Would A Nationality Card Reduce Your Privacy?

The proposed wall on the border would be a tragic, wasteful boondoggle.

Organized crime has long been deeply embedded in our own government.  You’ve heard of our shaddow (deliberately misspelled in conjunction with "government" to avoid auto-deletion of the post) government, and it is as unscrupulous as that of any third world government, just much more sophisticated.  In the last half century, a few Congressmen have gone to prison, one president impeached, another forced to resign; but the “swamp” is still polluted. Since the ”roaring twenties” when crime bosses, like Al Capone and Luck Luciano,  were blatantly involved in politicians’ lives at the local and federal levels, the only thing that has changed are the criminals’ degree of sophistication and their astute dissimulation.

The reason we are the only industrialized country that does not have a national identity card, is that the clout of organized crime is powerful and understandably dedicated to actively opposing such a security device. The sine qua non of organized crime is free travel within the country with the ability to change their members' identity, often using a stolen one.

 Think of it: a security enhanced social security card could accomplish more than a one hundred foot high wall a thousand miles long at a fraction of the cost. Security enhancement could be a  current social security card being replaced with one that has a photo image of the bearer and coded information that could be machine read, or field-read, by authorized federal agents, just like the green cards, since their security enhancement in the mid-1970s.

As long as there are planes in Mexico and hundreds of mining companies capable of digging a mile long tunnel through solid rock in a matter of a few days, no border fence, or wall, is going to be security-relevant. Moreover, any gain would be offset by amnesties by a corrupt government, like that of Bush 43 who sneaked two amnesties through on us, (245(i) and Extension of 245(i), and failed at a third humongous one by his commission of the infamous "Gang of 8. There have been about 15 failed attempts to pass the Dream Act, but both Obama and Trump have issued executive orders governing it as if it were actually law.

Would a national identity card reduce your privacy?  Not significantly, because you have very little to lose. Privacy in the U.S. is a privilege restricted mostly to illegal aliens and criminals. Everyone in the U.S., except illegal aliens, criminals and the very poor, already have a national identity card: it is called a U.S. passport, necessary for most foreign travel since the discovery of easy infiltration of our borders by Middle Eastern terrorists.  Anyone who wants one, can buy an electronic  device that can read the account number of every credit card in your wallet. The life of honest people is an open book to organized crime, whereas honest people have no clue as to who the criminals are, though they may be living next door under assumed names.  You cannot hide your identity, address or biographical history from criminal cyber hackers.

Mexico has a very secure national identity card, restricted to the upper class, or gainfully employed.  It is called the “Cedula de Profesion.” This upper class in Mexico has many other benefits, such as free health clinics and  hospitals, not available to the “undocumented” class you see coming across the border illegally.