As a regular business traveler, I can see no better way to form two lines at the airport (citizens and non-citizens) thus giving the latter more scutiny.
It works in Europe, South America and other places around the world that have had to deal with terrorism on thier shores for a good number of years.
Are we to wait for the government to somehow make our pourous borders work?
Or to issue everyone passports instead - very illogical (besides, one of the terrorist got in on a phony passport from a non-existant country)
Or should we just continue to rely on our state issued drivers license that is easily forged (heck, there are 50 systems for them to pick from) - where states like Tennessee and others are already issuing to illegal immigrants ...
No, let's continue to make emotional "I don't want it" arguments with no basis on the real goal of getting this country moving again.
And if I never heard of Larry Ellison again, it would be great.
Why is it that the solution to every problem caused by uncivilized people is to put more restrictions and regulations on the civilized? The difficulty of obtaining a reasonable firearm for self-protection by an average, law-abiding citizen is just one example.
He's suggesting it be voluntary for citizens--hello? Is anybody reading the whole article before they start foaming at the mouth? He's also suggesting it be mandatory for non-citizens.
Are these people here who are suggesting that all we have to do is enforce our borders better and we can solve this problem the same ones who are in another thread screaming about how we should close our borders and stop letting Syrians come over here to flight school? Well, to you delusional folks out there who think that these people can't just 'sneak' in somewhere along the massive Canadian border (or even perhaps at one of the unmanned border stations), I hope your right not to have an ID card makes you feel all warm and fuzzy and safe at night.
It would make me feel better to know that anyone trying to wire money overseas, or check into a hotel, or get on a bus or a plane or a train, or rent an apartment would be randomly subject to showing their national ID card as a matter of proof of their right to be in our great nation. I would proudly display mine right next to my driver's license, and never ever feel like I was doing anything other than my patriotic duty to show my absolute right to be here as an American-born citizen. For everybody else, it's a privelege to be here, and with priveleges come responsibility and obligations.
Nonsense. Several people have made the excellent points that: 1)It simply can't work (no suicide bomber is going to give a flip whether or not his identity is known), 2)It starts a slippery slope of tax intrusions, gun-ownership intrusions, etc, and 3)This is just a way for Ellison to move his lips from Clintoon's @$$ to the taxpayer's teat.
Have national IDs in these places stopped terrorism? How about crime in general? The last I heard, other countries suffer both terrorism and crime, so why should we become more like them than we already are?
He was reportedly discussing such with a close friend/colleague who happened to be an Evangelical Christian. The Christian noted that what he shared about the ID chip fit very well the Biblical prophecies about a mark of The Beast being placed in the palm or forehead. Supposedly of all the places experimented with for implanting the chip--the palm and forehead were the best for a variety of reasons.
The reason Christians are averse is because God says anyone who accepts the mark will be unable to be with Him in Heaven. But the government will say that anyone without it will be unable to buy or sell. . . . and evidently martyrdom awaits those who refuse the chip.
There have been many dreams and visions by disconnected individuals confirming various parts of such scenarios.
Much evil starts out looking beautiful and justified for seemingly admirable or at least pleasant reasons.
Freedom is priceless. Giving it away for chaff--whether insecurities or mindless submissiveness--will eventually be seen to be inexcusable IMHO.
It works in Europe, South America and other places around the world that have had to deal with terrorism on thier shores for a good number of yearsDoes it? Where would you rather be; Boston, Belfast, or Bogota? Hey, how's Beriut lately?
Or should we just continue to rely on our state issued drivers license that is easily forged (heck, there are 50 systems for them to pick from) - where states like Tennessee and others are already issuing to illegal immigrants ...What, and allow them to perfect ONE ID card style?
Anyway, just how "voluntary" will this particular mark be? I seem to recall SS numbers being "voluntary" and "not for identification purposes", but now I can't even get a blasted fishing license without one. Have to keep those that would rather live off the land than on money (you can't get a job, credit card, savings account or a check cashed without one) in check.
Isn't that what passports are for? If someone can falsify a passport, they could falsify this card just as easily.
The government is not required by law to protect us from crime, nor will the courts find that they are required to protect us from terrorism. That being the case, the obvious solution is to allow qualified citizens to protect themselves (and collaterally protect others) by allowing people to be armed, even on aircraft(remember that word QUALIFIED).
ID cards will do nothing to improve security or to enhance freedom. Allowing free people to protect themselves from attack will. There are 6000 victims of our current laws at the WTC who might (or might not) agree with me.
