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National ID Cards: Civil Liberties Endangered

Crimes such as identity theft or fraud would greatly be at risk of increasing. The opinion of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) is that "People who are easily and constantly tracked by a central authority are not free people" (sec. 7). This statement rings very true; and therefore, having a NIDS that requires the American people to carry national ID cards undermines our right to privacy and security. With that said, we Americans who value our civil liberties should do all we can to stand up against those who support having a NIDS and national ID cards, and show them how dangerous a system this could be due to its faults and the delusions it is inclined to cause concerning our sense of security.
             Those in favor of a NIDS seem to have so many ideas and theories about how well the system would work and what it will do for our nation's security as a whole. Which poses a good question: how can they be so sure that their "unsupportable claims about the effectiveness of the system" (CPSR sec. 12) will work? There have been no attempts or experiments in the U.S. with ID cards or a system. "NIDS proposals are based on unfounded premises It is quite likely the widespread suspicion of these schemes will return when the dubious advantages and numerous pitfalls are more widely known" (CPSR sec. 12). For example, by using a large computer database to store all the information, there are bound to be problems. A machine is only as smart as the person using it. Many times these problems could end up putting innocent and undeserving people under unsubstantiated suspicion. By relying soley on technology we create a delusional and false sense of security. Jonathan S. Shapiro, an assistant professor in the Johns Hopkins University Department of Computer Science, agrees. "Airport security guards and other officials think they are relying on the cards when in fact they are relying on the integrity of the human process by which the cards are issued" (qtd.


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