[wordup] William Safire on a national ID card: "Beware!"

[Adam Shand]

Via: politech at politechbot.com
From: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/24/opinion/24SAFI.html

Threat of National ID
By WILLIAM SAFIRE
December 24, 2001

WASHINGTON -- A device is now available to help pet owners find lost
animals. It's a little chip implanted under the skin in the back of the
neck; any animal shelter can quickly scan lost dogs or cats and pick up
the address of the worried owner.

That's a good side of identification technology. There's a bad side: fear
of terrorism has placed Americans in danger of trading our "right to be
let alone" for the false sense of security of a national identification
card.

All of us are willing to give up some of our personal privacy in return
for greater safety. That's why we gladly suffer the pat-downs and
"wanding" at airports, and show a local photo ID before boarding. Such
precautions contribute to our peace of mind.

However, the fear of terror attack is being exploited by law enforcement
sweeping for suspects as well as by commercial marketers seeking
prospects. It has emboldened the zealots of intrusion to press for the
holy grail of snoopery a mandatory national ID.

Police unconcerned with the sanctity of an individual's home have already
developed heat sensors to let them look inside people's houses. The
federal "Carnivore" surveillance system feeds on your meatiest e- mail.
Think you can encrypt your way to privacy? The Justice Department is proud
of its new "Magic Lantern": all attempts by computer owners to encode
their messages can now be overwhelmed by an electronic bug the F.B.I. can
plant on your keyboard to read every stroke.

But in the dreams of Big Brother and his cousin, Big Marketing, nothing
can compare to forcing every person in the United States under penalty of
law to carry what the totalitarians used to call "papers."

The plastic card would not merely show a photograph, signature and
address, as driver's licenses do. That's only the beginning. In time, and
with exquisite refinements, the card would contain not only a fingerprint,
description of DNA and the details of your eye's iris, but a host of other
information about you.

Hospitals would say: How about a chip providing a complete medical history
in case of emergencies? Merchants would add a chip for credit rating, bank
accounts and product preferences, while divorced spouses would lobby for a
rundown of net assets and yearly expenditures. Politicians would like to
know voting records and political affiliation. Cops, of course, would
insist on a record of arrests, speeding tickets, E-Z pass auto movements
and links to suspicious Web sites and associates.

All this information and more is being collected already. With a national
ID system, however, it can all be centered in a single dossier, even
pressed on a single card with a copy of that card in a national databank,
supposedly confidential but available to any imaginative hacker.

What about us libertarian misfits who take the trouble to try to "opt
out"? We will not be able to travel, or buy on credit, or participate in
tomorrow's normal life. Soon enough, police as well as employers will
consider those who resist full disclosure of their financial, academic,
medical, religious, social and political affiliations to be suspect.

The universal use and likely abuse of the national ID a discredit card
will trigger questions like: When did you begin subscribing to these
publications and why were you visiting that spicy or seditious Web site?
Why are you afraid to show us your papers on demand? Why are you paying
cash? What do you have to hide?

Today's diatribe will be scorned as alarmist by the same security-mongers
who shrugged off our attorney general's attempt to abolish habeas corpus
(which libertarian protests and the Bush administration's sober second
thoughts seem to be aborting). But the lust to take advantage of the
public's fear of terrorist penetration by penetrating everyone's private
lives this time including the lives of U.S. citizens protected by the
Fourth Amendment is gaining popularity.

Beware: It is not just an efficient little card to speed you though lines
faster or to buy you sure-fire protection from suicide bombers. A national
ID card would be a ticket to the loss of much of your personal freedom.
Its size could then be reduced for implantation under the skin in the back
of your neck.