There’s an AP wire story today on what the feds are thinking of doing to manage all the hullaballoo around a previously-announced preference to tighten identification requirements for Canadian and Mexican border crossings, and for access to federal buildings:
One card would serve as a border pass, a driver’s license and a security ID for entering federal buildings. It would include not just your name and picture, but your fingerprints and DNA.
Just don’t call it a national ID card.
The Homeland Security Department is planning border crossing cards for Americans re-entering the country from Canada and Mexico. Officials hope to start issuing the PASS (for People Access Security Service) cards by the end of 2006, but will not require them for an additional year.
A PASS card may also one day carry driver’s license and other identification information, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Wednesday.
But he told reporters, “I don’t think it’s a national ID card.” Critics fear such a card could violate privacy rights.
Um, if it walks like duck and quacks like a duck, there’s a pretty good chance that it’s a duck.
I’m actually not all that opposed to having a national ID, but before we achieve the One Card To Rule Them All, the U.S. really needs a strengthening of privacy protections, and a clarification of when ID is/isn’t required to be shown. Sadly, I don’t expect such thoughtfulness to occur.