How digital IDs erase the American dream

American Thinker ^ | 15 Oct, 2025 | Kevin Finn

[MtnClimber]

The stories of tyrannical government intrusions coming out of China and the U.K. should terrify everyone. It calls to mind Benjamin Franklin’s quote: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” That’s how it starts, with lines like “Two weeks to slow the curve.” Next thing you know, a year has gone by, and people have lost their jobs because they refused to take the “Fauci Ouchie.”

In this context, the push for digital IDs emerges not as a simple technological upgrade, but as a Trojan horse for unprecedented government intrusion. Americans (conservatives, that is) have always championed limited government, individual sovereignty, and the right to privacy as enshrined in the Fourth Amendment. Proponents of centralized digital identity systems proclaim their promises of efficiency and security, yet they prioritize bureaucratic control over liberty. By consolidating our personal data into vast, vulnerable databases, digital IDs enable pervasive surveillance, invite catastrophic breaches, and turn inalienable rights into revocable privileges. Metadata, such as timestamps, locations, and device details, is logged automatically and paints a comprehensive portrait of one’s life without consent.

Each digital verification, such as checks of age or identity, creates a record accessible to governments or corporations and builds a profile that tracks movements, purchases, and associations. It violates the separation between private life and state scrutiny. The government has no right to know where we travel, what we buy, what we own, what we think, or what faith we practice.

Centralized systems exacerbate this. They merge health records, financial data, tax filings, purchases, and even social media activity into a single repository. Authoritarian regimes like China’s are exploiting these tools via social credit systems, where dissent on monitored platforms triggers restrictions on travel or employment.

[faithhopecharity]

True.
But they won’t stop
Using their credit cards. They’re collecting S&H green stamps. Oops, airline points.

[oldtech]

If we break a law we can be arrested. Otherwise, the more the government stays out of our private business, the better off we are. We don’t need any such thing as digital ID. For the criminals among us, then it’s a different story, but they can be treated differently. For those of us who are law-abiding, leave us alone!