National Review, Nov 5, 2001 v53 i21 pNA

       Your Papers, Please: Against a national ID card. JOHN DERBYSHIRE.

  Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2001 National Review, Inc.

  In the present climate of concern about security, we have been hearing renewed calls for a national
  identity card. Larry Ellison, the CEO of Oracle Corp., which sells software for managing large databases,
  had a piece in the Wall Street Journal: "Digital IDs Can Help Prevent Terrorism." Ellison does not go into
  much detail about how a national ID card might actually prevent terrorism; in fact he leaves one with the
  impression that terrorists who were careful to keep their noses clean while in the U.S.A. would go
  undetected anyway.

  A few days later, Alan Dershowitz, the notorious professor and lawyer, chimed in with an op-ed in the
  New York Times: "Why Fear National ID Cards?" Dershowitz imagines a minimal system: "The only
  information the card need contain is name, address, photo and [finger]print." Such a system would, he
  argues, actually enhance civil liberties by "reducing the need for racial and ethnic stereotyping." It is
  encouraging to know that the professor acknowledges such a need; though since, by the time the ID
  card has been requested and presented, the profiling has already occurred, it is hard to see how the
  card would help.

  Both writers make the point that all sorts of databases already exist, full of information about our
  incomes, movements, and private lives. A national ID-card system would simply make more efficient and
  useful what already exists in a chaotic and diffuse form. Ellison: "All these separate databases make it
  difficult for one agency to know about and apprehend someone wanted by another agency." Dershowitz:
  "[The card] would reduce the likelihood that someone could, intentionally or not, get lost in the cracks of
  multiple bureaucracies."

  Well, yes. Reading things like that, I feel that I am looking at one of those optical tricks-like the stack of
  cubes that seem to be ascending and lit from below, until you blink and perceive them as descending
  and lit from above. What Ellison and Dershowitz deplore-the possibility that an individual can lurk quietly
  in the interstices of our numerous national databases-seems to me a guarantor of individual liberty in
  the United States. It is sufficiently disturbing that the federal government can, by sorting through a pile
  of conflicting and unreliable data, track my movements and habits with modest accuracy. That they
  should be able to do this better and more efficiently is, it seems to me, a prospect to be dreaded.

  There are other problems with a national ID-card database. There is the issue of data quality, for
  example. A study by the (libertarian) Cato Institute in 1995 showed that large databases owned by the
  federal government had high error rates: 5 to 20 percent for the Social Security Administration, and 10
  to 20 percent for the IRS. The INS database, they found, was unreliable 28 percent of the time; people's
  first and last names were routinely in the wrong order, and misspellings were "rampant."

  And then there is the matter of abuse. Because of the attacks on our country, we are currently in a
  collectivist frame of mind, with the percentage of Americans who say they trust the federal government
  to do the right thing "nearly always" or "most of the time" currently at 64- twice the level of a year ago. I
  hope and believe that the sober style of the new administration has also made some contribution to this
  high level of trust. We must remember, though, that a national ID database, once established, would be
  available to all future administrations. It is hard to imagine the Bush people allowing low-level staffers to
  riffle through FBI files, or siccing the IRS on the president's personal enemies: yet exactly these things
  happened in previous years. Both of our editorialists are blithe about the possibility of abuse.
  Dershowitz: "The fear of an intrusive government can be addressed by setting criteria for any official
  who demands to see the card." Ellison: "Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search
  and seizure would govern access . . . The 'probable cause' standard will still have to be met."

  Compare the following, taken pretty much at random from the immense literature on government abuse
  of power and disregard of the law and the Constitution in the 1990s: "In August 1993 the IRS revealed
  that 369 of its employees in one regional office had been investigated for browsing through the returns
  of friends, relatives, celebrities and others" (from Feeling Your Pain by James Bovard).

  The cheerful confidence of Dershowitz and Ellison in the efficacy of "criteria" and "probable cause" as
  means of restraining government workers who are psychotic, venal, overzealous, or just inquisitive
  about the data in their charge, contrasts rather starkly with what we know about the actual behavior of
  actual bureaucrats when entrusted with our secrets, especially when, as apparently is fated to happen
  every so often, our government falls into the hands of liars and thieves.

  And yet many Americans will feel that there is no choice. We have, they will say, been living in a fool's
  paradise: a quaint but hopelessly outdated notion of a country in which people can move freely without
  asking leave of anyone, can live lives free of interference by government busybodies, can engage in
  private transactions among themselves without any restraints other than those necessary to protect the
  weak from the strong. To prevent us from being ravaged by foreign evildoers like Osama bin Laden, we
  must submit to a more "European" style of life, with more supervision by the authorities.

  I do not accept this. A few elementary precautions and a rational immigration policy would do a great
  deal to prevent the repetition of a September 11-type horror. A swift and vigorous response to all
  attacks on Americans-either civilians or troops, either at home or abroad-would work wonders in the
  way of deterrence. Even with all that, however, there is no perfect security; the odd lunatic or terrorist
  will always slip through the net. Then hundreds of us-or, in the rarest case, thousands of us-will be
  killed or maimed. There is a limit to what we can do to prevent this, short of instituting a system of
  permanent surveillance of all citizens and visitors, monitored by a vast army of snoopers.

  In this, as in so many other things, Ronald Reagan set the example. He did not waver in his support for
  Second Amendment rights even when he himself was shot by a lunatic, regarding such an occurrence as
  part of the price for living in a free society. In the same spirit, when the subject of a national ID card, as
  an aid to controlling illegal immigration, was raised during a cabinet meeting, Reagan dismissed it with
  the sardonic remark: "Maybe we should just brand all babies." (This from Martin Anderson's book
  Revolution.) In the present climate, one hesitates to tell that story, for fear the idea might be taken up
  in all seriousness and appear a few days later as a New York Times editorial.