PRESIDENT BUSH "does not support a national ID card," a White House aide says. And, contrary to popular belief, he's never proposed one, even in the form of national standards for state driver's licenses. The National Strategy for Homeland Security, issued by the White House last April, merely suggested states could adopt stiffer, uniform standards--not that the president was pushing the idea, mind you. House Majority Leader Dick Armey has twice killed any manner of national ID, most recently by inserting a flat prohibition in the House version of the homeland security bill. Nor is the Senate seriously contemplating a national ID card, even one limited to non-citizens. The homeland security legislation on the Senate floor this week avoids the subject entirely.
Washington has its head in the sand on a national ID, raising again the question of whether the Bush administration and Congress are truly serious about fighting a domestic war on terrorism. The administration opposes arming pilots, a sure deterrent to hijackers (Congress, wisely, may overturn that decision). Ethnic profiling at airports is also outlawed, leaving us with a dysfunctional security system that harasses ordinary passengers without providing real security against terrorists. No, a national ID card isn't the solution to the entire terrorist problem, and a system of ID cards wouldn't be foolproof, though it would be as close to foolproof as is scientifically possible. But it would enhance security enormously, which is all the more urgently needed in the absence of armed pilots and profiling.
How would it help?
A national ID card, issued on the basis of serious proof of identity, would do what a driver's license or a Social Security card cannot: provide virtual certainty that the holder is who the card says he is. It would do this through a biometric device--whether based on fingerprints or retinal pattern or, someday, on DNA. If the card holder were in the United States on a visa, the card would expire on the day the visa runs out. Someone here illegally wouldn't have a national ID card in the first place. Such a card would link with criminal record retrieval systems and immigrant or terrorist watch lists. It would be extremely difficult to tamper with. It would replace the practices that made it scandalously easy for the September 11 hijackers to board airplanes in Boston and New York and Washington.
Five of the 19 terrorists had obtained Social Security numbers with false identities, the Washington Post reported. The other 14 "probably made up or appropriated other numbers and used them for false identification," the Post quoted Social Security officials as saying. What makes Social Security cards so important is that they can be used to obtain driver's licenses, which are all but universally accepted as valid identification. Driver's licenses are notoriously easy to obtain. Some states don't even require Social Security cards. Seven of the hijackers had Virginia state ID cards, despite the fact they lived in Maryland motels. A few months after September 11, federal authorities broke up a Virginia ring that had created hundreds of false IDs for foreigners from Muslim countries. A national ID card would make such fraud immeasurably more difficult to commit, while making it easier for most Americans to go about their business at airports and the multitude of other places where identification is routinely requested.
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