by Leigh Goessl

Created on: May 02, 2010   Last Updated: May 12, 2010

It seems 2010 is the year another big push is occurring for a national ID card to be mandated in the U.S. Democrat Senate leaders are proposing a plan that would require all workers in the US to carry a national ID card containing biometric information.

If passed the plan will require the worker identification cards to be activated and in use within the next six years. The program, entitled the "Believe System" is actually an acronym that stands for Biometric Enrollment, Locally store Information, and Electronic Verification of Employment.

The cards would contain a microprocessing chip with an digital encryption key that would match work authorization databases. Employers would be able to scan the cards through and determine a cardholder's identity.

At the heart of this initiative is an intention for the cards to be included as part of the immigration reform plan to ensure that all individuals working are in the country legally.

You might be wondering what kind of impact this will have on everyone.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) strongly protests this initiative for several reasons. Aside from the expense of implementing and maintaining such a system, ACLU legislative counsel Christopher Calabrese states “Creating a biometric national ID will not only be astronomically expensive, it will usher government into the very center of our lives".

Calabrese continues "Every worker in America will need a government permission slip in order to work. And all of this will come with a new federal bureaucracy — one that combines the worst elements of the DMV and the TSA. America’s broken immigration system needs real, workable reform, but it cannot come at the expense of privacy and individual freedoms".

Should every worker residing in the US have to be fingerprinted or have other biometrics scanned? Anytime this topic comes up many feel this is too much like Big Brother. It is not the idea of a national ID card that concerns people as much as the technologies being considered to embed in the cards.

Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois has worked on the proposal and feels people will become more comfortable with the idea of a biometric based national ID card. He concedes there was initial resistance but thinks people will come around and see the value of this kind of initiative.

Democrats are also insisting this card is not a national ID card and will only be used for working purposes. The question begs asking. For how long?

Once the system is in place, wouldn't it be easy to simply include other identification requirements in the same database? Look at what happened with the social security card, that ID card was not intended to be used as an identification card either.

While the immigration issue is one that has been long overdue in needing to be addressed, are mandated biometric cards really the solution? Are they even feasible?  

In 2004, the FDA had already approved computer based chips to be implanted in humans. For instance, if the card becomes too expensive to maintain will the government simply switch over to chips?

Democrats hope to win over the approval of Republicans and find common ground.

That's all well and good, but in the end, where will this leave the average US worker? Not to mention someone's going to have to pay for the scanners, cards, chips and the creation and maintenance of the database system.

Reference:

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/95235-democrats-s park-alarm-with-call-for-national-id-card

http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20100430/cm_huffpos t/557721_201004291905

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