eclecticism

04/14/2004 |

One of the many ideas being bandied about in the post-9/11 era has been that of a single national ID card, to replace the various forms of ID we carry around now (state IDs or driver’s licenses, military IDs, company ID badges, etc.). Bruce Schneier points out that this might not be a good idea…

…my primary objection isn’t the totalitarian potential of national IDs, nor the likelihood that they’ll create a whole immense new class of social and economic dislocations. Nor is it the opportunities they will create for colossal boondoggles by government contractors. My objection to the national ID card, at least for the purposes of this essay, is much simpler:
It won’t work. It won’t make us more secure. In fact, everything I’ve learned about security over the last 20 years tells me that once it is put in place, a national ID card program will actually make us less secure.

p>Definitely worth reading, especially if the national ID program was sounding like a good idea.

(via Boing Boing)

iTunes: “District Sleeps Alone Tonight, The” by Postal Service, The from the album Give Up (2002, 4:44).

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3 Responses to “National ID not a good idea”

Tim Who? Says:
April 14th, 2004 at 5:45 am

I don’t buy his argument, I’m not saying National Id’s are a good idea I’m saying his argument against a national one is weak. “It won’t work. It won’t make us more secure.” I agree. Security is a poor reason for the creation of a national ID but that doesn’t make the idea of a National ID a bad one.

I often wonder why each state has it’s own Drivers license? Why not a United States drivers license. Why? If my Alaska Drivers license is good in Washington (and it is) Why must I turn it in and get a Washington License. Why do the people in Oregon take a different test, for a different license and yet that license is also good in Wa.

“But the main problem with any ID system is that it requires the existence of a database. In this case it would have to be an immense database of private and sensitive information on every American — one widely and instantaneously accessible from airline check-in stations, police cars, schools, and so on.”

The writer talks like this is some great project for the future. Anyone that thinks this isn’t already in place has their head up their ass, It’s already here and airlines and police already tap into it.

And when the inevitable worms, viruses, or random failures happen and the database goes down, what then? Is America supposed to shut down until it’s restored?

A threat? We already face this threat every day from or Banks to the National airline routing system.

I’m just thinking it might be a little better for us Americans if we had an American drivers license rather than a state issued one.

“We all have stories of bartenders falling for obviously fake IDs, or sloppy ID checks at airports and government buildings. It’s not simply a matter of training”

Well to a degree it is training, as an ex bar manager I was trained (and my bartenders) to spot fake ID’s but it’s a much harder job to learn 50 different kinds of ID. Wouldn’t it be easier, if all the ID’s looked the same. Wouldn’t be easier to spot the fake one.

Would an American drivers license make us… Safer? No I don’t think so. As a safety tool I don’t think it’s a good one. (finger prints would be far better) Just match your print to the print built into the card. (matched by a reader not human eyes)

But with an American drivers license the clerk in the store will stop freaking out because of “an out of state ID” ID checkers around the country would have a much easier time if all the ID’s were uniform.

One more thing. “There is more security in alert guards paying attention to subtle social cues than bored minimum-wage guards blindly checking IDs.”

Here’s our REAL threat to security, as long as a rent a cop is a min-wage job we’ll get min-wage workers and min-wage results. It doesn’t matter what kind of great security is in place if the people involved are at the bottom of the employment chain. Some of them got at least 15 minutes training! If you really want to address SECURITY….this is where you start.

Sorry about the long post Micheal.

Ryan Waddell Says:
April 14th, 2004 at 8:35 am

Wow… very thoughtful post from Tim Who?… I couldn’t agree more.

We had a big ID card program here in Ontario a few years ago, where they brought in a new healthcare card to help prevent fraud… the new card had your photo on it, had to be renewed every year, and all that junk… And EVERYONE was supposed to replace their old card with the new one… I never did, and they discontinued the mandatory replacement program, so I can keep my old one without having to renew every year… And the new one isn’t even accepted as valid photo ID, despite being a government issued photo card that has your birthday on it. And why not? Because there has been too much counterfeiting of the new card. Sigh… Money well spent, fellas.