Not-So Smart
The national ID debate goes on.

e used to impose mandatory fingerprinting on criminals and criminal suspects only. But if the plan for national ID cards being pushed by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) gets traction, soon every American will be "inked," or tagged by some other biometric identifier (such as a retinal scan) — all in order to make us "safer." Whether we'll be as free as we used to be is another matter.

The AAMVA wants $100 million from Congress to erect this country's first-ever national ID system, complete with a centralized computer database to keep track of all 270 million of us. The new IDs would supplant existing state-level and state-issued driver's licenses — and we'd all have to carry one. "Smart" cards could be used to track our movements, activities, and purchases, with all of the information dumping into Uncle Sam's very own PC to be used for whatever "informational-purposes-only" ends the government deems appropriate. The Justice Department thinks this is a great idea and has been actively pushing it, even though President Bush has stated that he's against it.

Of course, the AAMVA and other national-ID boosters offer soothing words about the precautions against abuse of the system that would be put into place, and about how much more "secure" we'd all be with Uncle Sam able to follow our every move. "The whole issue comes down to improving public safety, and preventing identity fraud," said AAMVA spokesman Jason King. "It will take changes in federal legislation. It will take changes in state legislation, and it will most certainly require funding."

Of course. And it will also take changes in attitude. Americans will have to grow accustomed to the idea of being tagged and catalogued — and, too, to swallow the imbecility that such an electronic dragnet will never, ever be abused by the government. Somehow, imperfect human nature has been transformed, and the weakness and potential for evil that lurk within the human heart (and which the Founders tried so hard to keep in check, by limiting the power and reach of the state) no longer threaten us. The lust for power is dead. Only the purest of motives are at work in the heads of our elected officials and bureaucrats. Uncle Sam knows best. He will "protect" us.

Unfortunately for our civil liberties, the fact is that — especially since September 11 — many Americans appear to be entirely ready to embrace a national ID card and all that it implies. Fear reversed the inchoate anti-ID sentiment that had prevailed before. And recent polls consistently show support for this terrible idea — an idea so alien to the American way of life that its adoption would amount to a rejection, in toto, of all that the Founders believed in and tried to protect us from.

David L. Sobel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center is among the lonely voices urging a thoughtful pause. "This type of system will be a radical departure for this country," he said. And, flatly: "It will be abused." Others concerned about civil liberties agree — and they run the gamut from the hard-core liberals at the ACLU to the conservative Christian Right. What unites them is a shared belief that government cannot be trusted with such carte blanche access to our lives — and that waging war on terrorists should not require us to abandon the very things that make us a target of terrorism.

A crisis can bring out the best in people, or their worst. We saw the best of America at Ground Zero in the immediate aftermath of September 11. The worst we are seeing now, as fear and the herd instinct threaten to supplant our usually better judgment. Fortunately, there's still plenty of time to stop the national ID dead in its tracks.