But let me tell you how. I've worked in a lot of places with "priveliged" information, stuff you're not supposed to give out. Stiff penalties are offered in the case of the discovery that an employee disclosed something, except that when they DID, the company would deny it and usually could not prove that the employee leaked the information, thereby DE FACTO making that "private" information not secure.
All of us have enemies. It's a fact of life. Another fact is that if there is a dossier on us, SOMEONE has access to it. The third piece of this simple puzzle is that if we have an enemy who acquires or has access to that dossier, much harm can come to us without any recourse whatsoever.
Human beings have proven to be thoughtless, insensitive, and spiteful...ESPECIALLY spiteful. To place the power to ruin someone else's life while safely remaining anonymous or worse, blatantly doing it in the name of "justice" JUST OUT OF SPITE is not only possible but probable, as the old saying goes "absolute power corrupts absolutely".
Which bears the question: At what point did we lose control of our own lives and destinies, and give up our CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT to be "SECURE IN OUR PERSONS AND PAPERS" to the point where we cannot even CHOOSE who has access to our most personal information?
In the Information age, information is power. Whoever has your information has power over you, taking away the control you supposedly have over your own destiny.
THAT's what a National ID is, another step towards a shiny new Police State. It started with "sterile areas" and metal detectors, and we got to see on Sept 11 how useful THOSE were at stopping the crimes they were supposed to prevent, yet they have not been taken out. THEREFORE, there must be another reason why they are there.
I contend that it was to slowly allow the middle-class of our society to become accustomed to blind submission in exchange for a "privelige" of fast travel (airlines) under the pretext and subterfuge of preventing hijackings.
The National ID card is the next step. It goes from taking the responsibility for your safety away from you (disarming you at the metal detector) and now it's taking the decision of who you want to have your private information away from you. This hooey about "If you're innocent, you have nothing to hide" is crap, because CRIMINALS DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE INNOCENT, IN FACT THEY PREFER IT. And if that information is accessible to anyone, it is accessible to the scum of a society. All they need is a friend of a friend getting paid minimum wage with priveliged access, and don't tell me it doesn't happen because I AM LIVING PROOF that any idiot (yes, I am calling myself substandard on intelligence because I never let on that I was intelligent when I took these jobs) can get access to private and personal information. Up until now, however, I've only had access to FACETS of people's lives. With a national ID Card (In order to be effective for "tracking" that ID card must be attached to a database, otherwise the process to counterfeit will be much the same, it will only cost more money), somebody OTHER THAN YOU will have access to your private information TO DO WITH AS HE SEES FIT without having to answer to ANYONE, least of all you, including selling it or even giving it to people who want to hurt you for whatever reason. To contend that my statement is false is to ignore the fact that abuses of private information already occur on a DAILY basis at EVERY level of law enforcement.
Don't get me wrong; Cops are good people and they try to do their best to do their jobs, but they are PEOPLE, and people have bad days and can do stupid and/or spiteful things, and when it comes to sensitive information, once it's out, it's out. You cannot unring the bell.
So, I object to the National ID card because it violates my personal security by allowing unauthorized persons access to my private information, like where I live, who my parents are, my vulnerabilities, my weaknesses, which can be exploited to someone else's gain. In society when someone causes harm to another, or allows another to come to harm through inaction, it is either a tort or negligence, both compensable civil offenses. But generally it is very hard to prove someone leaked your information when you don't even know who has it, and of course there's nothing that says they have to ADMIT to leaking it, so you are ruined or hurt or even killed without any recourse against not only the direct actor of the tort (the harm), but also the accessory (enabler) who provided the information who remains anonymous. My private information is something that I, and I alone, DECIDE WHO IS AUTHORIZED TO HAVE. Once that decision is taken from me by anyone, government or otherwise, I am no longer a self-determining Citizen; I am a subject. If you think you are free because the government tells you you are, then you are missing the point.
THERE. How's that? David
The government already knows where the foreigners are - even the illegals - that's how come Billy the traitor was able to send out millions of absentee ballots to them last election. What we need is to enforce our immigration laws and start picking people up and putting them on planes.
That's enough of a reason. If you want to force me to carry an object, it's up to you to argue why I should, not up to me to "make good points" regarding why I shouldn't have to.
I don't want to carry your proposed object wherever I go. I don't want it. You say I should be forced to? Okay, give your reasons.
As a regular business traveler, I can see no better way to form two lines at the airport (citizens and non-citizens) thus giving the latter more scutiny.
You can see no better way to form two lines, huh? This assumes that forming two lines at airports is the super number one goal of each and every one of us. Is it? Did you make this case? Did you "make a good point" here?
By the way, do non-citizens somehow have less of a right to partake of air transportation?
