The New York Times Magazine, September 8, 1996, pp. 58, 59. The True Terror Is In the Card In the name of safety, authorities are rushing to require identification for everyone. They're ignoring how much damage lies down that road. By Robert Ellis Smith (Mr. Smith, a lawyer, is publisher of Privacy Journal.) Last winter a friend of mine from Washington was mugged in New York City and had her wallet stolen. Shaken by the experience, she wanted only one thing, to get back home. Luckily, her employer's headquarters is in Manhattan and she was able to borrow cash to get to the airport. But she had some fast explaining to do there because Delta was demanding that passengers produce a driver's license or other ID before boarding the plane. After some trouble, she was finally able to convince the airline of her identity by proving she was a Delta frequent flyer. She would have an even harder time today because airlines are much more stringent since the Olympics and the T.W.A. crash. Delta, like other airlines, is using a directive from the Federal Aviation Administration to require passengers to provide a Government-issued identification to board an airplane. If it could be shown that this in fact enhances airline safety, then we would all readily accept this invasion of privacy. The Government and the airlines, however, have never shown a connection between the ID card and the prevention of explosives or weapons in luggage. I object to the requirement on the grounds that it forces me to satisfy the Government that I am a real person before I may exercise the constitutional right to travel within the United States. I object also that it is part of an accelerating trend toward requiring every citizen to carry a Government-issued ID card -- in essence, a national identity document. Attention seems to be focused on asking passengers for more identification rather than on subjecting all carry-on and checked luggage to complete screening for weapons or bombs. The ID requirement, in fact, serves only to lead the public to believe that somehow we are more secure on an airplane if our "papers are in order" before boarding. Probably the only effective consequence of such requirements is to get us used to the idea of presenting identification in all aspects of our lives. I'm shocked that more Americans are not shocked by the idea. Don't we remember the Nazi experience in Europe, where identity documents listing religion and ethnic background facilitated the roundup of Jews? Don't we remember how we condemned South Africa in the 1970's and 80's for using a domestic passport to limit the movements of certain citizens but not others? Don't we realize the dangers of allowing the Government to establish identity and legitimacy? Isn't it, in fact, the responsibility of the citizenry to establish the legitimacy of the Government? Faced with rising crime, illegal immigration, welfare fraud and absentee parents, many bureaucrats and members of Congress insist that the nation would run more smoothly if we all had counterfeit-proof plastic identity cards. In considering immigration legislation this spring, the House came within a few votes of requiring a national identification card for all working Americans. Congress is about to authorize pilot programs with employers in several states verifying the legal identity of new employees by using central data bases. And it has already established a National Directory of New Hires containing the name, Social Security number and birth date of every person newly hired in the private and public sector. These are precursors of a national ID card. The machinery, in fact, is now in place. All that is missing is the piece of plastic -- and apparently most Americans are ready for it. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California has increased the stakes; she wants to create an identity card with a fingerprint, digitized photo, eye retina scan or some other biometric identity device. Would an ID card work? It would make it easy to track illicit cash transactions, to discover after the fact all persons at the scene of a crime, to know immediately whether an adult accompanying a child is a parent or legal guardian, to keep a list of suspicious persons in a neighborhood each night, to know who purchased a gun or knife or fertilizer or Satanic books, or to know who carries the H.I.V. virus. A suspicious police officer could demand to see your identity document and then query an on-line data base that would display identifying information about you. An employer could check the card to see whether you are a citizen or legal alien, have a criminal record or have filed previous workers' compensation claims. But listing possible uses of a national ID card makes evident how it could be a nightmare to each of us. And that's not even considering the errors inevitable in such a data base. Even a remarkably low error rate of 1 percent would impose hardship on 650,000 innocent Americans who would be excluded from work, travel, commerce or schooling if their identity were somehow confused with a criminal's. And that doesn't take into account the lucrative market in counterfeit ID cards. The advocates of an identity document want us to believe that it would be counterfeit-proof. But experts know there is no such thing. Many people, charmed by the convenience of credit-card shopping by number over the phone or the Internet, think we already have a national identity system anyway. But that practice is wholly voluntary and doesn't involve centralized Government depositories of information. It is true that Social Security numbers are used in all kinds of ways. But the number is not issued to every person in the country as a national ID number would be. Nor is a driver's license a true national identity document. While it is issued by a governmental agency, people are not required to have it when they do not drive, a photograph is not always required and a person who moves may apply for a new and different license. A true national identity document would be mandatory, everyone would have to carry it and present it upon demand. It would be issued to everyone, probably at birth. And the identity of the bearer of each card would be recorded in a national data bank, usually along with other personal history. It would be the universally accepted proof of identity everywhere in the society. Without the card, you would have no acceptable proof of your citizenship. Let's be clear that this is a one-way street. Once having established a requirement to carry photo ID, it will be difficult if not impossible to reverse. It's hard to imagine that the Government can begin issuing an identifying number at birth, then later tell all the agencies that have come to rely on it that they must disregard it. What would a national ID card mean to American life? By accepting it, we will have removed the spontaneity in our lives. Every time we leave home, it will be necessary for each of us to gather up "our documents" -- and those of our children, of course -- before we venture out, to jog in a park, stroll in the neighborhood, lounge at the beach, buy a six-pack of beer or cross a state line. We will have empowered police officers to stop citizens engaged in law-abiding activities and demand that they produce proof of identity and "give a good account of themselves." There would be no excuse for not carrying the card -- only criminals would not be carrying the card. By acting strangely at any time or by simply passing someone who doesn't like our looks, we can trigger a demand to produce the ID card. This, in turn, will trigger a search of an electronic data base to confirm our identity and perhaps provide other bits of personal data. For most Americans, this would usually be an occasional inconvenience. For many others, it would be an affront to their dignity -- but still nothing worse than a reason to rant at the next forum on civil liberties. But for several segments of our society, it would be truly a nightmare. One includes those whose records in the data base happen to be mixed up or whose identity is being used by a criminal impostor. Another would be those whose mere presence raises suspicions. That might be because of their dress, race, youth or incivility. The lack of an identification card could be the beginning of an ordeal -- arrest and possibly criminal charges. Yet another segment would be those on the fringes of society, who may have no permanent residence nor even a safe place on their persons to keep such a document. These are precisely the people who will have difficultly holding on to their cards or explaining a computer error. After we have come to accept this, politicians will point out that technology allows for other means of establishing identity. Many parents would welcome computer-readable implants to identify their children in the event of kidnapping. Relatives of Alzheimer's disease patients would want these micro-chip implants too, so that wandering patients could be located. Laurence N. Gold, a former vice president of Nielsen Marketing Research, has written futuristically about voluntary "devices that can be carried, worn -- or even implanted under the skin. These sensors will store and transmit data ... identifying not only who is in the room but also his or her physiological state in response to both TV programs and advertising messages." Would people stand for it? Gold speculated that, despite "20th century sensibilities, future children may have much different attitudes about this." Well, not my children, I hope. We must draw the line now. Identifying people by a number is dehumanizing, and in the end destructive of a free society. [End]