Rightwords... Prudent Conservatism

Why Are People so Dead Set Against a National Identity Card?


I opened my wallet just now and looked at the cards I carry. Two credit cards, for which I had to tell the credit people many details of my life. A driver's license with my picture on it, and my Social Security Number too. An auto insurance card, and an auto registration card that tells anyone what car I drive and what address I live at. Three grocery store cards, but their information is held by the stores somewhere. There is enough information about me in these cards to allow a criminal to steal my identity if he got hold of it. Downtown, I am registered as the owner of this house, together with my wife, and I am on the taxpayer roles of the IRS, this State, and this city.

Then I went to my bureau drawer and pulled out my US Passport, which has my picture, signature and home address on it. A thief in the night could set himself up very well with a new identity for a while. So what difference would one more piece of identity do to hurt me? Nothing I can see. In fact, it could help me a lot if I kept it somewhere other than where my wallet or passport are kept. The loss of either or both of them could be rectified rapidly if I had my super-duper ID card handy.

In all of the jobs I had, I was issued a company ID with my picture on it. I carried that card around every workday. It even had encodings to show the level of security clearance I held.
And somewhere in the world of government there is a dossier on me that shows all of the information collected about me over my lifetime, including fingerprints, pictures, and statements of investigators and their sources about me. Then too, every person born in the US has a birth certificate attesting to their birth, place of birth, and the names of their parents, and many also include footprints of the baby. There is a record on me somewhere in the Defense Department because of my service during the Korean War.

If you think a National or State Persons Database would threaten your life or existence, or curtail your freedoms, I think that is sheer baloney. Those who do object to it must have a reason. What is it? Are they afraid that their subversive activities would be discovered? Are they illegal immigrants? What is the beef? The ALCU sees it as a possible restriction of freedom. For me, that almost guarantees that there is a more sinister reason for the Leftist ALCU to be so upset.

We witnessed chicanery in Washington State during the last election, that could have been avoided if registered voters had valid picture ID Cards. Same would be true everywhere, provided the cards would be very difficult or virtually impossible to forge.

So tell me again: what's the beef?

# posted by Mannning @ 11:34 PM