Posted on 05/10/2005 11:21:59 AM PDT by yatros from flatwater
Civil libertarians hate the idea, because in the ACLU's phrase, it "takes us one step closer to a national ID." What's rarely stated is why a national ID would be such a bad thing.
Discussion about whether the U.S. needs some kind of federal identification card has been around for years. Several countries already have national ID cards; according to Privacy International, this list includes Germany, France, Belgium, Greece, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain. 9-11 revived the push, and national ID proponents might secure their first victory next week when the Senate votes on the conference committee version of the $82 billion supplemental funding bill for Iraq and Afghanistan that the House OK'd yesterday.
One section of the bill prohibits the federal government from accepting state driver's licenses or other ID cards that don't meet certain "minimum document requirements." These include a digital photo, machine-readable technology, and "physical security features designed to prevent tampering, counterfeiting or duplication." States will also be required to demand certain documents from applications, including "evidence of lawful status" in the United States. And states will be required to retain paper copies of those documents for seven years, or digital copies for 10 years.
A coalition of groups opposes the Real ID Act, including the National Council of State Legislatures and the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators. They argue that the feds can't tell them how to run their driver's license bureaus, that the technology required is not yet available, and that driver's licenses are supposed to be for keeping driving safe—not securing America's borders.
But underlying all those concerns is the worry that the Real ID is a backdoor to a national identification card and what the ACLU calls a "show us your papers" society.
Maybe we're already there: I mean, the federal government already knows my social security number, the names of my wife and kid, how much money I make, where I work, where I bank, and all other sorts of neat stuff. So it's not obvious that it'd be a big deal for them to put a name and face together. What's the big deal?
"The simple answer is that it gives the government greater ability to control the actions of private individuals," says Electronic Privacy Information Center executive director Marc Rotenberg. "It has generally been the view in this country that one of the core aspects of personal freedom is to be free of government control."
"Identification is a form of coercion," Rotenberg continued. "It's a way someone says you can't do what you want to do unless you prove who you are."
Besides their objections to the National ID in principle, civil libertarians are irked that conservatives are trying to introduce such a fundamental change bit-by-bit through laws like Real ID.
There are other reasons to dislike the Real ID act. It explicitly places the burden of proof on people applying for asylum status. "There is no presumption of credibility," the bill reads. The immigration official deciding a case can ask for evidence, and if a person can't get evidence because it lies outside the U.S., "the inability to obtain corroborating evidence does not excuse the applicant from meeting the applicant's burden of proof." And the bill limits judicial review of immigration decisions.
Real ID sponsor James Sensenbrenner, Republican of Wisconsin, said in a statement that, "This legislation will tighten our asylum system, which has been abused by terrorists."
But the National Immigration Law Center points out that "terrorists are already ineligible for asylum." The American Immigration Law Foundation notes:
Republican staff on the House Judiciary Committee provided the Voice with a list of examples of terrorists who have abused U.S. asylum laws. There are seven examples:
Immigrant advocates don't find the list impressive. "Those who seek refuge in America from persecution are our allies in the fight for democracy and against despotism," argues the NILC. "By sheltering these courageous individuals, we send a signal of support to those who remain under the kinds of regimes that foster terrorism."
The United States in 2003 received 42,000 applications for asylum (people who come here but say they can't go home, as opposed to refugees who apply overseas). The government approved 29 percent of them.
Saw that objection coming.
The only time we've ever had to look to government to draft an army the wars weren't declared. Every other time we've raised them, there were people lining up to serve. Voluntary works. Look at the relative bang for the buck, and it becomes apparent that a voluntary force is generally superior to a conscript one.
The same is true for public vs. private policing. I'd hazard a guess that more crime is deterred by rent-a-cops than the city's finest any day of the week.
Biometric data cannot be kept secret, nor can it be changed if compromised. It is only useful in situations where everyone who has, or can claim to have, scanning apparatus is trustworthy. For something like the entrance to Fort Knox, this is a reasonable assumption. For something like making credit purchases, it is not.
Biometric data relies on the person being present, do it couldn't be applied to routine credit purchases, which are often done via Internet or phone. Convictions based on biometric data would obviously be subject to verification of identity as part of the court proceedings, so nobody's going to end up doing prison time or getting deported as a result of some airline having a faulty scanner. And if once in a while a legitimate voter got denied the opportunity to vote, that would hardly be worse than the present situation, where there is virtually no control over who votes or how many times.
What would change is that repeat offenders could be readily identified and treated as such, without the endless fake identities and patchwork of ineffective ID systems that currently exist. When a guy who was convicted of aggravated assault as Joe Smith applies for a job at a nursing home as Tom Brown, claiming to have a clean record, your elderly mother won't get beaten up for wetting her bed, because "Tom Brown" will be quickly identified as the thug he really is, and not get hired to work with vulnerable elderly people (and unscrupulous nursing home operators won't have the "we didn't know" excuse to shield them from liability). And employers, both those who attempt to be law-abiding, and those who've been relying on the "we didn't know" excuse, will have an easy way to identify people who are legally allowed to work here.
Only 21% of Americans own passports.
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