26 Comments

1. Michael J. Totten:

Sorry, but I have little respect for those who feel this is an invasion of their privacy.

I’ve never understood why some people have a problem with this.

I have a passport, which functions at airports and pretty much everywhere else as a national ID. Is anyone who owns a passport paranoid about their privacy being invaded? If so, I haven’t heard about it.

I suppose a requirement to carry your ID on you at all times might be a minor invasion, but you have to have your drivers license when you drive a car, and that’s an ID. I also carry my state ID when I leave the house on foot without my car.

The only thing that would change for me is that a different bureaucracy would issue the card. I’m not thrilled about having to deal with the minor annoyance of yet another bureaucracy, but it’s really not that big of a deal.

May 29, 2007 - 6:01 pm 2. Sam_S:

I’m torn about national ID: Not the necessity of good ID, which I’m in favor of, but the possibility of much more massive information storage and the potential for abuse of it. How about state IDs or driver’s licenses with a few bits more information stored magnetically in them, like address and citizenship/immigration status only?

I envision a national ID containing medical, financial, and criminal data, all collated in a big central database. Fine for increasing vigilance over extremists, but somebody at the top always has the power to define extremism, and can’t you imagine, at the airport “Could you step out of the boarding line, sir? Our records show you have an outstanding traffic warrant in Oklahoma.”

Paranoid? Maybe, but I’m also one of those who thinks that despite some big-ticket accomplishments, the Feds would have a big problem delivering a pizza.

May 29, 2007 - 7:35 pm 3. Jack Okie:

Perhaps it’s a matter of conditioning, but the idea of a National ID for citizens creeps me out. But – I’m willing to suck it up and carry one IF it’s part of the process of truly sealing our borders.

I would like to see a biometric ID where in normal use

1) The ID confirms it goes with the person holding it

2) The ID supplies an encrypted identifier to the reader, which after checking the database returns a “pass / fail” response. This way one’s identity can be confirmed while maintaining privacy. I haven’t kept up with the state of the art in biometric ID, so I don’t really know if the above is currently practical.

BTW, has anyone read “This Perfect Day”, by Ira Levin?

May 29, 2007 - 8:20 pm 4. Roger:

I would think, Sam_S, that as the citizen of a democracy it is your job ( all of ours, really) to make sure the federal government does not overreach with its ID card and to make sure it does a thorough job (as you acknowledge it can with big ticket items and this is one). That is the purpose of a democracy, is it not, for the people to express their will to the government? Do it. Otherwise you are being a paranoid – or a grouch.

May 29, 2007 - 8:20 pm 5. Barry Dauphin:

Well, I think there is some reason for concern and some reason for anxiety reduction. Once upon a time people worried that the Social Security number would become a quasi-identification number, although the government promised it wouldn’t. Well, it has become that. At the same time, it is far from clear that this is some nightmare scenario.

In the end I think that some degree of transparency can serve as an antiseptic. I encourage people to read David Brin’s The Transparent Society. In it he discussed the strong possibility of many invasive technologies creeping into our lives, but as long as, for example, anyone can log onto a city street camera, then we will watch the watchers. Yes, there is potential for abuse, but I think that can be dealt with, given the kind of technology the average citzien has access to.

May 29, 2007 - 8:48 pm 6. rickl:

The big problem I see with a national ID card is that it will become an authorization card. You will not be able to buy, sell, or work without the government’s permission.

This may be commonplace in other societies, but it is unprecedented in America.

I can foresee all kinds of possibilities for mischief. Suppose in the future I say or do something that runs afoul of government orthodoxy or political correctness. Will the government revoke my national ID as punishment, thereby making it nearly impossible for me to exist?

After all, the real problem is Islam. I am 100% in favor of the government watching, listening to, and bugging Muslims; and generally making them feel unwelcome here (hint, hint).

But I don’t believe that I should be under that kind of government scrutiny. Or most Americans, for that matter.

May 29, 2007 - 8:53 pm 7. Sam_S:

Well, I am in fact a grouch, and sometimes a paranoid (except I guess it’s not paranoia if the government really IS after some of your liberties.).

