Privacy Is Essential to the Everyday Person

Why Fear National ID Cards? This was the question asked by an author who questions our privacy, Alan Dershowitz. Are you willing to sacrifice your privacy for some convenience? Then you have Amitai Etzioni, who feels that less privacy is good for the human race. Etzioni talks about how the media is loaded with horror stories. He does bring a supporting point about how the E-Z pass system can keep track of your every more. Also how they can monitor your cellular phone call or how people get fired everyday when their bosses decide to check their e-mail. I truly believe that if we don’t keep our privacy the purpose of society today would diminish. The quality and condition of being secluded from the presence or view of others is what many people seek in their everyday lives. Privacy is essential to people and to their everyday lives.

British novelist, George Orwell, may have been accurate in his novel, 1984, envisioning a future where citizens are constantly monitored, but he imagined how this would be done. Today, a citizen's personal information is everywhere: processed, manipulated, stored, and sold. In the last 10 years, data collection has escalated. There is nothing that doesn't create a pool of data that can be used in creative ways. Computers can collect personal data to find patterns that reveal a citizen's habits, preferences, and personality. What is particularly surprising is the extent in current years to which this personal data about citizens can be obtained and made available to many interested parties.

Dershowitz was born in Brooklyn, graduated from Brooklyn College. At Yale Law School, he was first in his class and editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal. After clerking for Chief Judge and Justice Arthur Goldberg, he was appointed to the Harvard Law School faculty at age 25 and became a full professor at age 28, then the youngest in the history of Harvard University. (Dershowitz)

Today, in this country we require photo IDs for many of our activities; this includes flying, driving, drinking, going to a gym and etc. They even try to use the signature verification for more security reasons. Now if we had an ID card that would make the situation for more privacy a lot harder. You have those people who are experts in taking existing and working ID card for a job for example, and just paste his picture exactly on top of the existent picture. This leaving him with access to the vicinity with his picture but with the other persons ID and now imagine that capability with national ID cards. This will create chaos among the U.S. people. Another question is how the transition will be from all of your accounts, social security, and tax numbers is transfer to this one card for every American citizen. These are some objections that Dershowitz never addresses. Alan Dershowitz discusses the right to anonymity. He talks about how there are a lot of terrorist and they must know everyone. He discusses how privacy and anonymity are not the same. I agree in the sense that the government must know in some sense something about you. But on the other hand I would want them to know my every move. Anyone would feel uncomfortable if the government knew more about you and your private life more than you did. The constitution doesn’t state that we are entitled to anonymity. Dershowitz believes this will enhance human right and reduce racial and ethnic stereotyping. But we all know if you see a last name like Gonsalez you will figure out that they are from the Hispanic descent. So the racial stereotyping will exist no matter what you try to do to eliminate it. This is a fallacy because in every culture there will be racial criticism and stereotyping.

Dershowitz talks about the ID card robustly and how it will have everyone finger print programmed into so only the owner may use it. But the question arises again is how do you plan on having everyone’s finger put on this card and programmed. This type of planning would take endless years until the whole project becomes in effect. We believe that Dershowitz is very skeptical to the bigger picture. The U.S. would have to change a system that the country has been based on after the Great Depression. The Social Security was created by Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose soul purpose was to get the country out of the depression. National ID cards should be feared because this will cause a lot of invasion to one’s privacy. Majority of the people are advocates of privacy; only in life threatened situations should we tell the information that is needed. I for one don’t walk around announcing how much money is available in my bank account or if I even have one. If people knew how much money a person had, a riot would be created and maybe they would be held as ransom for that money.

Amitai Etzioni received a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1958, he served as a Professor of Sociology at