I've been hearing this debate quite alot since the attacks...my question to all of you is why not?  Honestly I can't forsee any reason why an standardized I.D. system would be bad.  'Big-brother' doesnt count, it's too easy to get your info from the states' DMV.  
I'm looking for substantiated arguments, not just the generic, 'HECK NO!'

A bit extreme, but how's this...

I have FIVE, count'em FIVE, fully developed personal legends.  Thru the magic of maildrops and forwarding, I actually have developed, functional identities residing in three different states.  There's nothing illegal about it, as there is no fraud involved (I pay the bills and keep everything on the up-and-up, but it is nice to be able to switch names.)  I have been working with my wife, and we have been developing three for her.

Why do I do this?  There are actions that I have taken in my past that make it necessary to be elsewhere and maybe even someone else for a while every now and then.  While I was "under orders" at the time, these sort of people don't care about the Nuremburg Defence.

Now, if a standardised national ID is implemented, it will become overly difficult - if not outright impossible! - for people like me to do what I have done.  "But the government can help you?"  Be serious - I don't want THEM to know, either!

I don't do anything illegal with my "legends," but they HAVE kept my hide where it belongs - holding my insides inside.  I don't WANT to be standardised, and I don't want to be "positively identified at all times."  I like being able to drop out and become someone else, and I can change identities like clothes as the situation warrants.

BTW - DO NOT ask for details, I will not give them.  This is not something like WPP (their track record is abysmal anyhow,) but a programme I have undertaken personally for my own protection.  NDBBM

"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered!"

FFZ (I'm not myself today - maybe I'm you...)

Would they stop doing background check every time you buy a weapon????

Probably not...

Why should there be? You come up with a valid reason. There isn't one except to get into our private information. They have enough of their noses into our lives as it is. They  have too much. It's none of their frikking business. Long as we obey LEGAL laws, why should there be? Big Brother does count and he's already too big. I feel like disowning  him.

Heck No, i  the idea. just another reason for the government to keep track of us.  "for security" i could see them accually using them for airports and travel.  but for everything....ya i could see that coming in a couple hundred yrs so you could do anything.  

Where am I?
In the Village
What do you want?
Information
Whose side are you on?
That would be telling . . .
We want Information
You won't get it
By hook or by crook . . .
We will
Who are you?
The new Number Two
Who is Number One?
You are Number Six
I am not a number . . .
I'm a free man!
(Mocking laughter)

How about because a National ID won't stop any terrorism or have any positive benefit, just like registration of firearms doesn't stop crime, and drivers licenses don't stop drunk driving.  As soon as we have national ID it will be not only a national database to know everything about all of us but it will be required to drive, rent, or buy a car, to stay in a hotel, to open a bank account, etc. etc.  This is way too much big brother in the land of the free.  Instead of taking positive steps for our security like arming pilots and destroying the homelands of terrorists we seek to slap ourselves with the chains of tyranny, thinking it will make us safer while not having any effect.  It's akin to a child curling up under the blankets thinking it will keep him safe from the monster.  And just as ineffective.

Mike

Not sure myself if I'm leaning slightly devil's advocate here, but...

There are some things that the governtment should know about each person in the country. Each peiece of information likely has both useful and illegitimate, abusive puproses.Some of the responses to this topic seem to indicate that a national ID would prevent them from doing illegal things. Duh. That's a good thing. If you want to do things that are against the law, while in some cases passive resistance is appropriate, work hard to get good people elected who will repeal the law. I can't see that a national ID card could aide the ATF in determining you have a pre upper on your post lower (you wicked sinner, you!). But could it assis LEOs and help provide for their safety? probably.

So what does the government have the "right" to know about you?

Legal Name
Current address
Phone Number?? (What do you think?)
Date of Birth
Legal Guardian (for minors)
Criminal record (convictions/confessions only)
What you look like (pic on the card to show it's yours)
Social security number (being that it's used a general serial number to establish unique identity. To my mind, that's about it. The government should not have any ability to find ou wether you're a gun owner.

This could work to our advantage. Let's suppose assorted licenses and permits are part of the ID. You can drive? There's a D on the card. You're legally qualified to purchase pistols/revolvers or rifles/shotguns? You get a p and/or an R on your card, and everybody who's qualified gets it on their card, wether or not they request or use it. This way, it cannot be easily told by looking at the card who is a gun owner. I personally believe it is wise to have a permit system for concealed carry. You take a safety course and qualify, you get a C on your card. Old enough to purchase alcohol or tobacco? A and Ts on your card. And what do you think of this: you get and medical care for smoking related ilnesses on the government dime, you sign a wavier before recieving any care that the T comes off no matter how old you are. Also, you drive drunk and get convicted, not only does the D come off, so does the A.

