Larry Ellison pushes national ID registry in WSJ

[Anonymous Coredump]

October 8, 2001
Commentary
Digital IDs Can Help
Prevent Terrorism
By Larry Ellison, the founder and CEO of Oracle Corp.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, our country has been thrust into a debate over
how to root out terrorists while also maintaining our civil liberties. One
of the suggestions proposed, though not yet fully debated, is that of
national identification cards.

Many Americans instinctively fear that a national ID card would sacrifice
basic freedoms and compromise personal privacy. On the face of it, issuing
ID cards does seem a significant step. Trusting government to maintain a
database with our names, addresses, places of work, amounts and sources of
income, assets, purchases, travel destinations, and more, seems a huge
leap of faith.

But we should remember that these databases already exist, and that we
willingly helped in their creation. For years, companies like American
Express and Visa have been issuing cards and building up information on
millions of Americans. The databases they maintain are searched and sold
on a daily basis.

We should remember, too, that the government already tracks things -- lots
of things. Federal, state and local agencies issue Social Security cards,
driver's licenses, pilot's licenses, passports and visas. They maintain
thousands of databases to keep track of everyone from taxpayers and voters
to suspected terrorists.

And so the question is not whether the government should issue ID cards
and maintain databases; they already do. The question is whether the ones
we have can be made more effective, especially when it comes to finding
criminals.

Do we need one national ID card? No. But the IDs that the government
issues -- such as Social Security cards -- should use modern credit card
technology. Do we need more databases? No, just the opposite. The biggest
problem today is that we have too many. The single thing we could do to
make life tougher for terrorists would be to ensure that all the
information in myriad government databases was integrated into a single
national file.

Today, every federal intelligence and law enforcement agency and all
manner of state and local bodies maintain their own separate databases on
suspected criminals. All these separate databases make it difficult for
one agency to know about and apprehend someone wanted by another agency.

That's why one of the Sept. 11 hijackers made it through U.S. passport
control, even though he had an outstanding arrest warrant in Broward
County, Fla. The FBI was searching for several other of the terrorists,
because CIA intelligence revealed they had ties to Osama bin Laden. Four
more were sought by the Immigration and Naturalization Service because
they were in the country illegally.

Such a national database, though a large undertaking, is possible. My
company, for example, has already offered to provide the necessary
software for free, and I'm sure other companies would pitch in with
hardware and support. It's important these donations be made with no
strings attached: The database would be maintained and run by the
government alone, with no question of corporations benefiting.

The uses of such a database would be significant. Airlines, for example,
could cross-check the names of passengers with names on a watch list. If
this had been done, many of the Sept. 11 terrorists would have been caught
before they boarded their flights.

Another challenge is tracking people with multiple or stolen identities.
The good news is that a national database combined with biometrics, thumb
prints, hand prints, iris scans, or other new technology could detect
false identities. Gaining entry to an airport or other secure location
would require people to present a photo ID, put their thumb on a
fingerprint scanner and tell the guard their Social Security number. This
information would be cross-checked with the database.

The government could phase in digital ID cards to replace existing Social
Security cards and driver's licenses. These new IDs should be based on a
uniform standard such as credit card technology, which is harder to
counterfeit than existing government IDs, or on smart-card technology,
which is better but more expensive.

There is no need to compel any American to have a digital ID. Some
Americans may choose to apply for a digital ID card to speed the airport
security check-in process. Some states might use digital IDs for their
next generation of driver's licenses. Companies might want to replace
their current hodgepodge of IDs with the new system. In fact, a voluntary
system of standardized IDs issued by government agencies and private
companies could prove more effective than a mandatory system.

We don't need to trade our liberties for our lives. By law, Fourth
Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure would govern
access to the national security database. The "probable cause" standard
will still have to be met.

Two hundred years ago, Thomas Jefferson warned us that our liberties were
at risk unless we exercised "eternal vigilance." Jefferson lived in an age
of aristocrats and monarchs. We live with the threat of terrorists getting
their hands on weapons with the capacity to destroy entire cities. Only by
giving our intelligence and law enforcement agencies better tools can we
expect to save life and liberty together.