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Divided by more than a single language Here is an interesting contrast between the UK and the US.
The Boston Globe, a Democrat newspaper in a Democrat town, is attacking President Bush’s Supreme Court nominee, John Roberts. Nothing particularly exciting or shocking about that. You might not agree with them, but it’s legitimate, and that is how things are done there.
What intrigues me is the manner of the most recent attack:
Roberts, as Reagan aide, backed national ID card, yells the headline.
It is plainly the Globe’s assumption that its readers will take this is a sign of a fundamentally illiberal personality, not fit to be entrusted on the bench with the defence of American liberties. British popular assumptions, even in the liberal press, have a long way to go. It is still not appreciated much here that state control of personal identity is a big deal, never mind that its fans are poisionous advocates of evil.
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“It is still not appreciated much here that state control of personal identity is a big deal, never mind that its fans are poisionous advocates of evil.”
Isn’t that just the point? The fans of ID cards in the UK are _not_ poisonous advocates of evil. They are simply naive, or misguided, or hoplessly optimistic about the intentions and abilities of the state. The fact is that someone who is undecided on the matter, will find plenty of reasonable people who are in favour of ID cards, and also plenty of reasonable people who are against.
Most people I know who are pro ID cards like them because they think they will reduce handouts to the underserving. It also has to be said that those EU countries with compulsory ID cards don’t seem to be particularly unpleasant because of it. I find it rather odd that Germans all have to carry ID, but I’m not aware of any abuses of the system that have resulted.
When government forces everyone to have a national ID, they’ll know who everyone is and where everyone is. They’ll know what age and sex everyone is, and a lot of other stuff.
When they want to spring one of their evil plans, such as universal government service for 18-year-olds or military conscription, they know ‘pon which doors to knock. When they want to confiscate all the guns or all the gold, they’ll check purchase records and they know ‘pon which doors to knock.
When they decide that members of (insert your favorite religious or ethnic group here) are damaging the country. When they decide they need to round ’em up and put ’em in camps, they’ll know ‘pon which doors to knock.
Please don’t bring up Germany in this regard.
The administration that initiates the evil isn’t always the one that commits the atrocity. In our case, GWB might set up a benign national ID system to fight terrorism or whatnot, but it might be one or two administrations down the road when the atrocities start.
“When government forces everyone to have a national ID, they’ll know who everyone is and where everyone is. They’ll know what age and sex everyone is, and a lot of other stuff.”
They already know, thanks to computers, data bases, modern technology. There is no way to turn time back to a past golden age. The piece of plastic that is the ID card doesn’t matter that much.
The gov. already knows who everyone is, because it “educates” children in gov. schools, provides health care via the NIS, pays welfare benefits, collects taxes.
The age of ignorance is past. Not that the ignorance in the past prevented governments and rulers from comitting atrocities.
The plastic card does not matter one way or the other.
“The plastic card does not matter one way or the other.”
Very well, then. No one should object if someone wants to live without it.
Glad that’s cleared up.
“Very well, then. No one should object if someone wants to live without it.”
Of course.
I don’t think they’ll arrest people who have no ID cards. But maybe they’ll deny you health care or welfare payments or pensions, or passports.
The idea of a national identity card may be more politically noxious in the US but the Social Security Number system combined with nationally enforced criteria for issuing driver licenses means that, de facto, the US already has a national ID system.
Robert,
That’s not true. If you don’t drive, you are not required to have a driver’s license. (If you want, your state will issue you a stand-in identification card. That’s also voluntary.) The fact that nearly everyone over the age of 16 outside major urban areas in the United States does drive makes the picture ID of a driver’s license a convenient way of proving your identification, but it’s not a national ID system where everyone would be required to carry “papers” issued by a central authority.
The other part of your assertion, the Social Security number, is also a convenient way of identifying yourself uniquely, since everyone is issued a number but the Social Security card is not a picture ID. I could have my father’s SS card (since we share the same name) and a querying official would not know the difference just from looking at the card and at my face.
Long and short of it is that the United States does have a fairly uniform method to identify people, based on your driver’s license and SS number, but it’s not a national ID system in the sense that continental European nations have.
