   The New York Times Magazine, September 8, 1996, pp. 58, 59.


   The True Terror Is In the Card

      In the name of safety, authorities are rushing to
      require identification for everyone. They're ignoring
      how much damage lies down that road.

   By Robert Ellis Smith (Mr. Smith, a lawyer, is publisher of
   Privacy Journal.)


   Last winter a friend of mine from Washington was mugged in
   New York City and had her wallet stolen. Shaken by the
   experience, she wanted only one thing, to get back home.
   Luckily, her employer's headquarters is in Manhattan and
   she was able to borrow cash to get to the airport. But she
   had some fast explaining to do there because Delta was
   demanding that passengers produce a driver's license or
   other ID before boarding the plane. After some trouble, she
   was finally able to convince the airline of her identity by
   proving she was a Delta frequent flyer. She would have an
   even harder time today because airlines are much more
   stringent since the Olympics and the T.W.A. crash.

   Delta, like other airlines, is using a directive from the
   Federal Aviation Administration to require passengers to
   provide a Government-issued identification to board an
   airplane. If it could be shown that this in fact enhances
   airline safety, then we would all readily accept this
   invasion of privacy. The Government and the airlines,
   however, have never shown a connection between the ID card
   and the prevention of explosives or weapons in luggage.

   I object to the requirement on the grounds that it forces
   me to satisfy the Government that I am a real person before
   I may exercise the constitutional right to travel within
   the United States. I object also that it is part of an
   accelerating trend toward requiring every citizen to carry
   a Government-issued ID card -- in essence, a national
   identity document.

   Attention seems to be focused on asking passengers for more
   identification rather than on subjecting all carry-on and
   checked luggage to complete screening for weapons or bombs.
   The ID requirement, in fact, serves only to lead the public
   to believe that somehow we are more secure on an airplane
   if our "papers are in order" before boarding. Probably the
   only effective consequence of such requirements is to get
   us used to the idea of presenting identification in all
   aspects of our lives.

   I'm shocked that more Americans are not shocked by the
   idea. Don't we remember the Nazi experience in Europe,
   where identity documents listing religion and ethnic
   background facilitated the roundup of Jews? Don't we
   remember how we condemned South Africa in the 1970's and
   80's for using a domestic passport to limit the movements
   of certain citizens but not others? Don't we realize the
   dangers of allowing the Government to establish identity
   and legitimacy? Isn't it, in fact, the responsibility of
   the citizenry to establish the legitimacy of the
   Government?

   Faced with rising crime, illegal immigration, welfare fraud
   and absentee parents, many bureaucrats and members of
   Congress insist that the nation would run more smoothly if
   we all had counterfeit-proof plastic identity cards. In
   considering immigration legislation this spring, the House
   came within a few votes of requiring a national
   identification card for all working Americans. Congress is
   about to authorize pilot programs with employers in several
   states verifying the legal identity of new employees by
   using central data bases. And it has already established a
   National Directory of New Hires containing the name, Social
   Security number and birth date of every person newly hired
   in the private and public sector.

   These are precursors of a national ID card. The machinery,
   in fact, is now in place. All that is missing is the piece
   of plastic -- and apparently most Americans are ready for
   it. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California has
   increased the stakes; she wants to create an identity card
   with a fingerprint, digitized photo, eye retina scan or
   some other biometric identity device.

   Would an ID card work? It would make it easy to track
   illicit cash transactions, to discover after the fact all
   persons at the scene of a crime, to know immediately
   whether an adult accompanying a child is a parent or legal
   guardian, to keep a list of suspicious persons in a
   neighborhood each night, to know who purchased a gun or
   knife or fertilizer or Satanic books, or to know who
   carries the H.I.V. virus.

   A suspicious police officer could demand to see your
   identity document and then query an on-line data base that
   would display identifying information about you. An
   employer could check the card to see whether you are a
   citizen or legal alien, have a criminal record or have
   filed previous workers' compensation claims.

