
 
           National ID Card A Ticket "To Tyranny", Critics Warn
 
 
Washington - A proposed national ID system that would enable employers
to verify workers' eligibility under U.S. immigration law represents
"a major leap down the road to tyranny," civil liberties advocates said
yesterday.
 
"This is a Frankenstein of a system," Ira Glasser, executive director
of the American Civil Liberties Union, said at a press conference. "This
is not about immigration. Its about a fundamental American right," the
right to privacy, he said.
 
At issue is the bipartisan U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform's
proposal for a computerized registry that would enable employers to check
whether job applicants are eligible to work under the 1986 Immigration
Reform and Control Act, which prohibits employment of illegal aliens.
 
The commission's proposal is due to be unveiled Sept. 30. In congressional
testimony Aug. 3, Barbara Jordan, the longtime civil rights activist who
is the commission's chairwoman, said such a system is the "most promising
option for a more secure, non-discriminatory" way of enforcing the law.
 
Jordan's testimony set off a firestorm of criticism among both privacy
and immigration advocates, who lost no time in painting the proposal
as an Orwellian nightmare that would lead inevitably to government
invasion of individual privacy.
 
Details remain sketchy, but Jordan said the system would be aimed at
preventing use of fraudulent forms of identification to obtain
employment. It would be built around the Social Security number, which
employees already give to employers when they start work.
 
"The verification process that the commission is looking at adds a step
to this existing requirement: checking that the Social Security number
is valid and has been issued to someone authorized to work in the United
States," Jordan said.
 
She added it might be tested as a pilot program in the five states with
the largest immigrant populations - California, Texas, New York, Florida
and Illinois. She added that protections should be built into the system
and unauthorized uses or disclosures of information should be punished.
 
"The commission is equally concerned about protecting civil liberties
and privacy in any computer registry that would be established," Susan
Martin, executive director of the commission, said in an interview
yesterday.
 
At yesterday's press conference, called to apply pressure to the commission
as it approachs its Sept. 30 deadline, opponents said that even a modest
system inevitably would lead to a national ID card long associated with
totalitarian regimes.
 
 
------------------------------------------------
(This file was found elsewhere on the Internet and uploaded to the
Patriot FTP site by S.P.I.R.A.L., the Society for the Protection of
Individual Rights and Liberties. E-mail alex@spiral.org)

