The future has arrived - without fanfare and with no publicity. It came in the form of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996 which President Clinton signed into law. Concealed deep within the voluminous document at approximately page 650 is a provision to transform our conventional forms of identification into a document that would constitute a NATIONAL IDENTIFICATION CARD.
As a continuous thread running through the 104th congress, were proposals to establish a system of national identification. Various data base designs have been included in a diverse array of bills. These proposals have been buried in much larger legislation, so this particular issue has not been clearly visible.
The Universal Identification Card has been proposed as a solution to many problems which confront the government. This includes tracking deadbeat dads, illegal immigration, welfare fraud, criminal record documentation, gun control, health care, anti-terrorism, etc.; but proposals to initiate such a system in the United States have met with strong opposition and historically have been defeated until now.
On the state level, several programs have been legislated into place which can be integrated into the National ID System. Georgia legislators passed a fingerprint law requiring digitized fingerprints to be placed on all state drivers' licenses and ID cards. Alabama is moving to implement the same requirement. In Oregon the Department of Motor Vehicles is issuing a new digital photo driver's license with digitized information in a bar code configuration. A spokesperson for the Oregon DMV revealed that the new licenses would be in a format which would allow the business community to acquire readers that can access the encoded information. It has been reported that all fifty states are moving toward standardized drivers' licenses, which would then become the National Identification Card.
Senator Diane Feinstein of California has been one of the leading advocates of the Universal Identity Card. She has suggested an ID card with a magnetic strip on which the bearer's unique voice, retina pattern, or fingerprint is digitally encoded. Feinstein is not alone in her desire to create a national ID card. Former Senator Alan Simpson has long been an advocate of such a system "to reduce document fraud".
During Congressional testimony on May 13,1997, economist Steven Moore stated that "this idea of national ID cards first surfaced in a Reagan Administration cabinet meeting in 1981. Then Attorney General William French Smith argued that a perfectly harmless ID card would be necessary to reduce illegal immigration. A second cabinet member asked why not tattoo a number on each American's forearm. According to Martin Anderson, the White House domestic policy advisor at that time, Reagan blurted out, 'My god, that's the mark of the beast.' Anderson reports 'that was the end of the national ID card' during the Reagan years. But bad ideas never die in Washington, they wait for another day." (U.S. House of Rep. Subcommittee on Immigration).
That day arrived last September when the president signed the bill containing the obscure passage which creates the ID system. In title IV, section 656(b) the legislation contains all the elements necessary to convert your state driver's license into a national ID card. It specifies guidelines that must be complied with for state identification documents (driver's licenses) to be used as identification for ANY federal purpose.
Licenses must comply in format to federal regulations. They must have the Social Security number either visible or machine readable. The cards must also have certain undisclosed "security" features which would likely include some or all of Senator Feinstein's recommendations - fingerprint, retina scan and voice print. It may be noted that when changing from one form of identification to another, that change is invariably accompanied by a change to the nature and content of the data on the document.
The American Civil Liberties Union has launched a campaign called TAKE BACK YOUR DATA to draw attention to new threats to the right to privacy. They point to the fact that from using your home telephone, to sending e-mail, to seeking medical advice, Americans' privacy is in grave peril. Technological advances bring great benefits to society, but the benefits should not cost the loss of control over our private personal information.
In the case of the Department of Motor Vehicles in Oregon, their spokesperson gave verbal assurance that the information in the digitized code contained no confidential information. However, an individual in the Oregon judicial system indicated that in today's intrusive climate, virtually no information is considered to be confidential, so the DMV statement is technically correct.
This issue, however, is not localized to the United States. There is a simultaneous movement across the globe to implement this same agenda into the societies of the world. It has been reported that China, Mexico, Australia and Thailand are among the most recent countries to join Argentina, Brazil, Greece, Portugal, Afghanistan, Korea, Viet Nam, etc., etc. which have imposed a national Identification system on their populations. Privacy International, an organization dedicated to the preservation of individual privacy, conducted a survey in an attempt to discover the problems caused by ID cards. Among the most serious abuses reported was the over zealous use or misuse of ID cards by police.