What should an officer be able to find out about you by swiping the card? Well, concealed carry you can see on the card. I believe most states require you disclose concealed carry to and LEO anyway. An LEO could be able to see by running your ID card any convictions/confessions, and current warrants for arrest. Insurance? None of the governments business. Hasn't filed taxes? No, but convicted for tax evasion, yes. Late on hild support? No. Convicted, yes. Convicted of a violent crime, of course. I don't think LEOs should be able to use it to catch crime, for example, I don't think they should be able to swipe your card and find our if/when your vehicle was registered. Is it possible this would happen? Yes. But a well written bill could do it right.

In addition, the card could be used in an isolated way by other branches of government. Get food stamps? Could be on the card, but no LEO or other govt agency should be able to get that information. Perhaps it would be best not to do this so that the card does not start to become thought of as currency. That would be bad.

I'm being longwinded. What do youall think?

Because the government need not know more about me than I choose to tell them.  



Just because you are utterly lacking in any ability to see how nationalized registration of individuals is bad (like say, internment camps, travel restrictions, gun registration, etc.) doesn't mean we should pay for your lack of insight.



Actually, it isn't that easy to get information about you from the DMV.  The information they need to search with is an address, name, or license plate number.  They can't search by characteristics, which would be the convenient (and horribly dangerous) side effect of national registration.  What if the government found that a 6', 185 lbs, white male was plotting something.  The government could then potentially just punch up in their database those characteristics and round up every person with that description.  Think that'll never happen?  Why don't you go talk to the Muslim males who are still imprisoned for "questioning" about this.

What if you alter your travel habits (like you go on a vacation)?  Will the government come find you to ask you why you dared alter your routine?  Will the national I.D. allow the police to better enforce the law?  I think you'll find that most people want the police to be as inefficient as they are now because so much is illegal that I guarantee almost everybody on this board has commited a felony and just not been caught for it.

And when the whole "lets change the law" thing fails, as it is now, and we have to replace the government by force of arms, won't we be portrayed by the government as  "terrorists" and "freedom haters" even though we are trying to restore freedom? Won't that be a criminal act as defined by the government? Ben Franklin never got to go back to England for a visit. They would have hung him. The first American revolution might never have happened if the tyrant's law enforcement body had been as developed as ours is now. Sometimes breaking the law is a good thing. Sometimes laws are bad.


Not a damn thing other than my criminal record.

Part of being free is the freedom to be just as stupid as you want to be. If you want to ride your Kawasaki without a helmet feel free. You want to destroy your body and your life with drugs or booze or tobacco feel free. The great wrong here is the LAWS that mandate health care for those who can't pay. Health care is a luxury and a priviledge, not a right. If what you want costs me money it isn't a right. No one's rights should come at the expense of another person. The government needs to keep its grubby litte dickbeaters off my person and out of my personal pies.

Nah. Maybe a little police state enthusiastic, but that could be cured by living in a police state for a few months so you could experience that type of government. Any time someone says giving the government power is a good idea I have to look at that person's reasoning with a very logical, critical, and jaundiced eye. Where has the imposition of totalitarianism benefitted anyone? This was a well articulated and somewhat well thought-out post on your part though.

snowmaster, do you really trust the government to hold itself to those limits?  Any power the government has, it can, and usually does exploit and abuse.  

Secondly I do not believe the government has any right to tell me or anyone else whether or not they can purchase a firearm, alcohol, tobacco, drive a car, or anything else.

I agree with Poikilotrm, they have right to know my criminal record and nothing else.

Mike

if you agree with the basic premise that less government intrusion in your life is best, then that alone is a good reason to just say no to a national id.

it won't stop terrorist attacks or injustice committed by government, and it will just as easily be forged and obtained by criminals like social security cards, a drivers license or visa. so, once again, the honest citizen is the one that will take a hit in the nuts and be inconvenienced and violated by the information provided and required by a national id.

not the generic 'heck no', but the loudly proclaimed 'HELL NO' to the idea of a national id.

Just to emphasize the point ... Sony just introduced their new CD copy protection - remember the music industry is a multi-billion a year market.

Their copy protection was defeated by a Sharpie Marker.

Nothing can be created that can't be forged - if the right person can get ahold of it for even a short time it can be duplicated.

I work in DOD engineering - reverse engineering is commonplace.

Ryan

Actually it could. I don't think you realize the scope of the information that could be obtained. They could see that you paid for a pre-ban upper from Bushmaster, and then cross reference it with your registered guns and see that you don't own a pre-ban AR-15.

Hmmmm...it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see where this is going. If you don't have a pre-ban registered then they can say you're making an illegal post-ban AW. And then say you do have a pre-ban but it wasn't registered in their database. BINGO, either way you're SOL.

I really can't believe that some people can't think ahead enough to see things.

Oh, and the guy that started this thread....go back to the DU website... [:K]

I think that this database already exists. I have a dispute ongoing with a former employer over a 10/99 form with the IRS. An investigator called me on my unlisted cell-phone on Thursday. (Ihave2) Its a Cricket that I got 2 months ago!

Sounds good enough to me.

