Immigration Reform: National ID card

[her209]

5 Reasons Why America Should Steer Clear of a National ID Card
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/03/09/alex-nowrasteh-national-id-e-verify-illegal-immigration/

First, every worker would have to ask permission from the federal government to get a job. American workers shouldn’t have to beg or plead to anybody to get permission to work. Being employed should be a private agreement between an employer and employee. Period. The government should get out of the way.

Second, carrying around government papers with biometric identification on it conjures up images of a more technologically savvy Oceania or East Germany. No thanks.

Third, the system will exclude millions of legal workers by accident and fail to catch the majority of undocumented immigrants. For instance, if E-Verify were instituted nation-wide 3.6 million Americans would be denied employment each year and have to visit the Social Security Administration to correct their records. The employer either fires them or delays training. Will a biometric ID card make this system better? How does that help American workers?

Fourth, it will cost businesses up to $800 to buy a scanner. Or as Senator Chuck Schumer says, employers can just go down to the DMV. Senator Schumer doesn’t know squat about running a business. The last thing an employer wants to do is spend time at the DMV when he could be spending it improving his business. And all this during an economic slump!

Fifth, it would treat every American like a criminal by requiring them to enter their most intimate and personal data into a government database. One of the benefits of not having committed any crimes is that my information is not in a government record office. I’d like to keep it that way.

While I don't support the idea of a national ID card, I do support the idea of integrating biometric information that is stored local to the card and not in some giant government database.

Instead of issuing a new national ID card, why not just include biometric information (finger print) on state driver's licenses and state ID cards for cards issued going forward? It seems like issuing a new national ID card would be creating redundant work.

As for businesses having to buy the scanners, why couldn't they just send the prospective employee to go get their identity authenticated elsewhere and bring back the paperwork stating as such.

Of course, all this is moot if the employer pays the employee under the table.

 

[Bitek]

I'd be more worried about any of that stuff more than some Mexicans sneaking across the boarder to mow some lawns...

 

[shortylickens]

I'd be more worried about any of that stuff more than some Mexicans sneaking across the boarder to mow some lawns...

I can only assume you dont live in a town infested with illegals. They are here for much more than just lawn mowing.
BUT, I dont see a national ID card system helping anyone. The reason illegals are able to stay here at all is because they work for cash or checks that get turned into cash immediately. The ID system cant solve the real problem with is illegal aliens running around unchecked.
I dont like the idea of honest Americans being punished while illegals get a free ride. I'm sick of them right now, and not only does Obama want to let them stay and have them be legals, (for the easy votes I assume) but he wants to butt fuck the citizen tax payers on top of it.

Fuck that shit.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Aside from whether this is an Orwellian thing or not, how would having an ID card cause people to have to "beg" the Feds for a job anymore than I have to do now when I am told I can't buy alcohol without a picture drivers license or equivalent? I never thought of it as grovelling. I still don't.

 

[Anarchist420]

The National ID card is to punish citizens. Fuck it. I'm sure it will go through though.

 

[Moonbeam]

Conservative wackos have been shoving national identity cards up their ass since they heard about the mark of the beast. Their wide eyed terror IS the mark of a beast.

 

[CycloWizard]

As I said in the other thread on this topic, why not get rid of the minimum wage, which is the cause of the problem? Then, we can simply have an employer and an employee agreeing on what they will be paid without government interference (except the government will still take a chunk of whatever the employee makes whether he agrees or not).

 

[nonlnear]

I've never understood the hatred for national ID. We already have SSNs and passports. I'm all for an INCREDIBLY stripped down federal government, but I'll acknowledge that a robust federal ID card makes a lot of sense for certain things.

As for the article, it's an incoherent crock. The only legitimate point I saw in there was the mockery of Schumer's statement that business owners could go down to the DMV. What the article failed to observe was that if the $800 cost was truly onerous, rental companies would pop up to solve the problem. The only companies that really need to own their own are ones that hire almost every day. Those also happen to be companies that typically can afford $800 for a piece of office equipment.

