Identity Crisis

If the government is serious about keeping illegal immigrants from working, a national ID card may be inevitable.

Daniel W. Sutherland from the December 1997 issue

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But that provision was just window dressing. The law does not prohibit a national ID card; it merely says that nothing in that particular subtitle should be read to encourage one. Pilot projects testing the feasibility of a national ID card were tucked away in other subtitles.

There is, for instance, one to determine the feasibility of issuing all Americans and authorized immigrants a "durable," "tamper-resistant" Social Security card. Another provision requires Americans who live in remote areas near our northern border to hold an identity card that contains biometric information. Under the plan, some northern border stations will be equipped with card-reading machines. When an American tries to re-enter the country after the border station's normal business hours, he will insert his card into the machine. The machine will either take a picture of his hand and compare it to the hand geometry contained in the card, or it will ask him to speak into a microphone so it can compare his voice to a voice pattern encoded in the card. If the machine verifies his identity, the border gate will open. The law authorizes a similar project on the southern border, requiring that "border crossing cards" include "biometric data" that is "machine-readable." The legislation also calls for an investigation of whether driver's licenses could be used as national ID cards.

Simpson, set to retire just a few weeks after the law passed, abandoned all pretense when he gave a speech on the Senate floor reviewing his final legislative accomplishment. He candidly predicted that the worker registry would lead to "a more secure identifier," such as "a slide-through card like you use with a Visa when you make a purchase, perhaps some type of driver's license photograph, retina examination like they have done in California." Had Simpson stated during the floor debate that his bill would hasten the day when the federal government will issue an identification card encoded with a "retina examination," the law would have failed by a landslide.

Simpson and his allies clearly believed that Americans are afraid of anything that smacks of a national ID card. Is such a fear justified? When the federal government assembles a comprehensive list of all people residing within our borders, and supplements it with biometric information on each person, it will offer bureaucrats and politicians a tempting tool for all sorts of projects. The Department of Health and Human Services already plans to use a National Directory of New Hires, established by the 1996 welfare law, to enforce child-support payments (See "Kiddie Cops," Citings, page 10); a complete worker registry would enable it to dig deeper. Rep. Stephen Horn (R-Calif.) has introduced a bill that would allow the use of the worker registry to verify new voters. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has suggested that parents could screen domestic help by means of "digital voice biometrics" over the telephone. Actor Carroll O'Connor has proposed using a national ID system to monitor drug dealers. Dan Stein, a leading anti-immigration activist, has suggested that a national identifier could be used to monitor gun sales.

Deadbeat dads. Voter fraud. Child abuse. Gun violence. Drug trafficking. And that's just for starters. In Pakistan, the government is considering a proposal that its national ID card include blood group information to assist in AIDS screening. One could imagine social conservatives in this country supporting such an idea. In Kenya, the national ID card lists the bearer's tribe, making it easier for the government to monitor the activities of the president's opponents. Such information might be useful in this country as well--helping affirmative action programs, say. In Taiwan, fingerprints are included on all national ID cards, so the police have a comprehensive fingerprint bank to consult when they investigate a crime. The FBI would certainly welcome the opportunity to develop a similar database.

The promise of a national identification system is that it would make government more efficient and effective. That's also the problem.