I've been reading multiple posts about national ID card. My wife and I have discussed the issue at length; she's curious as to why I'm so opposed to the idea. One of my biggest problems boils down to this: I do not believe in the idea of a benevolent government. Sure, government can do some things well. By and large, though, governments tend to suffer from scope creep: they grow and grow, centralizing more power and authority to themselves. This is not, I think, a good thing. I believe that history bears me out in this regard. Anyway, Claire Wolfe has an excellent Backwoods post on this very topic. Excerpt:

Well, so what? The United States isn’t Nazi Germany -- which used a computerized national ID system to round up Jews and other “undesirables” and send them to slave labor and death. (This “civilized” bureaucratic process behind the Nazi slaughter is icily documented in Edwin Black’s 2000 book, IBM and the Holocaust.) So what’s the big deal?

The very big deal is “mission creep.” When Social Security numbers were introduced in the 1930s, the system was “voluntary.” Citizens who worried about the biblical number of the Beast (Rev. 13: 16-1 or more mundane forms of tyranny were assured that, by law, the number would never -- ever -- be used for ID.

In the tradition of nearly every limited, temporary, or voluntary government program our Social Security number eventually became our universal identifier. No law requires you to get a Social Security number, even today. But try functioning in the everyday world of work, banking, credit, schooling, home-buying, or even video rental without one.

If national ID becomes U.S. law, five years from now you wonÂ’t be able to do any of these things without submitting to various biometric scans. But thatÂ’s barely the beginning.

The new, more high-tech national ID system would enable the federal government and its contractors to follow and electronically analyze your activities in real-time -- to pinpoint your location, check your purchases, view records of your medical condition, and monitor your bank deposits and withdrawals as you make them, for instance. Worse yet, it ultimately gives government the ability to control your activities -- to (accidentally or deliberately) freeze your bank account, shut down your credit cards, deny you access to public transportation, forbid you entry into such public places as county courthouses, deny you health care, even deny you entrance to your job once your employer has (in the name of standardization, and possibly with the spur of federal subsidies or regulations) adopted the federal system. All at the click of a computer key, somewhere in Washington, D.C.

Does this sound too much like something out of the movie “Enemy of the State”?

But remember, you’re dealing with a federal government that already forbids professional licenses, drivers licenses, and even fishing licenses not to known terrorists, criminals, or illegals -- but to ordinary parents who get behind in child support. Just think what it could do to with the instant ability to monitor and cut off access to transportation or services for a variety of disobedient or “questionable“ people.

It could happen to you if you’re a “deadbeat dad,” if you’ve neglected some traffic tickets, if you fit the “profile” of a drug user or a gun owner, if you’ve stated too many controversial opinions on the Internet, if your activities appear “suspicious” by any mysterious standard, if you’ve made political enemies -- or even if there’s a glitch in the system. And have you ever tried to straighten out even a little glitch with a government agency? Good luck to you.

This is still only the beginning. Shortly (after too many people have misplaced their cards, and too many criminals continued to get useable ID), the card-borne “smart chip” would be replaced by an implanted chip -- one of which, Digital Angel, is already on the market. Periodic scanning could then be augmented by 24-hour-a-day, satellite-based tracking. People in the U.S. will be watched and controlled far more thoroughly than Winston Smith was controlled by Big Brother in 1984 -- and for the very same reasons; to impose some social manager’s ideal of order.

Read the whole thing. And then head over to Read ID Rebellion for more information.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 03:53 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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