January 27, 2004

A National ID Card Requirement for Net Access?

Some are saying Howard Dean actively supported a national ID card as recently as 2002 - and a requirement that it be used to gain Internet access so that identification information could be tracked on line. Rightwing conspiracy theory? Nutjob tinfoil hat stuff? No. Solid news reporting from Blogs for Bush, sourced from tech journalist Declan McCullagh at CNET News, and a copy of a Dean speech, which I downloaded in case it gets "disappeared" from the Net. Here's are excerpts from McCullagh's report and the B4B report:

McCullagh:

Fifteen months before Dean said he would seek the presidency, however, the former Vermont governor spoke at a conference in Pittsburgh co-sponsored by smart-card firm Wave Systems where he called for state drivers' licenses to be transformed into a kind of standardized national ID card for Americans. Embedding smart cards into uniform IDs was necessary to thwart "cyberterrorism" and identity theft, Dean claimed. "We must move to smarter license cards that carry secure digital information that can be universally read at vital checkpoints," Dean said in March 2002, according to a copy of his prepared remarks. "Issuing such a card would have little effect on the privacy of Americans."

Dean also suggested that computer makers such as Apple Computer, Dell, Gateway and Sony should be required to include an ID card reader in PCs--and Americans would have to insert their uniform IDs into the reader before they could log on. "One state's smart-card driver's license must be identifiable by another state's card reader," Dean said. "It must also be easily commercialized by the private sector and included in all PCs over time--making the Internet safer and more secure."

Dean proposed, in his speech for Wave Systems at Carnegie Mellon University, that this national ID card would be required to receive any government services, presumably including Social Security and veteran's benefits. He also wanted this card to be equipped with "smart card" technology, allowing it to retain information as to when and where it was used so that a profile could be built from each card about the person's travel and purchasing habits. Requiring the ID card to be verified prior to each Internet session would guarantee that everyone's web-surfing habits and e-mail traffic could be stored in databases without a court order or any probable cause. And he's complaining about Bush curtailing civil rights?

The national ID card died a natural death after the panic of 9/11 wore off and cooler heads prevailed. However, Howard Dean has never explained his support for the most radical of the ID-card proposals. McCullagh has tried to get an answer to this from the Dean campaign for the past ten days, to no avail. This is yet another indication that Dean is far from being the straight-talking Everyman he purports to be; instead, he is a loose cannon, grabbing onto the idea of the moment to ride its popularity. Such a man would be a disaster in the Presidency, even if he were temperamentally suited for the job.