But having said that, yes it is our responsibility to “rise up” against abuses. I don’t know, Roger; overall the idea has appeal, but I’m personally wary due to previous experience with national databases and administrative incompetence. My very legal immigrant wife had a BCIS officer who made a typo somewhere on her records 6 years ago, causing 6 years of bureaocratic hell, thousands of dollars in extra fees, thousands of miles and hours in travel and wait times, threats of jail and deportation, before finally straightening it all out. It would have been much easier to wade across the border and disappear, but she couldn’t, being Chinese. If you had a data error in your ID card, would you even know which sub-bureau/department/field service office to go to for a correction? (yes, it’s rhetorical, but I’ve been through it and it’s a &^% nightmare.)

May 29, 2007 - 8:53 pm 8. Roger:

I’m sure it is a (pick your favorite epithet) nightmare, Sam_S. The problem is the same thing can happen to you from multiple sources public and private in the information age. It may be that a national ID card, properly constructed, could provide a more organized and effective manner of solving these issues. As of now, there are all sorts of folks watching us, even scanning this site at this very moment. And that’s not being paranoid.

All that said, we have a problem. There can be no serious solution to the immigration/illegal alien without a national identification card. The rest is just blowing smoke.

As to the commenter who recommends listening into Muslims as the solution, well, no matter how you stand on that from a civil liberties standpoint, that too will be impossible without knowing if people are citizens.

May 29, 2007 - 10:14 pm 9. Sam_S:

Oh, I guess I’m not arguing clearly enough. I AM in favor of ID for every soul within our borders. What I dread is the kind of mismanagement entrenched in many Federal programs, especially because of what’s at stake.

I like Jack Oakie’s idea. I’d also go for coordinating the existing states’ ID info into a central database, without a new national card. What I should be saying more clearly is that I desperately hope that it is openly and clearly discussed, and that the importance of accuracy, fairness, and effectiveness will be stressed. The devil is in the details, after all, and a good impulse that’s horribly managed could end up being worse than none at all, by lulling us into an unmerited sense of security.

May 29, 2007 - 10:34 pm 10. TomTom:

As to Rudy’s “Almost certain to be ferocious response” to the next, bigger 9/11 (which I too believe is inevitable), is there any reason to think his ferocity will be unopposed by the Pelosi-Reid-Murtha-Soros-Obama-Clinton-Richardson crowd? Come, good people, and let me disabuse you of your naivite. And remember we believed GWB would be ferocious, too.

May 29, 2007 - 10:43 pm 11. Skookumchuk:

A single national ID card, based on one technology, would seem to be a security weakness in itself. We may want multiple ways of securely establishing identity – passports, driver’s licenses and State ID cards, and the like.

May 30, 2007 - 1:36 am 12. Terrye:

I don’t think that immigration reform really has anything to do with having sympathy for people from south of the border. I think it does have something to do with trying to keep track of people. One reason I was open to the idea was that I feel uncomfortable with the idea that undocumented people can live here in the United States and no one really even knows their true numbers. But when dealing with these numbers of people the very idea just seems so overwhelming.

And that is what this ID is about as well. I like Hugh Hewitt, but I think he is wrong when he says that national security is the driving force behind the immigration debate. There is a lot of other stuff going on there that has nothing to do with jihadis.

I do think that after 9/11 people became more aware of who was here and how they got here. They became aware of the fact that if the nannies and roofers could get in the US by sneaking in, so could a lot of other people.

A national ID? I have a feeling that people will be nervous about it. They will not need a specific reason to resist it. The idea alone will make them hesitate. Shades of 1984, that sort of thing.

May 30, 2007 - 3:01 am 13. Larry J:

Implemented carefully and properly, a national ID card could solve many problems. For example, some states require showing a valid ID before voting (and all should). A national ID with biometric verification would make it more difficult to get away with voter fraud or voting in multiple states. It could also be used when applying for credit, making identity theft harder to get away with. Identity theft costs us all many billion dollars a year.

I have a passport, a driver’s license, a pilot’s license, a Social Security card, and a credit card. I’m already in multiple databases. One part of the legislation for establishing the card could be mandatory termination and criminal prosecution of any government offical who abuses the system – similar to but more rigorous than the existing laws against IRS employees who misuse tax records.

There is one thing that has potential for abuse but is almost certain to happen – a national database for medical records. Newt and Hillary are among those pushing for such a database to speed medical care. Paper records are obsolete and many health care providers are going to electronic records. A centralized system would speed care, especially when someone is traveling. However, it also opens up very personal information to the possibility of abuse.