Rich, you’re right, Social Security Numbers plus Driver’s licenses are not a national ID system such as they have in France or Belgium but they do give the state the practical ability to exercise the same degree of control over its citizenry.
Having lived in both the US and the UK I can say from personal experience that in the US you are asked to produce or reference driver’s license or SSN far more frequently than you are asked for ID in the UK. If I understand correctly the idea of having local DMVs issue ID cards came up because there are people who can function without driving a car but cannot function without showing a “driver’s license” to buy alchohol, write a cheque, open a bank account etc..
Anyway, my prefered policy is for the state to get out of the business of testing drivers and leave it all up to the insurance companies.
J –
You can be a poisonous advocate of evil without knowing it. I’ve no doubt many of the worst evils in the world have been perpetrated by those who thought they were improving the place. They’re doing it because they think it will be good for us, to be sure.
Jacob –
The big threat is not a plastic card, it is the unique numbering of individuals, controlled by the state, and a personal dossier along the lines of China’s Dang An. That’s why I wrote “state control of personal identity”.
The age of ignorance may nominally be past, but the age of gaps, muddle, confusion and inconsistency is not. Most state-held and privately held data is out of date and unconnected. The state is still largely blind.
Our Home Office–significantly the department reponsible for police and prisons–has considered how to fix this, and has a solution of great cunning: Total Information Awareness done properly. Gradually the intent is to make it impossible to live a normal life without submitting to registration and tracking. (Every occasion of an identity check would be centrally recorded.)
The plan is won’t be compulsory for the general public in the official sense of “under Government order”, until the overwhelming majority of people have “volunteered”, by applying for an arbitrarily extended range of official documents that won’t be obtainable without registering. The indications are that passports are to be first, then criminal records certificates and shotgun licenses, then driving licenses.
They indeed won’t arrest you for not having an ID card, and very proudly point out that very fact, and that there will be “no new police powers” in order to rubbish opponents’ arguments. But they won’t have to. Everyone will be in prison already; unregistered persons may discover they are in solitary. The Home Office–which thinks big–has even been researching the possibility and public acceptability of requiring (after full compulsion inside a decade) a centralised ID check for all retail purchases above £200 and presentation of the card for purchases exceeding £100.
“the unique numbering of individuals…”
The idea of numbering people is so teutonic, so infantile. You don’t need to number people. Just full name and date of birth will be unique enough as a search key. Computers don’t need ID numbers, only primitive and dumb individuals do.
All information out there, on government computers is maybe not yet interconnected, but it will be sooner or later, you can’t stop them – lack of ID number surely isn’t what will stop them.
Interestingly, the Los Angeles Times spin on the same memo (link requires registration, so I won’t bother) was that it illustrated that Judge Roberts was not the radical conservative that they feared since he didn’t share the “paranoia” of the “extreme right” who fear national ID cards.
That is interesting… though it does sound a bit harder spun to me.
But then, as a paranoiac of the extreme right, I would say that, wouldn’t I?
Jacob: The idea of numbering people is so teutonic, so infantile.
Not in this case Teutonic. The German ID Card Act 1987 prohibits the use of unique numbers or storage of ID Card data on a central register. Historical reasons.
Nor infantile, really. There’s no degree in uniqueness. You can’t guarantee a name-DOB combination will be unique. Nor is it easy to index, process, reproduce and cross reference–which is why pretty much every account, membership, document, you have with anyone has a number as well as your name attached to it.
More or less, I think Robert is right. We have a de facto national ID system already in place in the US. It is not rigid and has many holes and could probably be defeated at the individual level, but more or less, it is there.
On an optimistic note, the SS legislation demands that SS numbers be used ONLY by the SS administration and not as a national ID. Recently there has been some efforts to comply with the original intent of the law. (Most universities do not use SS numbers as student IDs, for an example of which I am familiar.) However, many private institutions still (illegally) use this number as a key.
And on my right-wing paranoia note, I think a formal national ID is very scary, indeed. Like Col. Hogan has mentioned, it may start off benign and be so for generations even…but that’s one step closer to stamping “Juden” or “Tutsi” on every one’s IDs, isn’t it?