The Case for a National ID

I know, as a person from Eastern Europe, what an id used to look like there. A booklet, a bit smaller then a US passport, on official paper, impossible to fake. Each page had the state emblem watermarked in. And of course the serial number, just as unique as the social security number.

While in the cradle, the birth certificate would be suffice. At death, that specific certificate would do it for you. Everything in between would be covered by your own id, that would be your alter ego for everything, everywhere.

A pregnant woman would had been registered at the doctor's office. The state would had known that you, her child, was on the way. No delivery within nine months, would had automatically triggered an arrest. Just when you thought that the prolifers in US are bad.

At least 10 years after death, the relatives or survivors would had kept the certificate. After this period, the document would had been surrendered to the state again for proper disposal.

On the first page of such document, a list of the duties of a citizen where carefully listed. Please take note that the word rights is not in. The importance of having your id card, and proper care of it, plus penalties for mistreating the subject, were the listed elements.

The second page you would find the picture of the bearer, associated with the signatures of all the people from the office in charge of issuing a such document, plus a lot of codes and the date of issuance. On the other side the blood group would be stamped on it.

The rest of the pages were reserved for moving visas. If and only for pre approved reasons, like work transfer, family reunification, or marriage, you could move from one part of the country, like in US, say South Dakota, to another part let us say California. If no such reason could argumented, then you do not move anywhere within. Moving like from Romania to West Germany or US was out of question. Any inquiry about a such move would had earned you at least an interrogatory if not a full arrest.

This document was issued at age 14. Two weeks before that birthday, under the penalty of the law, you would go to the doctor and get a blood sample for identification. Then you go to the photographer and take a special picture. With the birth certificate and a ton of other papers, you then go to the local population registry and apply for the id card.

Once issued, you will never leave home without it. If you do, it is at your own risk. If the police would had stopped you for any reason, lack of proper identification would earn you a nite in jail and a fine, to pay for the privilege. Even so that would be easy. Some one who knows you would had to get you out of the slammer.

From there on, everywhere you would go, and everything you would do, would require the id, not only as in America, for purchasing tobacco, but also for buying a TV set or a radio. Your food ratio would be issued based on the same document. When going in the military service, or when obtaining a passport to visit the only approved foreign country, Soviet Union, the id would be surrendered to the office for the time of the visit or service.

I am not going to go in any other details with this. But if you want a quick picture of an id, and what a state can do with it, well there you have it. While up front all was done on paper, do not let that fool you. Computers were on a very restricted area of the building, where only authorized personnel could access and work on. A proper person was one with good credentials with the communist party.

Of course nanotechnology and computer microchips can surely do far better now. DNA sampling was used even then. Today the implant chip is used in pets here in US. Oracle is ready to provide the government with the technology for free. Well, as free as much as it can get.

Every programming language, every device in the name of security, and personal safety, could and is considered to be deployed. But would that really be a good deterrent at least. The experience over there, in Eastern Europe shows the opposite.

Despite the heavily militarized borders, people still escaped to freedom. Criminality with anything but firearms, for been forbidden, went up so high, that in the end radical measures were put in place. Entire cities would be cordoned off, every street blocked and searches, raids, would be common.

The ones arrested as such, where dissidents, criminals, crooks, a such colorful bunch, one could hardly make the difference. If that is what you want for US, then learn from this European Easterner. Not only that the id will never be as good as the second amendment, but you will surely going to kiss good by for ever to much more freedom, you are not aware you still have it.

For a grand finale, here is another mind blower. At the enrollment in the elementary grade, the Department of Education there, would issue a serial number id, in the form of a clothed plate look alike, which would be sown on the left arm of your mandatory school uniform. This kind of system was implemented the moment Soviet Union took over from Nazi Germany, and for half of century long. The omnipotent state has done so, from Dachau to Siberia.

Good luck with the id card, America.

October 9, 2001

Florin Milea [send him mail], who was born in Romania and is today a US citizen, is a member of the class of 2000 of the University of Sioux Falls.

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