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Posted on 10/08/2001 8:36:10 AM PDT by Eala

John,

I heard a brief part of your program on "national IDs" Thursday and there were two things I noted: your mind was not necessarily made up on the issue, and your guest breezily dismissed many arguments as being just slippery slope arguments. You will understand that [my wife] and I are very sensitive to this issue; I pray you will hear us out.

Your guest was correct -- and also very very wrong. That the arguments are slippery slope arguments does not mean they are false. We have already in fact descended some distance down this slippery slope. To elaborate:

1. (The beginning:) I got my Social Security card in the early 60s. It bears the legend "FOR SOCIAL SECURITY AND TAX PURPOSES - NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION."

2. [My wife] got her card some years later, but hers does not bear that legend. I don't know when or why it vanished.

3. Sometime after that, requests for one's SSN as an individual-specific identifier began. There were protests and alternatives were made available, in at least most cases.

4. Ten to fifteen years ago the federal government made it mandatory for children claimed as dependents to have SSNs. There are two ways to read this requirement; verification, or imposition of a national ID number. I consider it the first.

This is where we are today. Small steps, each, but steps taken in a definite direction.

From here on I am speculating. Your guest was calling for an explicit ID card, correctly noting that it is a very small step from where the SSN is -- today. (But a big step from its beginning.) To carry the issue forward:

5. The next step is a plastic card, probably not unlike a driver's license, bearing the ID number, photograph, etc.

But no matter what means are employed, forged and/or false cards will appear.

6. This will result in a call for a more sophisticated "smart card", which will contain name, number, photograph and other identifying biometric data (fingerprints, DNA).

John, I went to the Internet to locate a quote I had read a few days ago. I found on the way that this argument has been going on at least since 1995, below (and I apologize, until I saw the site this was going to be a short e-mail):

From http://www.jvim.com/IntelligenceBriefing/September1995/Mark.html

Democrats such as Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Republicans such as Gov. Pete Wilson agree that the time has come for a national identity card, perhaps including biometric data. Such a card is already in use by the federal government. It's called, interestingly, MARC -- for Multi- Technology Automated Reader Card, and all armed services personnel are familiar with it. Feinstein recently called on her colleagues in the U.S. Congress to make carrying such a card mandatory for every American citizen. Her remarks, memorialized in the daily Washington journal Roll Call, are stunning in their candor and chilling in their content. "I believe that a new, phone- or machine-readable card that all job and benefits applicants would be required to present to verify their work or eligibility for assistance deserves careful consideration," she said. "As (the Senate subcommittee on immigration) heard ([from authorities]), counterfeit-resistant cards that incorporate 'biometric' data are available and in use today. [...] [I]t is clear to me that state-of-the- art work and benefits eligibility IDs can and must replace the Dinosaur Age documents now being used."

But there will be a loss. Today's (10/07) Eastside Journal, p.A12, quotes Donald Hamilton, former advisor to the National Commission on Terrorism:

For example, he cites proposals for a national identification card. He likes the idea: "People are going to discover the ancillary benefits real quickly. Hey, this is a wonderful tool for tracking deadbeat dads." And yet he recognizes we would be giving up something that is "almost palpable -- ability to leave, go elsewhere, start over."

I will go further and state a concern that the card will likely end up carrying rap sheets, driving violations, and every other unpleasant encounter with the government. This may sound like a good thing, but consider what is lost, the precious "ability to leave, go elsewhere [...].

So far not especially frightening, or even worrisome, for somebody who has never had a run-in with the government. But the following, which was the quote I was searching for, from the site above, puts it in perspective:

"A national ID database represents the slipperiest of all civil liberty slopes," says Ron K. Unz, himself a computer software entrepreneur. "A system employing tens of thousands of government clerks and administrators and costing tens of billions of dollars to build and operate would surely not remain limited to catching illegal nannies. Why not use it, at virtually no additional cost, to track convicted child molesters as well? Who would dare object? Why not then also track the movements of convicted murderers. And rapists. And drug dealers and felons in general. And fathers behind in child support. And tax-evaders. And 'political extremists.' Members of 'religious cults.' Drug addicts. AIDS carriers. Gun owners. With each turn of the political cycle, left and right would add their favorite batch of social enemies to the surveillance list."

John, I should quit here. But once we have arrived at this point (and I have no doubt we will reach it, for each step is but a small step from the preceding one), we are really only one small step from the very bottom of this slippery slope.

The final step is control, direct control of an individual's purchases, travel, etc. I admit that this is pure speculation, but consider that there are already sectors of society that various groups would love to exercise control over: all kinds of ex-offenders, deadbeat dads, any fringe political or religious group deemed a threat to someone (in power -- could it include "the vast right-wing conspiracy"?), and so on.

Those on the fringe would suffer it first. But throw in something like today's terrorist scenarios, and it's only a short step to implementing any number of old science fiction dystopic-future schemes, all chilling variations on a theme, all in the name of being safe.

Unlike then it is possible now. We have the technology.

I consider this last step unlikely. But even if we stop at the stage Unz describes, America will be horribly transformed. This is why I do not like, why I fear, the national ID card.

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