What is the context here? If government officials want my social security number readily available so they don't have to get their rumps out of their chairs to get it, forget that. But if they want to be able to subpoena my library record to build a case against a suspected terrorist, I'm all for it.
 

I'm with Ralphie. Give us a link so we can figure out what he's talking about. I've heard some civil libertarians come out for national ID cards (Dershowitz?) and I don't have a problem with them. It is certainly a role of gov't to give out drivers licences. Why not make them difficult to forge, nationally uniform, and unique?
 

Thanks for the link, Nomad. His proposal would ban the creation of a national ID and would require the issuance of new Social Security numbers that would be used only for social security and could not be used as a national identifying number. His arguments for it have to do with privacy rights and preventing identity theft. He never mentions the security / war on terror reasons for a national ID. (He does mention terrorists in passing.) I disagree. I think the government has a legitimate interest in being able to determine its citizens' identity and in facilitating our ability to identify each other. New cards being considered would prevent identity theft by using biometric data, for example a thumb print on the card or a magnetic strip containing an image of your iris. You can argue that even if it is a role of gov't it should be done at the state level, and you know how much I love Federalism, but 50 different ID cards are an obvious security problem. Will the ticket salesperson in Florida know how to tell if a California ID is forged? All citizens and legal permanent residents should be issued a national ID card. It should be difficult to forge, easy to authenticate, and provide biometric information that links it uniquely with its rightful owner. The technology for this is readilly available, and I can't imagine it would cost more than the Medicare drug benefit we just passed. Then we would have a secure way to buy plane tickets, register to vote (permanent resident non-citizen cards would have to be clearly marked as such), and enter into private secure transactions with each other. If the gov't uses it to track the books I'm checking out from the library and finds out the last time I got a traffic ticket and how much I owe on my Visa, I don't really care.
 

And another thing: I'm glad The Scot is OK. I feared he was dead. Has anyone seen Godby?