[Polybius]

When you were on active duty in the Air Force, didn't your Air Force base have BOTH a secured perimeter PLUS a "military ID card, please" policy?....Polybius

As part of my official duties during my time in the AF I visited a few countries that were on the other side of the Iron Curtain - Although we were given carefully "guided" tours, we still saw people who were afraid of a government who could stop them at any time and demand their papers. .....af_vet_rr

Just as the Eastern Europeans were afraid of Soviet tanks easily entering their city centers through wide boulevards.

See Post 83.

The idea of having wide open boulevards in modern cities was not originated for the purpose of having beautiful avenues in Paris or Berlin. That idea originated so that Government troops would have open fields of fire to control the citizenry with grapeshot and volleys when they got too uppity.

Just about anything in modern society, from your digital camera to the computer you are now typing on, can be abused by a totalitarian state.

That, however, does not mean that the U.S. should still be living in a country without an Interstate Highway system or without computers and with illegal aliens flooding the country just out of fear of how modern ideas and technolgy have been abused by totalitarian states.

Putting that aside, you just hit upon one of the biggest problems with a national ID - we got a Congress and a President telling us that we need what will become a national ID, meanwhile they don't care about securing the border, or they do a half-assed job, and not only that, but they are basically granting amnesty to people who flout the border.

As for politicians, we must remember that they are all politicions first and patriots (and sometimes traitors) second.

A politician would rather have his Mexican-American voters angry at an ID Card as to why illegal Cousin Pedro can no longer get a job than have him be angry at Congressman Blowhard.

[Wallace T.]

The problem with a national ID card is the same as with currency, radar guns, encryption, etc. The private marketplace, or in some cases, the black market, has and will find ways to defeat government technology. There is no fail safe system that will prevent forgery. With a requirement for a national ID card for establishing bank accounts, obtaining employment, receiving social benefits, etc., there will develop a black market such as already exists for drivers' licenses, Mexican conciliar cards, etc. Higher tech cards will only weed out the "mom and pop" forgers, much as the restrictions on cold medicines containing amphetamines are placing the trailer park "drug labs" out of business, or, in the Prohibition era, the Mafia pushed the backyard and basement bootleggers out of business. Organized crime will issue national ID cards that will fool the run of the mill employer, bank, and social services agency. They will be expensive, but the same illegals who pay $1,000 or $2,000 for "coyotes" to enable their border crossings will spend a similar amount of money for a good quality, fake national ID card. Keep in mind that organized crime has an effective wholesale and retail narcotics distribution in place, and has accomplished this for decades in spite of local, state, and Federal law enforcement.

Even in an area where the Feds hold most of the cards, as in the issuance of currency, the problem of counterfeiting is important enough to require frequent remakes of paper money. It will be exceptionally more difficult to control forgeries when hundreds of thousands of separate actors, rather than just the U.S. Treasury Department, review documentation. You might as well try to herd cats.

Additionally, I am also assuming that the Feds are willing to enforce laws prohibiting illegal immigration. The current Administration and its predecessor have been extremely lax in this area.

The national ID card is another big government failure waiting to happen.