What's Really Wrong with National ID Cards
by Jack Rain
The national ID card threat is in front of us. I have not yet
seen a strong enough assault on this extremely dangerous idea,
so I will face the challenge myself.
The national ID card concept is not just bad on some
theoretical level as an invasion of privacy. It has the
potential to become an incredible source of power, more
restraining than the strongest of handcuffs and leg chains.
But first a word about its intended purpose, "to help fight
terrorism." Bunk. Some of the terrorists used fake ID's. So
what? As generals always fight the last war, politicians battle
the last terrorist attack.
Politicians banned guns on planes. They put cement barriers in
front of buildings to prevent car bombings. (Both the Pentagon
and the World Trade Center had these cement barriers in front
of them.) But the events of 9-11 certainly showed that the
terrorists figured out angles to defeat these "protections." So
don't even try to tell me that the terrorists won't find their
way around national ID cards.
But I will tell you what a national ID card will do, it will
track you and me. The national ID card system will be designed
to track people and their movements every time you are required
to show it. Otherwise, it will not serve any purpose for the
government. When we are required to show the card it will be
logged into a national ID super computer. This is the key to
understanding its danger. It will track us. We won't have the
time, the money or the underground contacts that will enable us
to defeat the system. Only terrorists and crooks will be able
to do that.
With a national ID card, when we fly, where we fly, what hotel
we stay at, it will all be tracked. Where we bank, what doctors
we see, will be tracked. In back channel ways, what meetings we
attend, where we shop and what we visit on the Internet will be
tracked.
Yes, you may agree that this will happen, but you will argue
that it happens now. Credit card companies collect and sell
data about us. Hotels sell our data and some web sites track
where we are going. But the key to all this is that it is not a
national ID card system. There is no national supercomputer
where all this data is collected in one place. And we still
have the option of easily circumventing any private data
collection system. If I want to check into a hotel, I can pay
cash and tell them I am Christopher Columbus Jr. Most hotels
will take the money (Interestingly enough, most of the "better"
hotels ask fewer questions than your average Red Roof Inn). If
I want to surf the net anonymously, I can do that by taking a
few precautions. I can travel now under any name without a
national ID card (Trust me on this--you can travel under any
name. Just ask any illegal Mexican you see and he will tell you
how to get a very good quality "Government issued ID" in any
name you want within two hours).
But a national ID card will be different, it will have our
names and some type of biological imprint--i.e., fingerprint,
eye scan, hand scan, etc.--and it will record everything in the
supercomputer whenever we are required to show it.
So what's the problem, if we are law abiding citizens? The
problem is a national ID card will create a vast source of
power. It will record where we go and what we do. It will all
be in one computer, humming away in some bombproof shelter
outside Washington D. C.
Information is valuable and powerful. I am aware of instances
where even small amounts of information are bought and sold
now.
I have an acquaintance who works for a very large utility
company. Slip him $50 and he will get you the phone number of
any person in his state--unlisted or otherwise. You see, most
people who sign up for electricity, even those concerned about
privacy, don't even think of the privacy they are giving up.
They readily provide their number to the utility. Two private
investigators have my acquaintance on the payroll, so to speak,
and there are obviously people out there willing to hire
detectives to find out unlisted numbers.
I once ran into an individual who worked for American Express.
He had a lot of fun telling me how much Charlie Sheen puts on
his American Express card every month.
It's guys like these that often provide info to the rumor
sheets like National Enquirer. But these guys have small time
bits of information compared to the tracking a modern day
national ID system computer would have. Can you imagine the
power of someone who could look at that info?
But getting back, for a minute, to the small time bits of info
collected on us by private industry. It is still possible to do
some things or all things quite anonymously if you use cash and
never ever give out your home telephone number (just give out a
voicemail or pager number, if it is required).
With a national ID card that information will be recorded, and
even if your life is a total open book with nothing to fear
from the computer that logs your every breath, there are two
very important reasons to fear.
The first reason is the rule of large numbers and coincidences.
If a national ID card is issued and raw data on individuals is
thrown into a large computer, thousands, and over time,
millions will be harassed because of coincidence. Considering
my own life, I think back and realize that I was outside the
New York City Public Library some 20 years ago when a small
pipe bomb, placed by Puerto Rican terrorists, exploded. If that
happened during a period when national ID cards existed,
wouldn't police round up and log into a computer, for future
reference, everyone's national ID card number who was at the
scene?
A few years later, I happened to arrive at the scene in New
York City at the same time as the police when mob boss Paul
Casstellano was rubbed out by John Gotti's hit men. Again,
another entry into the national ID card computer for me.
I once stayed in a hotel at the same time President Clinton was
at the hotel. This certainly would get another mention in the
national ID computer.
A couple of years later I was in the same hotel as the Prime
Minister of Canada.
More recently, just a week before the Attack on America, I was
at LAX airport in Los Angeles. There obviously was some kind of
very high alert that day (This was the Thursday before Labor
Day). I noticed police cars and police everywhere. That
afternoon, I did have to show my ID a number of times (It was
the highest security up until that time that I had ever seen at
any airport anywhere). I am sure I would have received a
special notch on my national ID card for traveling on such a
high security day. (Note: It was a short trip. I was back the
next day, and the security was back to normal, but the police
definitely were reacting to some big time tip on Thursday.)
There are probably other instances that would make my national
ID card stand out that don't come to mind right now, but
judging from the sketchiness of the direct links to bin Laden
as the mastermind of the Attack on America, this would be
enough in the computer to besmirch my reputation or worse, if
someone wanted to. You know, newspapers could have a field day.
"Jack Rain is believed to be a terrorist hit man with sympathy
towards Puerto Rican terrorists. Through national ID card data,
it has been determined that he has been present or in the
vicinity of pipe bomb attacks by Puerto Rican terrorists,
high-level mob hits, high security days at airports and has
been checked into various hotels at the same time as the
president and other world leaders."
Who knows what coincidences lurk in your background ready to be
yanked at a moment's notice by some super national ID card
computer?
But aside from the danger of someone leaking specific data on
individuals and aside from the possibility of coincidences
everywhere because of so much data being collected, here is the
biggest danger. Can you imagine former President Richard Nixon
or someone like him in power at a time national ID card
computers are humming?
Who knows who will gain the White House in the future? F.A.
Hayek, in The Road To Serfdom, has a brilliant chapter titled,
"Why the Worst Get on Top." It is a compelling argument that I
urge everyone to read. The argument in that chapter alone is
reason enough why a national ID card should never be issued.
Ruthless rulers do sometimes rise to the top. A ruthless ruler
(or anyone else with access to such a computer) would be able
to track anyone. He would know where they were going and who
they were going to see. How, just how, would we be able to ever
organize against such a ruthless ruler if he knew where all his
key opponents were and knew every move his opponents were
making? Talk about valuable, extremely dangerous information.
It will all be there in the supercomputer.
With any national ID card program, that powerful computer will
be in the hands of any potential ruthless ruler. He wouldn't
need handcuffs and leg chains to keep us from meeting with
those who might want to vote him out of office. The very fact
that he would be able to track our every move and punish us if
we were to meet with others he would not want us to me with
would very often be deterrent enough.
If we allow a national ID card to come into existence, we are
placing handcuffs and leg chains on ourselves and we are
counting on very benevolent governments and leaders in the
future that we hope will not turn the locks and throw away the
keys.
Perhaps it is much wiser that we fear what kind of evil
resource such a national ID computer will prove to be for the
next Nixon, or still worse a Stalin or Hitler.
September 27, 2001
Jack Rain is a traveler and observer of world events.