[irrelevant statement about the way various foreign countries do things deleted]
Are we to wait for the government to somehow make our pourous borders work?
"Wait"? No. How about, Try to hold our leaders accountable for shoring up our borders? Instead, what they do is try to foist an ID card on us. And, you fall for it. Thus helping them in their quest to keep our borders porous.
Or to issue everyone passports instead - very illogical (besides, one of the terrorist got in on a phony passport from a non-existant country)
Yes, and terrorists will never be able to make phony ID cards. Give me a break.
Or should we just continue to rely on our state issued drivers license that is easily forged (heck, there are 50 systems for them to pick from) - where states like Tennessee and others are already issuing to illegal immigrants ...
"Rely on", for what? It's not even clear what your goal is here.
No, let's continue to make emotional "I don't want it" arguments with no basis on the real goal of getting this country moving again.
The "real goal" is "getting this country moving again"? Okay, I'll stipulate this for the sake of argument (although I don't remember voting on this being my "real goal"; from what I can tell, I'm already "moving" just fine, thank you very much...). Tell me why forcing everyone to carry a National ID Card will somehow "get this country moving again". Make your case.
The obvious reply to your objection that "I don't want it" is not a good enough objection.
On the contrary, Mr. Bush's or Mr. Ashcroft's or Mr. Ellison's "I want it" is not a good enough reason to have it.
Here are some points and "I DON'T LIKE THEM"
By Jacob Levich
BUSH'S ORWELLIAN ADDRESS: HAPPY NEW YEAR -- IT'S 1984 Seventeen years later than expected, 1984 has arrived. In his address to Congress Thursday, George Bush effectively declared permanent war -- war without temporal or geographic limits; war without clear goals; war against a vaguely defined and constantly shifting enemy. Today it's Al-Qaida; tomorrow it may be Afghanistan; next year, it could be Iraq or Cuba or Chechnya.
No one who was forced to read 1984 in high school could fail to hear a faint bell tinkling. In George Orwell's dreary classic, the totalitarian state of Oceania is perpetually at war with either Eurasia or Eastasia. Although the enemy changes periodically, the war is permanent; its true purpose is to control dissent and sustain dictatorship by nurturing popular fear and hatred. The permanent war undergirds every aspect of Big Brother's authoritarian program, excusing censorship, propaganda, secret police, and privation. In other words, it's terribly convenient. And conveniently terrible. Bush's alarming speech pointed to a shadowy enemy that lurks in more 60 countries, including the US. He announced a policy of using maximum force against any individuals or nations he designates as our enemies, without color of international law, due process, or democratic debate.
He explicitly warned that much of the war will be conducted in secret. He rejected negotiation as a tool of diplomacy. He announced starkly that any country that doesn't knuckle under to US demands will be regarded as an enemy. He heralded the creation of a powerful new cabinet-level police agency called the "Office of Homeland Security." Orwell couldn't have named it better. By turns folksy ("Ya know what?") and chillingly bellicose ("Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists"), Bush stepped comfortably into the role of Big Brother, who needs to be loved as well as feared.
Meanwhile, his administration acted swiftly to realize the governing principles of Oceania:
WAR IS PEACE A reckless war that will likely bring about a deadly cycle of retaliation is being sold to us as the means to guarantee our safety. Meanwhile, we've been instructed to accept the permanent war as a fact of daily life. As the inevitable slaughter of innocents unfolds overseas, we are to "live our lives and hug our children."
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY "Freedom itself is under attack," Bush said, and he's right. Americans are about to lose many of their most cherished liberties in a frenzy of paranoid legislation. The government proposes to tap our phones, read our email and seize our credit card records without court order. It seeks authority to detain and deport immigrants without cause or trial.
It proposes to use foreign agents to spy on American citizens. To save freedom, the warmongers intend to destroy it.
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH America's "new war" against terrorism will be fought with unprecedented secrecy, including heavy press restrictions not seen for years, the Pentagon has advised.
Meanwhile, the sorry history of American imperialism -- collaboration with terrorists, bloody proxy wars against civilians, forcible replacement of democratic governments with corrupt dictatorships -- is strictly off-limits to mainstream media. Lest it weaken our resolve, we are not to be allowed to understand the reasons underlying the horrifying crimes of September 11.
The defining speech of Bush's presidency points toward an Orwellian future of endless war, expedient lies, and ubiquitous social control. But unlike 1984's doomed protagonist, we've still got plenty of space to maneuver and plenty of ways to resist. It's time to speak and to act. It falls on us now to take to the streets, bearing a clear message for the warmongers: We don't love Big Brother.