Brian Doherty Talking National I.D. and Immigration Reform on the Thom Hartmann's "Big Picture" on RT

I appeared yesterday on Thom Hartmann's RT show "The Big Picture," talking about the grim possibility of a biometric i.d. requirement to work in these here United States arising from the latest pointless attempt at "comprehensive immigration reform." Fellow guest was Shahid Buttar of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee.

Here's the video:

Comments

[fish]

Poor Thom....trying so hard to be the next Lawrence "functional socialist" O' Donnell.

[Raston Bot]

He's no Alyona.

[fish]

Nor Lauren Lyster!

[SugarFree]

a biometric i.d. requirement

Remember back when "Ve demahnd to ze your PAH-PERS!" was a joke about how much better America was than various totalitarian states?

[CatoTheElder]

I do.

And, sadly, I am reminded of it often.

[CatoTheElder]

It wasn't even all that long ago.

Capt. Vasili Borodin: I will live in Montana. And I will marry a round American woman and raise rabbits, and she will cook them for me. And I will have a pickup truck... maybe even a "recreational vehicle." And drive from state to state. Do they let you do that?
Captain Ramius: I suppose.
Capt. Vasili Borodin: No papers?
Captain Ramius: No papers, state to state.

from The Hunt for Red October (1990)

[Sh?n Y?]

Can you get work in the US without ID? Don't most Americans of working age have driver's licenses? I am not sure what exactly the issue is, other than the possibility of errors in the system.

[fish]

Part of it is that ID has never been a federal responsibility and their fear resulting from ongoing centralization.

[Sh?n Y?]

But the US Federal Government also issues SS cards to workers. So again, I am not sure why they are worried about centralization considering SS is from the 30's.

[SugarFree]

Because SS cards have already proven those fears out. When SS was set up, it was repeated insisted by the government that it wasn't going to do used by the FedGov for anything other than SS tracking and that other entities couldn't use it as an national ID number for an individual. That lasted only a few years.

I see the national ID card as inevitable, and fighting it is just a fuck you to the government. But I like telling the government "Fuck you."

[Sh?n Y?]

They did lie, which is why worrying about centralization is a moot point; it is already a fact. I guess my question would be about the purported security of the card. If it has biometric data on it, would it be better at stopping identity theft? Would that be a good thing or bad? I really don't see what the issue is, other than being able to tell your government "fuck you."

[SugarFree]

The vast majority of the damage of identity theft is done electronically where a biometric ID is unused.

I don't think it's worth fighting too hard over, like I said, I think they're inevitable.