Thanks but no thanks, Larry Ellison	

By W. James Antle III
web posted October 8, 2001

While much has been said about those who engaged in "price-
gouging" in the wake of last month's terrorist attacks, perhaps the
most self-serving response has been Oracle CEO Larry Ellison's
offer to donate free software to the federal government for the
development of a central national identification database.

It is not difficult to imagine how this generosity would ultimately
yield financial gains for Oracle, though it would be amusing to
see Ellison's offer accepted by the same federal government that
brought anti-trust cases against Bill Gates for giving Internet
Explorer to consumers for free. In this instance, we would all pay
for Ellison's charity by opening ourselves up to government
abuse and diminished civil liberties.

Having to fork over your papers to the authorities is
characteristic of Nazi Germany and South Africa under
apartheid, but not of a free constitutional republic. First, though
this may seem a remarkably passe' concern, the federal
government has absolutely no constitutional authority to require
American citizens to carry a national ID card or to maintain a
central database containing Americans' identities. A government
unconstrained by the Constitution is not one that should be
trusted with its citizens' identity information. The Constitution
should not be a casualty of September 11, 2001.

So what, asks US News and World Report columnist Randall E.
Stross. Only a society of hermits and self-sufficient farmers can
be secure without a national ID card, accompanied by a digitized
photograph and fingerprint. "If there's a prolonged debate over
national identity cards, " wrote Stross in the October 8 issue, "I
hope it will not run along the old ruts, the individual's interests
versus the state's. This vital matter is really between citizen and
fellow citizen, the obligations of community members to one
another." Just add three words (for the children) and we have
now unassailably justified any conceivable expansion of
government.

Never is it asked precisely how the national ID card would have
stopped the recent terrorist attacks, because all known
participants entered the country legally. Note also the assumption
that a national ID card could not be falsified, a laughable
assertion in the face of contemporary technology. The national
ID card is simply an unconscionable invasion of privacy that
counterfeiters would be able to reproduce as effectively as
current forms of identification, in time if not already.

Stross repeats the most popular counter-argument of the pro-ID
crowd to the question of privacy: It's too late to worry about
that, because in this digital age the private sector already has
your identity on file. "Yet these are outside our oversight," writes
Stross. "A federal identity database, however, would be ours,
accountable to us, governed by rules that we the public direct."

This is hopelessly naïve. First, the routine invasions of privacy
seen in American life today hardly justify making the situation
worse. Second, the abuses visited upon us by the private sector
pale in comparison to those the government is capable of.
Government possesses a legal monopoly on lethal armed force.
Junk mail can be thrown away, annoying cold-call telemarketers
can be put into your answering machine, companies that misuse
data can lose business or be prosecuted. What checks are there
against government abuse of such a database?

Does Stross really think we are going to take a majority vote
each time the database is about to be put to some use? (As if
that would necessarily protect individual rights even if it were the
case.) Are we going to be taking daily tours to monitor the uses
of this database and correct abuses? "We the public" are not
going to be managing this database, nor for the most part will our
elected officials. Government bureaucrats will be in control of
this information.

Without even detailing the more horrific examples of government
abuses and malfeasance, it is clear that government does at times
abuse such information. Already, the Social Security number has
been transformed into an identity number despite initial
government assurances -even legal promises - to the contrary. In
early 1995, some 500 IRS employees were caught snooping
through friends' and celebrities' income tax returns. Only five of
them were fired. Confidential Census data was used to identify
Japanese-Americans during the policy of internment during
World War II. The state of Ohio actually sold its drivers' license
and car registration lists to a private company.

Indeed, the only way a national ID card system could even
theoretically work is if all Americans were to be closely
monitored on the basis of the information contained in the
database. Otherwise, there isn't even any point to this exercise.
Conservatives who support this proposal should realize how this
system would assist further growth of government, from gun
confiscation to socialized medicine.

According to a study by Stephen Moore and John J. Miller for
the Cato Institute, if used to enforce immigration regulations on
employers, a national identity database with an error rate as low
as 1 percent would deny jobs to 650,000 American workers per
year. Making business an enforcement arm of big brother
imposes costs.

The risks of having such information abused by powerful federal
bureaucrats outweigh the benefits of any national ID card
system. President Bush and our political leaders should tell Larry
Ellison no thanks and concentrate on a military response to Al
Qaeda and its allies.

W. James Antle III is a senior writer for Enter Stage Right and
can be reached at wjantle@enterstageright.com.

Enter Stage Right - http://www.enterstageright.com