National ID Cards

This one's for the yanks. What's everyone's take on the national ID card movement? Personally I don't see a problem with it. Unless there's something I'm missing.

And if you're not a yank and want to offer your opinion and some insight on what your country does feel free.

California DMV already has my mug shot and thumb print. What would an international ID card do for me besides let me buy beer in Virginia without getting quite so funny a look? Any reason why I should be more concerned about a National ID than, say, my existing passport or driving license?

We don't have them over here yet, the government is trying to introduce them though - suppose it'll only be a matter of time before they do.

No problem here. Thats why I dont care if the NSA taps my email or phone, I dont have nothing to worry about, and although it might violate my "privacy", if you dont have anything to hide, who cares. Greater good trumps my need to hide dirty email jokes from Big Brother.

None at all. People that are paranoid about a National ID are still living in the 80's. The Man already knows everything about you anyway...

If the Man knows everything already why does he need ID?

I am opposed to National ID cards in all countries, as I see it as a waste of time, and only a matter of time for it to be a criminal offence to not have your ID on you at all times ... bloody pointless.

It's a mirage to convince people that they're still under a real threat and a willing to throw away more rights.

I used to work in Belfast, during the Thursday night bombscare period, every thursday for a month or two the entire city was gridlocked by bombscares, some weren't scares, after a while people became totally desensitised and left their cars parked on the street and went on the beer ... that was a real and present danger

After Katrina there were tons of people who lost all their identification, and they really didn't have any way to really get identification because they lost their birth certificates and stuff too. This lead to a lot of fraud because there was no way for people to really distinguish if people were even from a huricane zone. If we had national ID cards one of the benifits would be being able to walk into any dmv in the country and get a new ID card. I don't really see how everything being in a national database instead of a state database (which the feds have access to anyhow) changes anything.

Identification can be sinister think tattoos and Auschwitz.

How are you throwing away rights? Sure, if they make it where you have to carry it everywhere and display it all the time, that'll be intrusive. But is anyone actually suggesting that?

A national ID system sounds like it would make things simpler overall. It'd be easily recognizable for everyone, come from the same supplier (I assume) and put everyone under one system to obtain/update/issue them, instead of 50 different ones.

I really don't see the issue of having a state license or a national license/ID. WTF cares, so long as I can still drive and buy beer!

---John Holmes...

If the government can't explain why something should be done, it shouldn't be allowed to do it. All I ever hear is "it'll make you safer", but unless the invisible bogeyman is after me, I don't see what, exactly, I'm being made safer from and why the ID card is going to help that situation.

Even ignoring the fact that creating the cards paves the way for requiring them everywhere outside your house, there's the fact that they'll cost money. There's the fact that it's just one more piece of ID you can lose or have stolen. There's the fact that it's another thing you become responsible for with no benefit to you.

And I don't WANT all of the eight hundred and thirty two billion different ways I can be identified tied together. Even if we assume that right now there are no sinister big brother motives (HAHAHAHAHAAHA Bush is laughing at you through his wiretap), who's to say that in twenty years some psychotic nutjob isn't going to go down the road?

Besides, why the hell would I want to be carrying a card that can be used to steal every single possible identification an ID theif could possibly need or want in one hit?

There are only two things you need to know about big governments like ours:

a) They're evil, intentionally or not.
b) If they're not evil, they're at least incompetent, inefficient, and ineffective.

Keep this in mind as you mull over the exceptionally complicated systems involved in creating and maintaining a national ID that could literally be used to pinpoint your coordinates right down to the block.

Yes the government is up to more than it's telling. Yes they're listening to everything I say and type. Yes they've got satelites that can zoom in far enough to see a flea taking a piss on a dog's back. I've known that for years and I didn't care until they started using that information to violate people's rights. (ie. locking people up for 3 years with little or no evidence)

As far as identity theft goes, any one piece of identification you've got on you can be used to gain anything a theif may want. Credit card, social security card, drivers lisence, hell even a student id card. One more card isn't really going to make it that much easier.

Point is, for the government and the theives (not that there's much of a difference), there's nothing that either can get from a national id card that they can't already get without it. I don't know, maybe it's because I carried a military ID card from the age of 10 to the age of 21 that had my name, my social, my dad's social, my birthdate, etc. and in recent years, a nifty little computer chip.

A smart card with RFID, and readers on every block, oh yeah no invasion of privacy there, get real

OH ****! the man knows I'm on the corner of 5th and Main!! The ****ing world is going to end!!! There's no point in going on, the ****ing man is keeping me down AND I CAN'T GET TO 6TH STREET!!!

What happens if someone steals your card, commits a crime, and returns your card to you ... oh, that's ok then

/edit
and with RFID, they could tag your vote as well, which may or may not be used as a means to discriminate ... all the better reason to back a winner.

The costs of building such a system, with the cost of the war on terror, can you afford a few extra cents on the dollar to implement

Trust a government which brought you a war on a tissue of lies ... your call

"returns it to you"? WTF...

What if someone steals your car and commits a hit-and-run and then "returns it to you"? Same thing, right?