Mandatory National ID Cards for all US citizens

From the San Jose Mercury News.
Posted at 11:14 p.m. PDT Saturday, Sept. 22, 2001
http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/svfront/ellsn092
301.htm

----

Oracle boss urges national ID cards, offers free
software

Idea driven by security concerns

BY PAUL ROGERS AND ELISE ACKERMAN Mercury News

Broaching a controversial subject that has gained
visibility since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Oracle
Chairman and CEO Larry Ellison is calling for the
United States to create a national identification card
system -- and offering to donate the software to make
------
it possible.

Under Ellison's proposal, millions of Americans would
be fingerprinted and the information would be placed on
a database used by airport security officials to verify
identities of travelers at airplane gates.

"We need a national ID card with our photograph and
----
thumbprint digitized and embedded in the ID card,"
----------
Ellison said in an interview Friday night on the
evening news of KPIX-TV in San Francisco.

"We need a database behind that, so when you're walking
into an airport and you say that you are Larry Ellison,
you take that card and put it in a reader and you put
-------
your thumb down and that system confirms that this is
---------------
Larry Ellison," he said.

'Absolutely free'

Ellison's company, Oracle, based in Redwood Shores, is
the world's leading maker of database software.
Ellison, worth $15 billion, is among the world's
-----------------
richest people.
--------------

"We're quite willing to provide the software for this
absolutely free," he said.
---------------

Calls for national ID cards traditionally have been met
with fierce resistance from civil liberties groups, who
say the cards would intrude on the privacy of Americans
and allow the government to track people's movements.

But Ellison said in the electronic age, little privacy
------------ --------------
is left anyway.
--------------

"Well, this privacy you're concerned about is largely
------------ --
an illusion," he said. "All you have to give up is your
----------- -------------------------------
illusions, not any of your privacy. Right now, you can
---------
go onto the Internet and get a credit report about your
neighbor and find out where your neighbor works, how
much they earn and if they had a late mortgage payment
and tons of other information."

Attempts by the Mercury News to reach Ellison for
further comment Saturday were unsuccessful. Many
questions about the proposal remain unanswered, such as
whether foreign nationals would be required to have a
card to enter the country. The hijackers in the Sept.
11 attacks are not believed to have been U.S. citizens.

In the TV interview with anchorman Hank Plante, Ellison
said shoppers have to disclose more information at
======= --
malls to buy a watch than they do to get on an
--------------------
airplane.

"Let me ask you. There are two different airlines.
Airline A says before you board that airplane you prove
you are who you say you are. Airline B, no problem.
Anyone who wants the price of a ticket, they can go on
that airline. Which airplane do you get on?"

Oracle has a longstanding relationship with the federal
government. Indeed, the CIA was Ellison's first
----------------------=====
customer, and the company's name stems from a
-------- -------------------------------
CIA-funded project launched in the mid-1970s that
------------------
sought better ways of storing and retrieving digital
data.

Civil libertarians said caution is needed.

"It strikes me as a form of overreaction to the events
that we have experienced," said Robert Post, a
constitutional law professor at the University of
California-Berkeley. "If we allow a terrorist attack to
destroy forms of freedom that we have enjoyed, we will
have given the victory to them. This kind of
recommendation does just that."

Post said while such a system may catch some criminals,
it could be hacked or faked or evaded by capable
terrorists. Nor is it clear that such a system would
have foiled the Sept. 11 attacks, he said.

Strong support
------

But polls last week show many Americans support a
---- -------
national ID card.

In a survey released Wednesday by the Pew Research
Center for the People & the Press, seven of 10
-----------
Americans favored a requirement that citizens carry a
===========---------------=====--
national identity card at all times to show to a police
-----------------------============--------------------
officer upon request. The proposal had particularly
--------============
strong support from women. There was less support for
-------------------------
government monitoring of telephone calls, e-mails and
credit card purchases.

The FBI already has an electronic fingerprint system
for criminals.

In July 1999, the FBI's Integrated Automated
Fingerprint Identification System became operational.
That system keeps an electronic database of 41 million
fingerprints, with prints from all 10 fingers of people
who have been convicted of crimes.

Faster response

The system has reduced the FBI's criminal fingerprint
processing time from 45 days to less than two hours.

Paul Bresson, an FBI spokesman in Washington, said
Saturday that he is unaware of the details of Ellison's
proposal and declined comment.

Howard Gantman, a spokesman for Sen. Dianne Feinstein,
---------------------
D-Calif., said that she would be interested in
----------
discussing the idea with Ellison.

"She does feel that we do need to make some important
advances in terms of increasing our security," Gantman
said. "A lot of people have brought up ideas about how
to create more security and she's interested in
----------
exploring them. She'd like to find out more."
--------- ----

One group certain to fight the proposal is the American
Civil Liberties Union.

A statement about ID cards posted on the ACLU's
national Web site says: "A national ID card would
essentially serve as an internal passport. It would
create an easy new tool for government surveillance and
could be used to target critics of the government, as
==
has happened periodically throughout
====================================
our nation's history."
====================