Nick Arnett wrote: >Nor me, except that I see that one could make slippery slope argument >that this would be a step in the direction of a national id card. I've >always found a bit bizarre not to have to show id to vote, given how >important it is. IIRC, around here, at least, you do have to show id if >it's the first time you've voted. I guess that cuts down on the number >of voters that can be invented...
Let's try to see if I can slaughter one beloved sacred cow here... What's the big deal with a national ID card? It would prevent voting fraud. It would help transparency in many other ways - So, why not? Well, I guess it can be used for government control, and not always in benign ways. True enough. But right now there *are* many ways for the government to do just that - there are lots of IDs issued by the federal and state governments - passports, driver licences, SSN, birth certificates... Are you people so sure that unifying that into a single national ID would make the risks much worse? Here I suggest it would increase the transparency of the system without reducing the privacy much more than it already has been. Be real, you know that *THEY* already have a file on you - I know for sure they have a file on me... I'm not sure it'd be much worse if that file is linked to some kind of national ID. Although... OTOH, there is such a thing as going too far in this direction. In Argentina, police can arrest people for not carrying in their pocket a government-issued ID. Only a few hours, while they search in their files for the identity. That's not good, to put it mildly. OT3H, it's already kind of close to that in the USA - if you drive... Ruben _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
