Rebecca Davidson: Usurping democracy, in your wallet

I thought it was a joke when I heard.ÿA national ID card?ÿWould we ever allow such a thing to happen in the United States? Could we ever accept such Gestapo security measures?

I neither take nor make Nazi references lightly -- my own grandparents, after all, narrowly escaped Hitler's regime in the late 1930s.ÿWhen I was small, and learning about the Holocaust, I wondered whether policies similar to those enacted by the Nazis could ever be made law in this country. Because,ÿlet's face it, the German people elected Hitler as their leader.

But I was always assured that, in this country, democracy could never be usurped to such a degree. American values -- such as civil liberties and the right to privacy -- have always prevented such incursions upon personal freedoms, and indeed, have shaped the framework that makes this nation great.

This was not the case during the time of the Third Reich, when German Jews were required to carry identification cards when traveling around the country.ÿThe cards included information regarding the holder's religion, and made escape that much harder for those "less desirable" citizens.

But U.S. citizens don't have to carry identification cards, and certain ethnic minorities are not required to don symbols on their cloaks. And so, we are freer than the Jews and oppressed peoples of Nazi Germany.

Or so we thought.

In late September, CNN reported that Oracle Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison had called for a national identification card to be issued to all U.S. citizens, and had reportedly offered to provide the necessary software to the U.S. government for free.

Two days after CNN publicized Ellison's offer, White House spokesman Jimmy Orr informed the press that "We are not even considering the idea."

While it may not seem as though the White House is rushing to embrace Ellison's seemingly generous offer -- free software, yes, but one wonders about the inevitable and costly distribution and maintenance processes -- House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt voiced his support for the plan, saying, "We are in a new world.ÿ[Sept. 11] will change the balance between freedom and security."

And according to insiders, prior to the Orr statement, Bush did discuss the ID cards with our new best friend, British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

These high-ranking officials are not the only ones speculating about a national identification card.ÿA Pew Research Center public opinion poll taken Sept. 13-17 showed 70 percent of Americans supported such a card, and a subsequent Fabrizio-McLaughlin poll still showed 51 percent support for the proposed measure.

Amazingly, a recent USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll showed that 49 percent of respondents would support mandatory IDs for all Arabs in the U.S. -- including American citizens of Arab heritage.

What's next? Yellow crescents sewn to the coats of Arab-American men, women and children?ÿOr, in the spirit of equality and fraternity, ID checkpoints at every city limit? Would we ever be able to trust our government after relinquishing the most basic of our personal freedoms?

Sixty years ago, Japanese Americans on the West Coast were forced to relocate to internment camps solely on the basis of their heritage. Given this, I would be skeptical of our government's motives should they require us to carry official papers around containing information on our respective ethnicities.

Granted, the question of implementing national ID cards remains speculative and probably won't amount to much should it ever come up for widespread debate. But vigilance is the price of liberty, and this country needs to be more vigilant than ever.

Should the discourse regarding a national ID card progress -- and such a card could contain information such as blood type, past criminal record and ethnicity -- we could find ourselves in a dangerous state of affairs.

Requiring the American people to present identification on demand to any official government functionary puts us at risk of regressing to a totalitarian and wholly un-American regime.

Scariest of all, the concept of a national ID is not new. In 1996, Congress sought to require state-issued documents -- including driver's licenses -- to comply with federal standards. Thankfully, this law was repealed before its October, 2000 enactment date.

The fact that such a card has even been a matter of recent debate in this country is reason for alarm.

The term "national identification" should not conjure up images of a police state. Rather, "national ID" ought to refer to our collective character, one of hope and liberty.

After all, the immigrants who built this nation -- Japanese, Jewish, Arab or otherwiseÿ-- did so with the hope that their descendants would be free.

Rebecca Davidson is a senior English major from Glen Rock, NJ.

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