May 30, 2007 - 6:28 am 14. TomTom:

Fears about abuse of a national identity card have their roots in the anti-authority of the 1960s. It is way past time for us to get over that. It is, after all, our government; note the possessive, “Our”. It is ours. What are we afraid of, ourselves? GWB? Nixon? FDR? C’mon, folks, FDR had an enemies list and did more with it than Nixon.

May 30, 2007 - 6:56 am 15. Bostonian:

I am not sure how I feel about a national ID card.
In particular, I am not fond of the idea of having to carry an ID at all times–if that is the idea that some are having.

So I think we’d have to be clear about when this ID would be required.

(I have arguments with people regularly who “require” my SSN. I explain to them that my SSN can be legally demanded only for tax-related reasons. My dentist and my doctor do not need it.)

I am completely in favor of requiring ID when we vote, however. It is beyond nuts that we have a de facto honor system for elections.

May 30, 2007 - 7:28 am 16. Steven Mitchell:

I’m against universal, single National ID for the simple reasons that having worked in software development for a long time, I know how IDs are implemented, stored, and potentially abused. I also know the main reason they are touted is because people in government and big business don’t want to spend the energy to come up with a more flexible system. (Nevermind academics in programming land. And Sun wants to sell the government a huge system to track them.)

The Social Security law says that SSN can only be used for SS. *Unofficially*, people use it for all kinds of things, mainly as a check to verify data accuracy. However, you can’t be legally required to give it for anything but SS. That strong claus in the law is the only reason why it hasn’t become a true, defacto national ID.

If we need IDs for various things, they should be highly targeted. *Then* you can write the law same as SS to curtail some of the more obvious abuses. For example, we already have birth certificates in court houses. It’s not that invasive (ultimately) to have a citizenship ID (and card). Want to work or vote or whatever requires citizenship in the US? Show the card to prove that you are a citizen. And that’s that. Want to work as a non-citizen (green card, guest worker, whatever), have the appropriate ID and show that. However, the citizenship ID (or other alternatives) can only be used to show your standing in that regards–not, for example, to prove your identity to a credit card issuer.

In the long run, this is actually better for the software developers and the users of their systems, too. The concept of “identity” actually has several different meanings in software terms. (It’s at least three, depending on whom you ask.) As just a quick, non-technical example consider that a given person’s drivers license can change over their lifetime, but that doesn’t change the identity of the person.

ID’s that license you in a *role* are not terribly invasive if handled correctly. A single ID is trying to identity you as a *being*, and that is terribly invasive when bureaucrats get a hold of it.

May 30, 2007 - 10:16 am 17. AlanC:

I, like Steve, am a long time bit banger and I can agree with him without reservation.

The key to driving the fear, not paranoia, of a national ID is that it will be used to Xref everything. More security of personal information will be attained by segmenting the data with non-related keys which are uniquely used for the purpose at hand. Can’t data mine, can’t cross correlate info, etc.

Actually there’s no reason to have a database at all. If you have a biometric identifier built into the card the data about citizenship is built in. All you need is a reader that says, yep this card belongs to this person. The card itself announces your citizenship and proves that you are you, end of question.

It is oh so easy to just stamp everyone with a number and then have everything in the world tied to that one number. Easy for potential tyrants, marketers, scam artists etc.

One other thing I would add is that any information tied to an ID should be provided, gratis, to every person at least once a year.

The biggest problem for many people now is correcting a mistaken entry. Have you ever tried to fix a screwed up credit report? Heck it can take years before you realize that the hassles you’ve been having are the result of some jerks bad typing. Now imagine everything being centralized and subject to all the fubars of the government.

May 30, 2007 - 11:25 am 18. Steven Mitchell:

“The biggest problem for many people now is correcting a mistaken entry. Have you ever tried to fix a screwed up credit report? Heck it can take years before you realize that the hassles you’ve been having are the result of some jerks bad typing. Now imagine everything being centralized and subject to all the fubars of the government.”

I’m glad Alan added that. I forget to mention that a big problem with single ID is that it is a classic case of “all the eggs in one basket”. The academics try to tell you that they’ll get around that by making it biometric, “foolproof”. Well, use some common sense. Nothing done by humans is foolproof, and while government is capable of doing some things, they are not the first people you turn to for “foolproof” even when you know you are settling for “almost foolproof”.

