National I.D. Card

RPM · Sep 25, 2001

hightechredneck wrote:

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.

and your point is? Remember, to old Benjamin a weapon of mass destruction was a cannon or a shotgun. This is one of the most badly misquoted lines out there.

The times have changed.

Patrick

ejb · Sep 25, 2001

>>One way to make their job easier and cheaper would be with a national ID system.

I'll ask the question again. How would a national ID card have prevented Tim McVeigh from bombing the OK fed building?

hightechredneck · Sep 25, 2001

yes, sadly, the times have changed.

but they didn't changed overnight. they changed overtime. it's called incrementalism and it's the crux of your argument.

you keep saying that any privacy we have is illusory and that the national id card will just make it cheaper and quicker for the "authorities" to find out who you are. you will find no argument from me on that.

what concerns me, and i suspect many others, is what else this id card can be used for.

seems like every time an abortion clinic is bombed or shot up it's always done by some radical right-to-life Christian.

so, in the not to distant future, it would make sense for the whitewright police department to keep an eye on me since they did a sweep on the id card database and it turns out that i'm a member of the Trinity Baptist church and i also have a ccl. maybe even come by and ask to inspect the house. after all, if i haven't done anything wrong then i shouldn't have anything to hide, right?

the strength of America is the freedom and liberty that it's citizens enjoy. we don't make America a safer and better place by removing those freedoms.

as far as Mr. Franklin's quote, it's just as applicable today as it was during the infancy of our country. (i'm assuming you meant mis-applied and not mis-quoted. i'm pretty sure that what i wrote was a direct quote)

in my opinion, the answer is not to curtail the freedoms and liberties of the citizens. the answer is to restore some of the lost freedoms(the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed) and to enforce immigration laws and keep a closer eye on those that are in this country both legally and illegally.

i'm not saying you are wrong in your opinions. i'm saying that you and i haven't a different concept of what makes this country strong and safe.

best regards,

charlie

PitbullMidwest · Sep 25, 2001

Then what would you consider intrusive?

RPM · Sep 25, 2001

>>I'll ask the question again. How would a national ID card have prevented Tim McVeigh from bombing the OK fed building?

Possibly the Feds would have had a better grip on the militia movement in the first place.

Definitely they would have caught him quicker afterwards.

Probably they wouldn't have screwed up the trial so badly.

Good question. As I've said, a national ID system is not a panacea - but it closes the gap significantly.

Both Oklahoma City and the World Trade Center were the first of their kind - major terrorist events on US soil committed by domestic and foreign terrorists respectively. Both would have been extremely hard to prevent.

A national ID system that was well monitored could help to prevent similar incidents in the future. What will always catch us out is incidents that we didn't seriously contemplate.

I think we've learned our lesson and it's time to put some measures in place. I think a national ID system is a good start.

Patrick

RPM · Sep 25, 2001

hightechredneck wrote:

>>seems like every time an abortion clinic is bombed or shot up it's always done by some radical right-to-life Christian.

>>so, in the not to distant future, it would make sense for the whitewright police department to keep an eye on me since they did a sweep on the id card database and it turns out that i'm a member of the Trinity Baptist church and i also have a ccl. maybe even come by and ask to inspect the house. after all, if i haven't done anything wrong then i shouldn't have anything to hide, right?

This is where we have to rely on the constitution. Police don't do that today and they may well have the information you refer to at hand. This is the kind of legal issue that the founding fathers did have in mind when they put the checks and balances into the constitution. It's the reason why it is still not a trivial task to get a search warrant, or place a wiretap.

You raise a good point. There would have to be some justification of what information can be stored on individuals. This doesn't mean that a national ID system wouldn't work. At it's most basic it would just verify who a person is - perhaps whether they were a citizen or not and whether or not they had a criminal record or outstanding warrant. Perhaps the location of that 'check' would also be recorded.

Even with just this basic information, if the FBI or NSA happened to be interested in that individual, say, as part of a terrorist organization they would have a far better jump on the matter.

>>the strength of America is the freedom and liberty that it's citizens enjoy. we don't make America a safer and better place by removing those freedoms.

Sometimes a strength can become a weakness when the rules change. I don't like this change, but it has happened. We need to adapt or will suffer. Our adversaries are more than willing to exploit this new set of rules to bring death and destruction to us.

>>as far as Mr. Franklin's quote, it's just as applicable today as it was during the infancy of our country. (i'm assuming you meant mis-applied and not mis-quoted. i'm pretty sure that what i wrote was a direct quote)

I meant mis-applied. I maintain that it does not apply to today. Old Ben did not have the knowledge of today's threats to balance his argument.

>>in my opinion, the answer is not to curtail the freedoms and liberties of the citizens. the answer is to restore some of the lost freedoms(the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed) and to enforce immigration laws and keep a closer eye on those that are in this country both legally and illegally.

OK - so tell me why that's the answer!! Immigration laws weren't the problem at the World Trade Center or Oklahoma City. How on earth would the right to bear arms have helped either situation as well? If anything it makes it easier for a potential terrorist that enters this country to arm themselves ...

Patrick

RPM · Sep 25, 2001

>>Then what would you consider intrusive?

I'll define it by what I don't consider intrusive. We'll keep the Taleban out of it for the moment as that will complicate the matter.