The other points fall quickly:
1. You already have to ask the feds for permission to work. It's called an SSN.
2. "Conjures up images of" != "is ideologically equivalent to". If your society requires ID, then there's going to some sort of ZOMG government ID. WDFD.
3. Correcting 3.6 million incorrect records is a bad thing? Even if this is true, it wouldn't be ongoing. Once a record is correct it's correct, so it's not like you are creating an underclass of 3.6 million people who can never work.
4. Semi-legit, but already discussed.
5. Too late. Your info is already in multiple government databases. Get over it. If you really aren't in any government databases and are gainfully employed, you either owe a lot of taxes or drive a fine black horse-drawn buggy.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

As I said in the other thread on this topic, why not get rid of the minimum wage, which is the cause of the problem? Then, we can simply have an employer and an employee agreeing on what they will be paid without government interference (except the government will still take a chunk of whatever the employee makes whether he agrees or not).

Because that idea sucks? I work for a place which has gone to considerable trouble to cut wages for workers to at or near minimum for the "grunts" along with shorter hours. Of course gas still costs three bucks a gallon.

So we have people who have been working years leaving since it makes little sense to effectively pay to work. We replace them with people who haven't a clue or sense for the most part, while the others haven't any good options.

If the government has ultimate control over your liberty, giving such power to corporations means there is no limit to how they can put people into working poverty.

 

[piasabird]

There are some pros and cons concerning a national ID card. This would be one attempt to track criminals. If the ID numbers are national, then they could be tracked using a single database. No more people moving from state to state to hide from prosecution. The problem is that there are people who could forge any ID card the government could create that would be good enough to get through customs with the hardest scrutiny.

Imagine putting all driving tickets in a national database. Imagine the insurance compainies having access to that?

Can you say "Big Brother"?

This could be a pre-cursor to communism or the Federal government taking over all State Sovreignty.

 

[Moonbeam]

Because that idea sucks? I work for a place which has gone to considerable trouble to cut wages for workers to at or near minimum for the "grunts" along with shorter hours. Of course gas still costs three bucks a gallon.

So we have people who have been working years leaving since it makes little sense to effectively pay to work. We replace them with people who haven't a clue or sense for the most part, while the others haven't any good options.

If the government has ultimate control over your liberty, giving such power to corporations means there is no limit to how they can put people into working poverty.

There is a difference between linear and holistic thinking.

 

[theeedude]

I got a passport card in addition to paper passport. Don't see a problem with making it a replacement for the driver license as ID.

 

[Danube]

Guaranteed a national ID card will end up being against citizens more than il-ims. We know this script so well by now.

 

[Jhhnn]

The very people who scream the loudest about illegals are the people who don't actually want to do anything constructive about it.

Eliminating the minimum wage is a misdirection play and a fools' move- illegals who have any skills get more than that, anyway.

A fair number of us already have national ID cards in the form of commercial driver's licenses, CDL's. Mine certainly hasn't caused me any undue hardship. Maybe we should roll that back, huh?

Corporate America loves illegal labor. They have no rights, keep their mouths shut, they'll never organize, and are completely disposable. Just what Capitalists want for the rest of us, too.

If we tossed 'em all out, many of the basic services we take for granted wouldn't get done, and if we made 'em legal, we'd have to pay more and the govt would collect more in taxes.

The Horror!

 

[3chordcharlie]

Did they promise you Americans that SSN# would not be used for tracking you in every possible way?

That was the story for our SIN# in Canada. But the simple fact of having a nationally unique number that every adult must have to live and work caused the expansion of it's use. There is a scary amount of information in various government (and private!) databases, listed by SIN#.

Put a photo and a fingerprint on the SIN card, and require that it be carried on our person, and we would have a very authority friendly state indeed.

 

[Throckmorton]

So when it comes down to it, the right wing doesn't really want to stop illegal immigration. The only thing they fear more than the illegal immigrant is the bogeymen Rush Limbaugh and Fox tells them to be afraid of.

 

[Budmantom]

You liberals just make me laugh.

 

[1prophet]

Wait until they start asking for national ID cards in order to be eligible to vote or get non emergency medical care or cash a check, or God forbid order pizza

http://www.aclu.org/pizza/images/screen.swf

It's a damn shame that a right leaning organization like Fox News has to be the one to present this issue and the cowardly apologist neo-liberals are some how all for it just so they can bash someone or something that is right wing.