And why then is there crime in Europe at all? They have mandatory, Europe-wide ID and mandatory registration of residence there. Like, when you move, you have to notify the proper authorities (local citizen registry) of your current and your future address, and at your new residence,you have to "sign in", and you have to show the papers that you properly "checked out" with the authorities at your old place. Thus the goverment always knows where you live, both from their data and your ID, which has your address printed on (Handy for thieves too, if they snatch a purse with money, ID and a set of keys)

And yet there is crime in wonderful Europe, despite all this intrusive and inconvenient crap? It's not like it hasn't been tried to introduce IDs to prevent crime, but obviously it doesn't work at all. Besides, all the hijackers of 9-11 had legal, proper gov-issued ID on them. Didn't prevent anything either.

National ID? No fscking way!

Don't be naive.

Everytime more power is given to the government, IT EVENTUALLY IS ABUSED.

Just like they said that gun registration is just a safety measure and would never be used for confiscation.

Just like when social security cards were issued with assurances IT WOULD NEVER BE USED FOR IDENTIFICATION PURPOSES.

You want a cashless society and travel restrictions? Get the card.

Agreed, FREQUENTLY laws are bad. Many should be changed/repealed and many of that subset never will be. I agree, also, that a revolution may very well be impossible with modern law enforcement as it is, and as such, I hope one will never be necissary. Honestly though, I don't think the existance of a national ID card hurts the public's ability to revolt. It's not so much that I wholeheartedly expect our fair government never to expolit the card as a national personal info database, but moreso that I think the government already has all of this information and more at their disposal, and that more benefit than evil will come of making it more accessable.



I respectfully disagree. I think it is reasonable for the government to keep limited census type data on all Americans. There are certain things it is certainly NOT good for them to know: gun ownership, sexual preferance/habits, religious beliefs, and in response to another poster, I have come to agree that the keeping of physical attributes/appearance characteristics, other that a photo face shot for ID is much more likely to be used for profiling than any lawful purpose(until other technology for positive ID becomes more widespread)



I agree with you on most points, however (probably my most socialist belief), I DO think that everyone is entitled to basic healthcare. My though is though, if you want healthcare on MY dime, you'd best not have done anything really stupid to be in the position of needing healthcare. If you shoot somebody,  you don't get to have a gun anymore. If you smoke, drive recklessly or drive drunk, and need me to pay for healthcare becuase of it, I think it's reasonable you not be allowed to do it again. I pay for it, you loose your freedom.

Snowmaster

No, I don't necissarily, but the governmanet has and exploits this same information now, and if the will were well written, I don't think there's much chance we could make it any worse for ourselves.  



I agree, sort of. You should be able to do all of those things unless you fuck them up in a way that has serious potential to hurt other citizens or until you start expecting taxpayers to pay for the health care you need becuase you have done something stupid. I was unclear in my first post: What i mean to say is that on your 18th birthday, you get a T and R for tobacco and rifles on your ID card wether or not you ask for them. No permit process, no nothing. They're just there to clearly indicate to retailers of those items that you are of legal age to purchase them, and have no other legal disability to do so.

Can the government say wether you can drive a car? Sorry, but it's a necissary evil. Do *I* want to go out and take a test and get a license for something I know well how to do? Heck no. But by the same token, I don't want some blind idiot out on the road excercizing his freedom to get my ass killed. I don't want a mentally imcompetent felon packing heat, and I don't want a drunk drived drinking or driving ifm not forever, than for a very long time.

Snowmaster

The national ID is not only a bad thing, but it would also be one more thing that you would have to carry with you.  It will not replace anything and will only serve to further restrict movenment and make it easier to gather data.  The data will not be safeguarded and will be misused.  And when I say Misused I do MEAN MIS USED [spank]

Just like when the Census Buearu used it's data to help round of those of Japanese descent for placement into relocation camps?

Oh well, I guess Big Brother is good.

Time for that logic and critical thinking thing. So you would allow people freedom until it impinged on your money, but only with alcohol or tobacco? Why not if they eat fatty foods, or go skydiving, or hang out with Puff daddy? I can see lots of risky behaviors out there, so your argument becomes somewhat nebulous. It requires too much discretion on the person doing the IDs and "allowing" freedom. The government, especially some clerk with a GED, should NEVER have the power to determine degrees of freedom for law abiding citizens. I am an MD. Health care in the ED in big cities is a huge drain on resources. Most of the people who cost the most are scum pure and simple. We have a few "frequent flyers" who suck up time and money every day, some just so they can eat a meal before going back out to get drunk and stoned and blow the odd passerby for two bucks. We aren't saving little kids with forced privatized health care, we are just spinning wheels. The churches and other charities have dropped the ball on the indigent and health care in this country.
The great wrong isn't that someone screws up once and we have to pay for, so it is now wrong to make us pay for it ever again. The wrong is tat we were made to pay for it in the first place.

Let's see.  How many times and ways can this be beaten to death?

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