In any case, security is only as strong as the weakest link in the chain. No matter how good the technical solution (and it won’t be foolproof), you still must allow for people writing down IDs, mistyping, etc. Therefore, there will be compromised ID. Multiple, segmented IDs are easier to compromise individually, because you can’t spend the money to make each one as close to foolproof as you could a single card. However, collectively they are much more robust, because it’s harder to compromise the complete person’s identification. This is true even if the government farms out the ID system to a private or quasi-private entity.

May 30, 2007 - 11:40 am 19. ajacksonian:

Implemented correctly… aye, and there’s the rub!

From the lovely Federal Government we got the FBI who spent a decade and nearly $5 billion to integrate a few databases. Two projects, at least three major re-thinks and lots of money later? Nope.

The IRS works long and hard to get its computers up to snuff and the code working well…their modernization program went awry a few years back and upgrading meant a major overhaul of outlook and specifications. Yes, they got them wrong.

Border Patrol and ICE depend upon a couple of systems for ID’ing potential terrorists and, a few years back, one of the Nations handing us data, Canada, got it wrong – and the US was put to blame for the problem of deporting someone identified to us by an ally as a terrorist and they wouldn’t even take him!

Excuse me while I definitely have to look askance at the idea that the Federal Government actually does a good job on these things. Homeland Security is already bogged down checking documents for visas and their estimated number of false documents runs into the millions… each requiring a separate confirmation and double-check. There *are* good systems brought up… but upgrading, maintaining and ‘enhancing’ them over time is something that the US Government has never been too keen about.

I was in an agency that had specified a soup-to-nuts computer system back in the early 1980’s and it used the standard procedures for procurement. First delivery was a decade later. The computers delivered were top-of-the-line capable… for 1985… delivered in 1992…. And they didn’t even have the ability to roll over at Y2K, so the entire thing had to be scrapped within a few years of delivery. That for a system that was supposed to operate for *decades*. Estimates on that system range from $3 billion to $25 billion depending on which budget numbers you look at, but most of it was hidden from view and that latter looks closer to me than the former, which was a pipe dream.

And heaven forbid, as others point out, that something gets put into the system *wrong*. You don’t have to go as high up as identity theft for hassles! My State DMV got the wrong drivetrain for my vehicle and insisted that the vehicle be inspected for certain emissions even though the tests could not be *run* on that vehicle. Showing up at a DMV office with the vehicle was not enough. No, simply having the vehicle and having someone in the bureaucracy inspect it to identify that it was, indeed, the vehicle with said drivetrain couldn’t do it. So back to the dealer… who did not keep records that the State would like on that. Thus a nice inquiry to Japan to get duplicates sent was entailed…. all the time with nasty threats on what would happen if I did not get my vehicle inspected.

I am worried about the abusive leaders of this Nation, although their current outlooks put the entire Nation State concept at risk which includes the rights of everyone in the Nation. But that is only mass negation of rights to government.

I am deeply worried about becoming a supplicant to a bureaucracy for *everything* in life. I did not elect such bureaucrats nor want them. That is the way Big Government of Left and Right stripes is heading, so that everything individuals do will need to be signed off upon by a government bureaucrat. I have enough of that with a tax code that I cannot understand, thank you very much. When an individual Citizen needs to hire a professional to fill out paperwork because it is incomprehensible to the ordinary Citizen, that is disenfranchising in and of itself. And an incorrectly implemented, poorly designed system with the encumberance that the elected Representatives Upon the Hill will place on such a thing will ensure that it will become a mighty bureaucracy eating up yet more money, more time and having ME stand in more lines in my life. At the end of that I am not convinced that any additional security can be had.

May 30, 2007 - 12:10 pm 20. Skookumchuk:

Steven Mitchell:

Multiple, segmented IDs are easier to compromise individually, because you can’t spend the money to make each one as close to foolproof as you could a single card. However, collectively they are much more robust, because it’s harder to compromise the complete person’s identification. This is true even if the government farms out the ID system to a private or quasi-private entity.

That was my point.

May 30, 2007 - 12:17 pm 21. Steven Mitchell:

“Excuse me while I definitely have to look askance at the idea that the Federal Government actually does a good job on these things.”

As someone on the other end of many government contracts let me say that this will continue until such times as bid laws written primarily to handle the installation and delivery of hardware are rewritten to handle the reality of modern software. (And by “modern software”, I mean anything after about 1985. The bid laws were workable but trouble for COBOL on mainframes in the 70s.)

