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It is interesting to me that we don't have a national ID card in the USA. I don't appreciate strong arguments against them. Like on this list by the ACLU...

https://www.aclu.org/other/5-problems-national-id-cards

>> Reason #2: An ID card system will lead to a slippery slope of surveillance and monitoring of citizens.

I think "they" are already monitoring everything I do. Maybe this would have mattered more to me before I had a smartphone, passport, bank account, social media accounts, etc. If I wanted to live off the grid with no electricity & only using trained ninja squirrels to buy things with unmarked bills on my behalf, I would certainly not want to be forced to into having a national ID card. I'm not advocating monitoring. I just feel a national ID card wouldn't be much different than my current situation.



Especially when the SSN is used as a stand-in but has no security whatever.


I don't see most of these issues in European countries with ID cards. Anyway, you need to have a way to identify citizen for practical purpose anyway, if it's not an ID card, it's going to be something less reliable and prone to errors.


Yes, this cyclically comes up on HN and it's 100% American culture dependent.

There's no reason why ID cards would lead to more or less secure data collection than today.




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