It is my understanding that before long we will have smart ID's that tie into smart internet. It is only a matter of time before the government moves to create a secure side of the internet to "protect" the people.
I share some of your concerns, I just think we are already past some of them, as far as privacy. Secure identification will become more and more important as finances and commerce becomes electronic. I would say the ID database should contain nothing but identification information. No other personal information at all, just the minimum needed to identify you. It can be set up to prevent far more identity fraud and theft than it could ever compromise. As for mission creep, it must be guarded against and there should be significant jail time for anyone that tries to hack, leak, or compromise the data in any way. And as I mentioned earlier, the FBI, etc, already have huge personal databases and can track us by our phones, computer use, and credit cards today. The secure national ID I envision would be like a passport . . . focused entirely on one thing, the secure identification of a US citizen. With it you can fly securely, vote, identify yourself to the police, get a job, and cross borders. Without it, you can't. It would force illegal "immigrants" to go through the legal channels to get a guest worker ID or a green card.
I almost always think privacy concerns are overblown. I would welcome a federal Id. I also would like it if passports were not so large.
I don't necessarily disagree. Hell, my family and I have lived for 2+ years in a place where we have no expectation of privacy whatsover. Life goes on, and it's not that big of deal. But I still hold onot this idyllic view that the US, and the US government, is supposed to be different. I guess I just need to let that view go. Why not go electronic and imbed all that info in our federal IDs? But then we wouldn't get to look at all the cool visa stamps.
It does, and I have one, but alas it isn't acceptable for international travel, still need the big paper one
