Papers, Please!
Tim Shoemaker
Campaign For Liberty
May 1, 2010
Yesterday, Senate Democrats introduced immigration legislation that included a proposal to establish a national ID card for every worker in America.
From The Hill:
Democratic leaders have proposed requiring every worker in the nation to carry a national identification card with biometric information, such as a fingerprint, within the next six years, according to a draft of the measure.
The national ID program would be titled the Believe System, an acronym for Biometric Enrollment, Locally stored Information and Electronic Verification of Employment.
The American Civil Liberties Union, a civil liberties defender often aligned with the Democratic Party, wasted no time in blasting the plan.
“Creating a biometric national ID will not only be astronomically expensive, it will usher government into the very center of our lives. Every worker in America will need a government permission slip in order to work. And all of this will come with a new federal bureaucracy – one that combines the worst elements of the DMV and the TSA,” said Christopher Calabrese, ACLU legislative counsel. [emphasis added]
As if the acronym wasn’t Orwellian enough for you, take a look at what Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin had to say about the proposal.
(Durbin) predicted the public has become more comfortable with the idea of a national identification card.
“The biometric identification card is a critical element here,” Durbin said. “For a long time it was resisted by many groups, but now we live in a world where we take off our shoes at the airport and pull out our identification. [emphasis added]
“People understand that in this vulnerable world, we have to be able to present identification,” Durbin added. “We want it to be reliable, and I think that’s going to help us in this debate on immigration.”
This proposal is an outrageous affront to our civil liberties! It was a violation of our rights when they attempted to force Real ID on us, and it continues to be, no matter what “feel good” acronym they attempt to gloss it over with.
Sorry Senator Durbin, but this is not 1942 in Nazi Germany, and this government has no right to force a National ID card on American citizens.