For me, the crux of the matter is to consistently verify a persons identity as they carry out the major tasks of their life. Consider it (ideally) a super-secure version of a Social Security Card.

The goal in this is to drastically reduce the possibility of using fake IDs to open bank accounts, steal identities, book airline tickets etc. The direct knock-on effect is that once an individual is suspected (for whatever reason) of a crime, they can be tracked without hiding behind a series of fake identities.

That's all. No tracking of religion or political affiliation or anything else of that nature. We have checks and balances in our constitution already to help protect against abuses of this nature. Yes - we will need to lobby our representatives to make sure that any legislation is carefully crafted.

The technology exists to do this ID work. The Pentagon uses retina/iris scans and thumb-prints to access some of their more secure areas. Both are very fast.

Will it eliminate terrorism? - no ...

Does it eliminate the need for intelligence sources to identify potential terrorist suspects in the first place? - no ...

Does it make law enforcement's job much easier in finding suspects once identified (doesn't mean after a crime committed)? - yes

Does it make law enforcement's job of tracking that individual's network of associates easier? - yes

As I keep saying, there is no ideal fix. A national ID system is a strong contender to make us all more secure though. It significantly raises the bar for these terror groups - a bar which is currently down at ground level ...

Patrick

P.S. I would sign up for a national ID system just to reduce identity theft - never mind terrorism.

ejb · Sep 25, 2001

>>No tracking of religion or political affiliation or anything else of that nature.

>>Does it make law enforcement's job much easier in finding suspects once identified (doesn't mean after a crime committed)? - yes

>>Does it make law enforcement's job of tracking that individual's network of associates easier? - yes

I find a few holes in the above statement. If you don't track political associations, religous affliations or anything else etc, how exactly does a national ID card allow LE officers to track an individual's network of associates?

Thats the problem, it won't be just used as an ID; it is WILL be used to track everything about honest citizens that should have the right to do as they please as long as they do not break laws...every read George Orwells 1984?

Papers please...

RPM · Sep 25, 2001

>>I find a few holes in the above statement. If you don't track political associations, religous affliations or anything else etc, how exactly does a national ID card allow LE officers to track an individual's network of associates?

>>Thats the problem, it won't be just used as an ID; it is WILL be used to track everything about honest citizens that should have the right to do as they please as long as they do not break laws...every read George Orwells 1984? 

OK - three separate responses from me to your points here.

1. I agree that my arguments aren't watertight - but I believe that the use of a national ID system is the right general direction. There is lots of work ahead to define appropriate usage, constitutionality etc.

2. How would it be useful without political or religious affiliations noted?

Well - this one is a little more complex. Simply put, imagine two lists of names. One is for the national ID system. The other is a list that may get turned up by the NSA/CIA/FBI. How do you track down suspects? Match up the lists. You might do the match by finger-print, or by name, or by some other unique characteristic, but you would be able to do it.

So, the national ID system does not end up carrying any extraneous information. If the list being researched by the FBI/NSA/CIA just happens to be for the Islamic Jihad or the Michigan Militia, that's their concern. They would have to have legitimate concern to be pursuing their investigation as governed by the usual laws in place today. So all that the national ID system is doing at this point is saying yes - this individual's last known location was Michigan ... and when you catch up with the individual the biometric information should be secure enough that you can confirm the person you have in custody is the person that (for example) came into the country via Saudi Arabia 7 months ago -- OR -- is actually John Doe from Arizona as he claims.

3. How does this help with networks of individuals?

So, next step. FBI/CIA/NSA or whatever develops sufficient evidence to exercise a search warrant (or whatever the suitable legal document is) to check with the banks as to what financial activity the individual has been up to. A judge would have to approve based on the evidence presented to them by the appropriate agency.

The agency would then be able to see who checks were written to, timing and location of cash withdrawals, credit-card transactions etc. This helps dramatically with identifying whether or not the person is receiving wired funds etc.

In essence, the national ID system provides a difficult-to-forge identity that the various agencies can then use to cross-reference information. As I said in another message - imagine it as a super-secure Social Security Number.

I notice that you are a software developer ... think of the national ID as a unique key-field for a variety of databases. The critical issue being that it is not just a number - it would also have to be linked to some super-secure biometric information such as digitized fingerprint, retina scan etc. to make effective -- technologies that are available today.

Patrick

P.S. I have read 1984, Animal Farm etc. - Orwell was a gloomy character. Those are extreme illustrations.

Again, the reality is that your privacy is an illusion already. The really scary part about that is that you are wide open to identity theft in addition to the terrorist risk. I would advocate a national ID system just to halt the scourge of identity theft. The benefit of being able to track terrorists more quickly is an added bonus in my mind.

ERNIEB · Sep 25, 2001

Gee Bird, by the time I get around to answering your post two pages have appeared. Since our founding fathers are being pulled from the closet and rattled about skeleton-like. I guess I'll do the same. Wasn't it Thomas Payne who said "These are the times that try men's souls". Now someone tell me that one doesn't apply.
Bird, I agree with you. If it does turn into the same thing as the drug czar, then the war on terrorism will be the same as the war on drugs. Need I say more?
But, as I said if it's done right, I think it can be more effective than a National ID card. I heard today that drug siezures on the border with Mexico have decreased in recent weeks. The reason being that with the steped up security smuglers are not willing to try.

Ernie