The trend which most countries follow seems to be an ever increasing requirement for the card's use, becoming a kind of internal passport. In many countries the card is necessary to do even such mundane activities as gaining access to public buildings, renting a hotel room, buying a train ticket, applying for a job or changing your residence. The card must be carried at all times.
In an address to the Cato Institute last year, Congressman Dick Armey said ,"As for a National Identification Card which I understand the Administration is considering, let me be clear here. What some are calling a 'National Computer Registry' is just a euphemism for a national ID card. And any system in which Americans would be forced to possess such a card, for any reason, is an abomination and wholly at odds with the American tradition of individual freedom."
Mr. Armey's statement is a revealing insight into the inner workings of government and its agenda. His use of "euphemism" defined as "substitution of a mild or inoffensive word or expression for one considered offensive", is a perfect representation of the means employed by those who control today's government. They freely use pleasing, flattering, misleading words and ideas- euphemisms, to create a distorted and deceptive picture of their true plans and actions.
While Mr. Armey's address to the Cato Institute seems commendable, his actions have been puzzling. Following his strong statement condemning the Administration's proposal to institute ID cards, later he, in fact, voted in favor of the legislation which creates the National Identification Card system. Are politicians just a euphemism for double agents?
The creation of this system is another incremental intrusion into the lives of the American public and the people of the world. But this is only the beginning, the next step will be a giant leap for information-seeking governmental agencies and bureaucrats. Shortly after taking office in 1993, the President of the United States set up a task force to create the National Information Infrastructure. This system, now under construction, will be everything Mr. Orwell envisioned and more.
The potential for tracking one's individual movements and location with the proposed voice print ID feature is ominous. Simply by placing or receiving a phone call, you can be instantly identified and located, wherever you are. Beyond simply monitoring an individual's activities, the real threat will be control. Control of independent thought and control of the conscience.
In Argentina, where ID cards are required, it is said that citizens are no better off than were the South African Negroes during Apartheid. The only difference is, Argentineans did not have to suffer lashings if caught without the card. Those without the card, however, are customarily taken to jail until identity can be established. As for daily life without the card, it is impossible. In other countries the card is subject to police cancellation. If an individual's personal convictions are in conflict with those in authority, the card can be voided. Without it "one can hardly do anything."
National ID cards are not perceived as a general threat by many individuals today. Many heads nod approval for the need to control crime and to stop foreign infiltrators. But let the veil be torn off and their eyes opened and they will see far more ominous implications. If any citizen found himself at cross purposes with his government, believing he could not support some act carried on by government, the very real probability would be that his ID would be canceled. He would be considered by the government to be an alien or enemy of the welfare of the state. Since the ID would be necessary for most commerce, it would stand to reason that he would not any longer be able to buy or sell. This would be an effective tool to keep the population politically correct and it would eliminate true spiritual conviction as one's motivating force. It would place those who live according to their spiritual convictions as enemies of the state.
A story appearing in the San Francisco Chronicle illustrates the possibilities which national ID cards hold for those required to carry them. The massacre which the world witnessed in 1995 in Rwanda, where up to one million men, women and children were killed, was in part facilitated by the use of mandatory ID cards. "Rwanda will no longer distinguish between Hutus and Tutsis when it issues new identity cards, ending a practice that helped the Hutu militiamen to select their victims in last year's genocide." During the slaughter, "Hutu militiamen demanded the identity cards of civilians they stopped. If they were listed as members of the Tutsi minority, they were hacked to death or shot." SFC June 9, 1995.
The New World Order is rapidly revealing the extent of its progress toward achieving the goal of world domination. National identification cards bring the world a step closer to the realization of that goal, and the National Information Infrastructure is a major milestone in their advance to the new millennium and their hoped-for new civilization. In contemplating national ID cards, we catch a glimpse into the kind of society they have planned. And with the experimental use in the countries discussed above, one can determine what the quality of life will be in the new civilization.
Written 6/23/97