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Posted on 10/04/2001 8:13:04 AM PDT by goodnesswins

Guest Columnists

National ID cards would be the dragnet we need

By Nicholas G. Jenkins and Amit Rind Special to The Times

Flip around the news channels and you will find politicians talking about what America must do to prevent Sept. 11, 2001, from happening again. "We'll get tough," they all say, but we will also make sure to safeguard our civil liberties. They know the buzzwords we like to hear. That's why they got elected.

So far, we like most of what we see. Banning knives from airplane cabins will certainly make it harder to hijack planes. Stronger money-laundering laws and increased surveillance powers for people suspected of terrorist activities will undoubtedly make domestic terrorism a tougher business. But nothing we have seen so far does anything about the would-be terrorists who quietly reside in the United States illegally who aren't yet terrorist suspects. How many of them there are among the estimated 8 million illegal residents in this country we do not know: We do know that 15 of them are no longer with us — they were among the 19 Islamic fundamentalists who killed some 6,000 innocent people on that fateful day.

Short of a knock-on-every-door dragnet, there is no easy way to find them. But a dragnet is needed. The one we favor is one that Germany, Austria, France, Greece, Spain, Hong Kong, Belgium and the Netherlands have already, and Australia and England are seriously considering — a national citizenship/identification card.

Here's how it would work. By some date certain, every citizen and lawful resident would be required to obtain a tamper-proof national identification card. To protect against counterfeiting, the card would be encoded with some type of biometric data — a fingerprint, retina scan, voice pattern, or blood sample — and include a hologram, like we see today on most driver's licenses.

Temporary residents' and visitors' cards would include expiration dates. The governing federal agency would offer an incentive to illegal immigrants to come forward by agreeing not to immediately deport them, or by giving amnesty or permanent work visas to select immigrants who meet certain criteria. By doing this, we would learn the whereabouts of millions of illegal immigrants that the Immigration and Naturalization Service admits it has lost track of. If you think this sounds like a roundup, you're right. It is.

After our date certain, ID cards would weed out people illegally here in two ways. First and foremost, it will be impossible for people without ID cards to move unseen through the American landscape. Getting on a plane? Collecting federal benefits? Opening a bank account? Activating utilities? Obtaining health care? Cashing a check? Getting a job? Not possible without a card, and just as most activities are in many European countries.

Second, not having an ID card would be grounds for immediate deportation. Federal, state and local law enforcement would play key roles here. For all stops, detentions and arrests, police would require ID cards. A person unable to produce his card would be detained, whereby law enforcement would determine whether he is legally in the United States by accessing a national database. People not determined legal would be arrested and given a hearing post haste to show cause why they should not be deported. Long branded the stuff of Big Brother by opponents, ID cards would make little difference to legal U.S. citizens. Police would still need reasonable suspicion to stop us for suspected unlawful activity. This comprehensive program would do more than find illegal residents. It would save taxpaying American citizens billions in tax and welfare fraud by eliminating a major incentive for illegal immigration — free government benefits. (Australia estimates that ID cards would save it $1 billion annually in welfare benefits.) Plastic ID cards are not the only weapons needed to combat domestic terrorism, and they are not a catchall. They would not catch the Timothy McVeighs of the world — U.S. citizens who also happen to be terrorists. They would also not be problem-free. The program will certainly pose administrative challenges. And insofar as it might lead to the deportations of migrant workers who pose no security threat to the United States, a national ID card will also probably lead to marginal increases in the price of goods they produce — namely textiles and produce.

We can live with paying more for T-shirts and apples. What we cannot live with is knowing that next year we may break bread with a guy who is planning to poison our water supply, but who remains in this country because our tough-talking politicians are too addicted to the rhetoric of rights to require citizens to carry around a three-inch piece of plastic.

We're all for "smokin' 'em out," as President Bush put it. If our eyes get just a little irritated, so be it.

Nicholas G. Jenkins is co-founder and Amit Rind is a staff writer at TheFence.com, an Internet debate site based in Seattle.

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