I was not questioning your patriotism when I asked whether you were an American, but was trying to establish your frame of reference.
Why do you say things like, “I know that you want the right to do suspicious things”? What makes you think you “know” this about me?
Why do you assume that I have not thought any of this through?
And finally, I have a number of problems with your analysis in your long post, and would like to enumerate them. But I don’t want to waste either your time or mine if you simply hate me a priori and we stand no chance of a civil debate. So my question is, can you and I start over, and address one another as civil men who both have decent motives and value our liberties?
In any case, I ask you to accept my apology for leaving you the impression that I questioned your patriotism.
