国家身份

错误的方向

David Kopel 柯大為，NRO專欄作家

那些想为安全交易自由的人们有义务声明他们的建议实际上将提高更多的安全。想想美国已经有了个实际上的国家身份卡：驾驶执照。我们也有第二个实际上的国家身份证：任何想离开国家的人所需的护照。

现在如果国家管理的驾驶执照系统太易受影响而被伪造，显而易见的处理方法是让每个取得一个防伪措施更广的护照。

新的"国家身份卡"提供了护照所不能提供的什么？护照是用纸做的，有数字化的照片。增加一个具有数字化的拇指指纹应该不会特别难。但是通过忽略护照（收集非常细的个人信息而不是国外旅行历史），国家身份卡给监督政府一个收集关于个人医疗记录，学校档案，枪支拥有及更多集中信息的地方。

相比之下，护照没有这个弊端的风险：它只证明你确实是你所说的人。

国家驾驶员执照，联邦护照，同样的身份文件（如1960年代以来伊利诺斯州发行的火器拥有者鉴定卡）有时是用来防止单纯的人获得严禁的产品。如一些不知道怎样或在哪里得到假证明买酒精的16岁少年，他们也不知道那些年龄在21岁以上的会造假证的人。

但是让我们记住国家身份卡的意图不是更好地执行法律，或防止人们用假名获得图书馆卡。目标是对准那些欺诈文件产品的主人支持的特别诡辩的恐怖份子。

但是我们不知道国家身份卡程序的一个受益者.Oracle的Larry Ellison提供创建软件实现程序。然后，Oracle可以搜取卖国家身份卡数据，向政府确认程序及全美国商业的钱。即使Oracle免费奉送全部，Ellison的礼物将会把整个美国人口都转为实质上的使用Oracle的国家标准。

在某些方面，这很象比尔盖茨所做的免费奉送因特网探测器。不同的是，比尔盖茨从没有为要求每个人必须使用因特网探测器法律而游说。微软新展开的护照程序（向使用者提供因特网商业鉴定）完全是自愿的。通过转变美国为强制的Oracle世界，Ellison对他的强劲对手比尔盖茨会出击的是什么样的拳头？

应该不会忘记，Elllison先生曾雇用私人"侦探"贿赂看门人，偷盗废物，侦察在著名的反托拉斯案例中大声说出支持微软的智囊团（受害者之一是奥克兰独立学会；这个团体和我现在工作的科罗拉多独立协会没有关系。）

当Oracle被逮捕时，Ellison坚持他的这些肮脏诡计是他的"公民责任"。

信息越集中，越容易窃取有价值量的东西。一个国家身份"智能卡"包含的个人信息将为Larry Ellison和其它认为你的秘密是他们生意计划的障碍的粗俗人物提供许多商业机会。

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ID Nation
The wrong way to go.

Dave Kopel, NRO columnist

Those who want to trade liberty for security are obliged to demonstrate that their proposals will actually improve more security. Consider that the United States already has a de facto national ID card: the driver's license. We also have a second de facto national ID: the passport, required for any person who wants to leave the country.

Now if the state-administered driver's license system is too susceptible to fraud, the obvious solution is to require everyone to obtain a passport, for which antifraud safeguards are more extensive.

What does a new "national ID card" provide that passports wouldn't? Passports are made out of paper, and have digitized photos. It would not be especially difficult to add a digitized thumbprint. But by ignoring the passport (which collects very little personal information, other than foreign-travel history) the national ID card gives the surveillance state a place to collect centralized information on an individual's medical records, school records, gun ownership, and much more.

In contrast, the passport doesn't have this risk of abuse: It just proves that you're who you say you are.

State driver's licenses, the federal passport, and similar identity documents (such as the Firearms Owners Identification Card issued by Illinois since the 1960s) sometimes work in preventing unsophisticated people from obtaining forbidden products. For example, there are some 16-year-olds who don't know how or where to obtain fake identification to buy alcohol, nor to they know any people over 21 who would make a "straw-man" purchase.

But let us remember that the purpose of the national ID card isn't better enforcement of vice laws, or preventing people from obtaining library cards under a pseudonym. The targets are extremely sophisticated terrorists, backed up by masters of fraudulent document production.

But we do know one beneficiary of a national ID card program. Oracle's Larry Ellison has offered to create the software to implement the program. Then, Oracle can rake in money selling the national ID card database and verification programs to governments and business in all over America.

Even if Oracle gave the whole thing away from free, Ellison's gift will shift the entire American population into a de facto national standard of using Oracle.

In some ways, this is like what Bill Gates did, by giving away Internet Explorer for free. But the difference is that Gates never lobbied for a law requiring that every person in the United States be forced to use Internet Explorer. Microsoft's newly expanded Passport program (to provide user identification for Internet commerce) is entirely voluntary. What kind of blow could Ellison strike at his bitter enemy Gates by converting the U.S. into a mandatory Oracle world?

Mr. Ellison, it should be remembered, hired private "detectives" to bribe janitors, steal trash, and spy on which spoke out in favor of Microsoft in the famous antitrust case. (One of the victims was the Independent Institute in Oakland; this group has no relation to Colorado's Independence Institute, where I work.)

When Oracle got caught, Ellison insisted that the dumpster diving and other dirty tricks were his "civic duty."

The more that information is centralized, the easier it is to steal a valuable quantity of it. A national ID "smart card" containing private information will provide many new business opportunities for Larry Ellison and other scurrilous characters who consider your privacy an obstacle to their business plans.