It’s a major hassle that I gnash my teeth over weekly. I hate being in a situation where the customer (government agency) and the contractor all want to do the right thing, but we are not allowed to do so because of intractable bid laws. At some point, you have to leave some flexibility to management, then spend the money on oversight and audits by knowledgable people–not pass a law and expect it to work without real oversight.

May 30, 2007 - 12:18 pm 22. Skookumchuk:

Steven Mitchell:

Recruiting qualified people to manage large software projects in government agencies is a major challenge. The work environment and the money aren’t conducive to attracting and retaining people like that. Too many projects go on autopilot as a result.

May 30, 2007 - 12:49 pm 23. AlanC:

Skook,

I am a software project management consultant and have done work for the government as an independent reviewer / auditor. Their problems are not significantly different than any other large organization where I have worked.

The ONE BIG difference is that in government there is virtually no accountability or fear of under performance to budget or schedule.

In the gov’t everyone just keeps on keepin’ on with no pressure from anywhere to make things work. And this includes the “users” who can never be brought to heel with the “who’s going to pay for it?” question that stops so much scope creep (gallop) in the real world.

In the private world someone at sometime breaks out the big stick.

May 30, 2007 - 1:02 pm 24. Skookumchuk:

AlanC:

The ONE BIG difference is that in government there is virtually no accountability or fear of under performance to budget or schedule.

Absolutely. I have considerable insight into this. But quite often I have also observed that the talent and the qualifications of the people on the contractor side are significantly better than on the government side. Add a lack of accountability to the mix and you get a recipe for poor performance.

Somehow we must correct this, or circumvent this, in our search for a secure ID solution.

May 30, 2007 - 1:11 pm 25. Steven Mitchell:

“Recruiting qualified people to manage large software projects in government agencies is a major challenge. ”

Right. So they try to hire consultants to fill the gap. That doesn’t work, either, because the government agency isn’t any better at evaluating the consultant than they are the software developer. At best, it puts another party into the mix. So it’s down to did they manage to hire competent consultants and software developers, or did they not? They award and pray.

Huge, multi-year, fixed cost contracts for software don’t even work well in private companies that do have qualified IT management. Even if you do a good job, the oversight alone will easily double to quadruple the costs. That’s because custom software for an organization (that is, not shrink wrapped) is primarily a service, not a product.

It would be far better to hire a few competing firms to do the the software work for related agencies, put things that are needed in the pipeline, and pay for them by the small project. When they run out of dollars, stop buying stuff. If a contractor isn’t providing much bang for the buck, replace him. Yes, there will be room for (relatively minor) waste here, but it’s nothing compared to Alan’s example of users padding with every feature they can. (A lot of them do that because they have been trained that if they don’t get every bell and whistle today, they can ask for it in the next system 7 years from now.)

Generally, I agree though. Give Sun a huge contract to do a National ID, it will have immense cost overruns, will be late, and it won’t work as expected. Then it will be abused. This will be true even if all the people involved try their best to do a good job, because the structures they will be forced to work under will make it impossible to do anything else. If you get a few bad apples, it will cost even more and be later and maybe never even launch.

May 30, 2007 - 1:13 pm 26. AlanC:

I’m signing off the federal project mgmt piece of this thread. That’s WAYYYY too much like work.

As far as the national ID goes I really believe is that everyone should have an ID that follows the idea behind the old passport. You carry it around and the fact that you have it proves you are a citizen.

The one change is that instead of 19th century identification technology (aka photo) you use a state of the art biometric method. Encode IN THE CARD your finger prints, retinal scan and/or DNA with a photo and you’re good to go!! No SUN mega systems (or IBM, Dell, Hitachi, etc.) No consolidation of all personal information in one easily found spot. You want to see if I’m a citizen come ask and check my ID. Shouldn’t be too hard to whip up a card reader and there’s no need to check back at headquarters.

ON A TOTALLY DIFFERENT TOPIC…….

ROGER!!!!!!! PLEASE (and yes I am begging) I NEED MORE MOSES!!!!!!!!! I thank you & my wife thanks you. And if you happen to know Aaron and Charlotte Elkins please give them a kick in the butt too!

May 30, 2007 - 2:04 pm

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