PapersPlease.org - "What's Wrong With Showing ID?"

[Zenaan Harkness]

https://papersplease.org/id.html

The Issue
What's Wrong With Showing ID?

"There are good people with bad papers; and bad people with good
papers."
  - Bertolt Brecht

What does an ID, any ID, do for security?  The honest answer is 'not
much'.  If anything, relying on ID for security purposes actually makes
things worse: a false sense of security fosters complacency.

Showing ID only affects honest people.  If you're dishonest, you can
obtain false documents or steal the identity of an honest person.

If a 19 year-old college student can get a fake ID to drink, why
couldn't a bad person get one, too?  And no matter how sophisticated the
security embedded into the ID, wouldn't a well-financed terrorist be
able to falsify that, too?  The answer to both questions is obviously
'yes'.

Honest people, on the other hand, go to Pro-Life rallies.  Honest people
go to Pro-Choice rallies, too.  Honest people attend gun shows.  Honest
people protest the actions of the President of the United States.
Honest people fly to political conventions.  What if those with the
power to put people on a 'no fly' list decided that they didn't like the
reason for which you wanted to travel?  The honest people wouldn't be
going anywhere.

Bad people, besides using fake IDs and stolen identities, can also make
the system of checking IDs work in their favor.  The Carnival Booth
algorithm, as described by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, demonstrates that terrorists can probe an ID security system
by sending a number of people on innocent trips through the system and
noting who is flagged for extra searches and who isn't.  They then send
only those who the system doesn't flag on terrorist missions.

Still, some Americans think that 'if you have nothing to hide, you have
nothing to fear'.  Were the Founding Fathers criminals trying to protect
themselves when they inserted the 4th and 5th amendments into the Bill
of Rights?  After all, nobody who hasn't done anything wrong needs to
worry about being searched or being forced to testify against himself.

Over the years, Americans have become accustomed to showing ID in any
number of circumstances.  Few have asked the question, 'Why?'.  Showing
ID during a private business transaction, like writing a check or using
a credit card, is different than having to show ID to the government in
order to travel.

The custom of showing ID at airports came about in July of 1996, in the
wake of the TWA flight 800 disaster.  Faulty fuel tank insulation caused
TWA 800 to explode over Long Island Sound.  Before we knew that, there
was concern that terrorists had blown up the plane.  According to former
terrorism czar Richard Clarke's book, the ID requirement was instituted
as a temporary measure so that then-President Clinton had something to
announce to the families of the victims when he met with them.  After
the 2001 World Trade Center bombings, the ID requirement became
mandatory, as anyone who has flown since can testify.

The Department of Homeland Security has attempted to institute programs
predicated on the use of ID to improve air security.  One such program,
the Computer Assisted Passenger Profiling System II (CAPPS II) would
have required every citizen to undergo a background check as a
precondition to travel by commercial airline.

CAPPS II depended on the presentation of government-issued photo ID in
order to function.  The information contained on the ID would have been
cross-checked against a variety of public and private databases, and an
individual threat assessment would be generated based on this
information.  The CAPPS II program was pronounced 'dead' in July of
2004, but the Department of Homeland Security is quietly continuing to
work to produce a replacement system, now called "Secure Flight", that
works similarly.

Another program which depends on showing ID is the Watch List and No-Fly
List.  Airlines are issued these secret lists by the federal government
and are required to request ID from their passengers in order to check
them against the secret lists.  This has resulted in countless citizens
(
http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=15430&c=gilmorevsashcroft
)
with names similar to bad people being harassed, arrested, or prevented
from traveling by aircraft including every person named 'David Nelson'.

Much has been done to make travel by air safer.  Cockpit doors have been
secured, pilots are armed, and Air Marshals patrol airplane cabins.
Increased physical security at airports has dramatically increased the
safety of our nation's skies.  Above all, the mindset of the flying
public has also changed: no longer will passengers remain passive in the
event of a skyjacking.

The demand for ID does nothing for security while making honest
Americans less free.

Every government that has imposed totalitarian rules told its populace
that it was doing so to "uphold freedom" or "improve the security of the
homeland" or "root out terrorists and subversives."  These ends do not
justify unconstitutional means.  We uphold freedom by exercising it –
not by restricting it.

Using this country's transportation system to conduct a dragnet, using
government secret lists of wanted people, degrades our freedom and makes
people less inclined to voice their opinion for fear of ending up on
these secret lists.  While the present administration may have
benevolent intentions to justify their actions, our future is imperiled
by this wholly un-American activity.