http://www.nytimes.com/...
I'm not sure whether I'm for a national ID card at this point, but I haven't seen many good arguments against one. Mostly what I see is either misinformation about privacy or some hysterical references to 1984.
The article is about states not being able to make a deadline for the RealID Law, which (according to the article) requires states to implement citizenship checks at the DMV. One of the arguments against the mandate is that that it amounts to a national ID card enforced at the state level. So let's take a look at the points made against a national ID card:
"There are unanswered concerns about privacy," said Pamela Walsh, a spokeswoman for Mr. Lynch.
Ok. What questions?
Mr. Nixon said that the law would cost his state $50 million a year and that linking data from each state would create "effectively a national citizenship database."
"I can just hear the black helicopters arriving now," he said.
We already have a national citizenship database. The law requires a check with that database to ensure that the applicant for a driver's license is legally in the country.
"Black helicopters"?
Senator Margaret Wood Hassan, a Democrat, who said that she worried that Real ID could lead to a national ID card and that "the more you centralize data, the easier it is for someone to break into it."
Not true. The security of a database is not dependent on the centralization of data. Also, the database already exists. The law requires states to access that database. In effect, states are arguing that state employees are not to be trusted with national immigration information. But isn't that a problem for the states, namely, to check the background of an employee?
Representative Neal M. Kurk, a Republican who quoted Patrick Henry in a speech that helped sway the House, and who is so privacy-conscious he refused to disclose his occupation or age in an interview, said that Real ID would not demonstrably improve security because terrorists would find ways to get the cards, and that the law would mean too many compromises.
"If you say you can't board a plane without a Real ID driver's license, it's not that far of a stretch to say you can't do other things unless you have this type of identification," like get a job, he said. "It reminds us all of '1984' and more importantly, 'Papers, please,' in the Nazi era."
The first point he makes is that it won't work, but why all this fear? If the card will not work, then why all the fear-mongering and Nazi references?
The cause has also been embraced by some evangelical Christians, who say Real ID sets the stage for a number for each citizen, which, according to the Book of Revelation, presages the Apocalypse.
Please. We already have a number--a social security number. We also have credit scores, but I don't see the Christians, or any other political group for that matter, rallying against credit checks by employers.
I'm posting this here because I believe that most readers of this blog are against the RealID legislation, and I wan't to hear some good arguments against it. Thanks.