Where have all the old school liberals gone, the same ones who would be against this and not leave it to FOX news to be seen as some sort of protector of civil liberties?

All I see is a bunch of new age apologist wannabe liberals who would no sooner wipe their ass with the US Constitution like Bush in order to score points against the right.

 

[Moonbeam]

Wait until they start asking for national ID cards in order to be eligible to vote or get non emergency medical care or cash a check, or God forbid order pizza

http://www.aclu.org/pizza/images/screen.swf

It's a damn shame that a right leaning organization like Fox News has to be the one to present this issue and the cowardly apologist neo-liberals are some how all for it just so they can bash someone or something that is right wing.

Where have all the old school liberals gone, the same ones who would be against this and not leave it to FOX news to be seen as some sort of protector of civil liberties?

All I see is a bunch of new age apologist wannabe liberals who would no sooner wipe their ass with the US Constitution like Bush in order to score points against the right.

But they're just such a bunch of assholes I can't help myself.

 

[Jhhnn]

Wait until they start asking for national ID cards in order to be eligible to vote or get non emergency medical care or cash a check, or God forbid order pizza

http://www.aclu.org/pizza/images/screen.swf

It's a damn shame that a right leaning organization like Fox News has to be the one to present this issue and the cowardly apologist neo-liberals are some how all for it just so they can bash someone or something that is right wing.

Where have all the old school liberals gone, the same ones who would be against this and not leave it to FOX news to be seen as some sort of protector of civil liberties?

All I see is a bunch of new age apologist wannabe liberals who would no sooner wipe their ass with the US Constitution like Bush in order to score points against the right.

That video is so lame... Fear! FEAR! FEE-YARRR!

Gotta love it when the same people who defend the patriot act decry the whole issue of national ID. Lots of free first world countries have national ID systems, I suspect, and the whole notion that the govt can't access your military, state, credit and a variety of other records is bogus, anyway.

Big Brother! Big Brother! Be Afraid! Be very Afraid!

 

[Throckmorton]

Wait until they start asking for national ID cards in order to be eligible to vote or get non emergency medical care or cash a check, or God forbid order pizza

http://www.aclu.org/pizza/images/screen.swf

It's a damn shame that a right leaning organization like Fox News has to be the one to present this issue and the cowardly apologist neo-liberals are some how all for it just so they can bash someone or something that is right wing.

Where have all the old school liberals gone, the same ones who would be against this and not leave it to FOX news to be seen as some sort of protector of civil liberties?

All I see is a bunch of new age apologist wannabe liberals who would no sooner wipe their ass with the US Constitution like Bush in order to score points against the right.

So what if you have to use your national ID to vote, get emergency medical care, or order pizza? Where in the Constitution is your right to not have to prove your identity?

 

[theflyingpig]

Your paranoia is so absurd. All of your personal information is already in a database. There is nothing new about a national ID that hasn't already been done. Get over yourself.

 

[Ozoned]

When the federal government chooses enforcement of existing law over non-enforcement, I would be happy to make their job easier by carrying a national ID card.

 

[Jhhnn]

When the federal government chooses enforcement of existing law over non-enforcement, I would be happy to make their job easier by carrying a national ID card.

More lameness. Tasks require tools in any realm of endeavor. The govt can't possibly enforce the law w/o the tools to do so.

The results of taking a knife to a gunfight are entirely predictable, which is where law enforcement finds itself wrt immigration enforcement. Figuratively speaking, of course, and that's how American capitalists want it to be.

 

[CycloWizard]

Because that idea sucks? I work for a place which has gone to considerable trouble to cut wages for workers to at or near minimum for the "grunts" along with shorter hours. Of course gas still costs three bucks a gallon.

So we have people who have been working years leaving since it makes little sense to effectively pay to work. We replace them with people who haven't a clue or sense for the most part, while the others haven't any good options.

How is the presence of a minimum wage helping anyone in your company? Are the people who work for a period of time at a low wage better off than if they had not worked at all? If there were no minimum wage and other companies could hire workers for what the worker was willing to accept as compensation, would your company be as free to hire/fire workers?

If the government has ultimate control over your liberty, giving such power to corporations means there is no limit to how they can put people into working poverty.

The government isn't supposed to have ultimate control over anyone's liberty, except to protect it from infringement by others.