   But listing possible uses of a national ID card makes
   evident how it could be a nightmare to each of us. And
   that's not even considering the errors inevitable in such
   a data base. Even a remarkably low error rate of 1 percent
   would impose hardship on 650,000 innocent Americans who
   would be excluded from work, travel, commerce or schooling
   if their identity were somehow confused with a criminal's.

   And that doesn't take into account the lucrative market in
   counterfeit ID cards. The advocates of an identity document
   want us to believe that it would be counterfeit-proof. But
   experts know there is no such thing.

   Many people, charmed by the convenience of credit-card
   shopping by number over the phone or the Internet, think we
   already have a national identity system anyway. But that
   practice is wholly voluntary and doesn't involve
   centralized Government depositories of information. It is
   true that Social Security numbers are used in all kinds of
   ways. But the number is not issued to every person in the
   country as a national ID number would be.

   Nor is a driver's license a true national identity
   document. While it is issued by a governmental agency,
   people are not required to have it when they do not drive,
   a photograph is not always required and a person who moves
   may apply for a new and different license.

   A true national identity document would be mandatory,
   everyone would have to carry it and present it upon demand.
   It would be issued to everyone, probably at birth. And the
   identity of the bearer of each card would be recorded in a
   national data bank, usually along with other personal
   history. It would be the universally accepted proof of
   identity everywhere in the society. Without the card, you
   would have no acceptable proof of your citizenship.

   Let's be clear that this is a one-way street. Once having
   established a requirement to carry photo ID, it will be
   difficult if not impossible to reverse. It's hard to
   imagine that the Government can begin issuing an
   identifying number at birth, then later tell all the
   agencies that have come to rely on it that they must
   disregard it.

   What would a national ID card mean to American life? By
   accepting it, we will have removed the spontaneity in our
   lives. Every time we leave home, it will be necessary for
   each of us to gather up "our documents" -- and those of our
   children, of course -- before we venture out, to jog in a
   park, stroll in the neighborhood, lounge at the beach, buy
   a six-pack of beer or cross a state line. We will have
   empowered police officers to stop citizens engaged in
   law-abiding activities and demand that they produce proof
   of identity and "give a good account of themselves." There
   would be no excuse for not carrying the card -- only
   criminals would not be carrying the card. By acting
   strangely at any time or by simply passing someone who
   doesn't like our looks, we can trigger a demand to produce
   the ID card. This, in turn, will trigger a search of an
   electronic data base to confirm our identity and perhaps
   provide other bits of personal data.

   For most Americans, this would usually be an occasional
   inconvenience. For many others, it would be an affront to
   their dignity -- but still nothing worse than a reason to
   rant at the next forum on civil liberties. But for several
   segments of our society, it would be truly a nightmare. One
   includes those whose records in the data base happen to be
   mixed up or whose identity is being used by a criminal
   impostor. Another would be those whose mere presence raises
   suspicions. That might be because of their dress, race,
   youth or incivility. The lack of an identification card
   could be the beginning of an ordeal -- arrest and possibly
   criminal charges. Yet another segment would be those on the
   fringes of society, who may have no permanent residence nor
   even a safe place on their persons to keep such a document.
   These are precisely the people who will have difficultly
   holding on to their cards or explaining a computer error.

   After we have come to accept this, politicians will point
   out that technology allows for other means of establishing
   identity. Many parents would welcome computer-readable
   implants to identify their children in the event of
   kidnapping. Relatives of Alzheimer's disease patients would
   want these micro-chip implants too, so that wandering
   patients could be located.

   Laurence N. Gold, a former vice president of Nielsen
   Marketing Research, has written futuristically about
   voluntary "devices that can be carried, worn -- or even
   implanted under the skin. These sensors will store and
   transmit data ... identifying not only who is in the room
   but also his or her physiological state in response to both
   TV programs and advertising messages." Would people stand
   for it? Gold speculated that, despite "20th century
   sensibilities, future children may have much different
   attitudes about this." Well, not my children, I hope. We
   must draw the line now. Identifying people by a number is
   dehumanizing, and in the end destructive of a free society.

   [End]






