I.D. cards cannot ensure safety
Collegian Opinion

    When 75-year-old Congressman John Dingell was asked by airport security to drop his pants because his artificial hip set off metal detectors, it stirred support for the national I.D. card.

   Since Sept. 11, national cards could replace current state-issued driver’s licenses and become a much more reliable means of identification, according to supporters.

   It would be a good thing to eliminate near strip-searches of our elected officials, but the government identification card is not the answer.

   Unless the national I.D. card can be made 100 percent reliable, we gain nothing and end up costing ourselves money since the bill for the cost of making the card most likely would not be toted by Uncle Sam.

   Nearly anyone can get a driver’s license: 13 of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers had one. If the national card replaces our current driver’s licenses, will it be as easy to obtain?

   All a person has to do to get a driver’s license is pass a driving test and pay for the license. Whatever name is on that card is that person’s identification.

   What about “Big Brother”? The government already has tons of information about each of us, so what would be the difference?

   Call it a paranoid thought, but the day we lose individual freedoms, such as having separate states with separate laws, driver’s licenses and identification, will be the day we will no longer be a free people.

   This country’s goal since Sept. 11 seems to be to take our freedom.

   Surprisingly, no one has suggested we use Social Security cards, changing them to a plastic form. Perhaps that is because the Social Security card was never intended to be used for identification purposes in the the first place.

   The security of this nation is a national issue, so, naturally, I.D. proponents think the government should fix it.

   Undoubtedly, something needs to be done about security issues that arise on a national level, especially terrorism.

   The I.D. cards would be handy if one could scan the bar code and see on the person’s profile that he might be carrying, let’s say, a bomb in his shoe. The likelihood of anyone having that information just sitting in a computer file is unimaginable.

   The terrorist watch list should be made familiar to anyone employed in any type of security. If security employees were better trained and paid, they should be able to detect those people anyway.

   If a suspected terrorist is going to catch a flight or try to sign up for classes to learn to fly a plane, he will not be deterred. He will figure out a way to get a fake card.

   While the nation recovers from last fall’s tragic events, it is important to focus on what we can do as individuals, as states and as a nation to help prevent such terrorist attacks from happening in the future.

   There is just no way to be sure that national I.D. cards would serve as more than another plastic card filling our wallets. Relying on them as a sole means of identifying a person or his motives would be unrealistic.