The debate about national ID cards seems to raise its head sporadically in some countries. The UK is currently having a fairly vigorous public discourse on the issue and Australia could be set to do the same. Yesterday, Boingboing alerted the blogosphere to a story that may be of some interest to those debates.
Deborah Davis, a US citizen who refused to show ID to a security guard while on the way to work has now found herself being charged by the police. Davis, whose suspicious activity included catching a bus to work and talking on a mobile telephone has now accepted help from the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado and is being represented by Haddon, Morgan, Mueller, Jordan, Mackey & Foreman, P.C..
It all started when Davis refused to show a security guard her ID after he had asked an entire bus full of people to present their IDs. When Davis refused, that security guard called another security guard. That security guard called a cop. That cop called another cop. Eventually the four trained securty professionals managed to subdue and apprehend the 50 year old mother of four and took her by force to the local police station.
What does this mean for the ongoing debate on national ID cards? Well for starters, if it becomes law to carry a card, who exactly has the right to request to view the mandatory card? Does a privately employed security guard, such as the one who asked Davis for her ID, have the right? Does a policeman have the right? And what is the penalty for *gasp* not having it on you when asked? (In light of the story about Davis, we can safely assume that a “common sense approach” is going to backfire).
The next question is what exactly a national ID card would do to enhance public security? In the Davis case the IDs of the bus passengers were not being checked against any lists and were also not closely scrutinised for authenticity. In fact it is pretty difficult to see the point of asking the passengers for their IDs at all in that case. If used for security against terrorism, it should also be noted that the perpetrators of 911 and the London bombings ALL would have passed an ID inspection, even if the inspectors compared the lists to known terrorist lists - none of the perpetrators of those attrocities were on any lists that would have sparked security concern.
With national ID cards it would seem all that citizens have to look forward to is kowtowing to the occassional government employee who needs to satiate their ego by inconveniencing people going about their own business.
Yep, that sounds like a great idea.
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