(MCT)—What if we just said no? Not to drugs—though that’s a good idea, too. But no to being fingerprinted and/or optically scanned for purposes of the soon-to-be-mandatory National ID card?
We’re supposed to be a fiercely independent, freedom-loving bunch—the sort who’d never trot willingly to the glue factory like so many European herd animals. Right?
So what’s the deal with this National ID stuff—specifically, submitting to being fingerprinted and having our irises scanned for the so-called biometric tags like common criminals?
The government passed in 2005 the Real ID act, which requires all states to change the way they issue driver’s licenses so they conform to a single federal standard. One that includes a requirement—dazzling in its stridency—that each of us be tagged with those so-called biometric identifiers with the data linked to a single federal database that would be continuously fed information about us and what we do and where we go.
All of it in the name of fighting terrorism; apparently this will be accomplished by setting up one of the building blocks of every modern police state. The National ID card will be required for virtually every transaction of modern life, from boarding an airplane to opening a bank account.
Privacy advocates have been up in arms since the idea was first broached after the Sept. 11 attacks—and rightly observed that homegrown terrorists like Timothy McVeigh had perfectly in-order papers, including a legitimate driver’s license.
A National ID would not have stopped the Oklahoma City bombings or prevented Mohammed Atta from boarding the 767 that flew into the World Trade Center. And anyone who believes it will prevent or even put a dent in the endless truckloads of illegal immigrants entering this country from Mexico has been guzzling some tainted Kool-Aid.
Estimates of compliance costs run to $11 billion and more—big money, even at the federal level and especially for states with entire budgets that are smaller than that. At a certain point that is hard to define before it confronts us, we must each be ready to take a stand and say “no.” This is unacceptable. I will not comply. Politely and without violence, but firmly. It is a question of right versus wrong, not law.
That’s a concept that made this country possible in the first place. The American Revolution was set off by obnoxious tax edicts. It’s the kind of attitude that helped self-cleanse some historical wrongs—slavery comes to mind, then Jim Crow. A certain amount of scofflawing from time to time has served to keep Washington from over-stepping its bounds.
A people no longer able to get its collective back up, no longer willing to take a stand when something really important is on the line, is a people that is ready for fingerprints and optical scans. Are we such a people?
© 2007 McClatchy-Tribune News
