IP: Security, Fear, and National ID Cards

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 19:22:43 -0500
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
> From: Steven Cherry <steven () panix com>
> Subject: Security, Fear, and National ID Cards
>
> http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/special/sept01/idcards.html
>
> Security, Fear, and National ID Cards
> By Steven M. Cherry
> posted 9 November 2001
>
> In the first weeks after 11 September, with diverse figures calling for 
> creation of a national identity card, New Yorkers recognized a need for 
> greater personal identification. At the IEEE Spectrum editorial offices 
> (about 5 km from Ground Zero, and two blocks from the now-tallest building 
> in the city), building ID cards, previously optional, are now obligatory. 
> In many offices, visitors are required to either be listed in advance by 
> name (or sign a logbook), and produce a photo ID that matches the name.
>
> Identification cards, though, are only as good as the systems for 
> producing and using them. It soon became obvious that the building ID card 
> I had to get a few days after the collapse of the twin towers wasn't being 
> required. It seemed any photo-containing card would do. Even more 
> disturbingly, at a local hospital, where I'm receiving therapy for a 
> recent injury, it was, after four visits, becoming increasingly difficult 
> to resist the suspicion that while one had to produce an ID card, it 
> wasn't being examined, nor was it being compared with the name one signed 
> to get in.
>
> So I decided to put this new security to a test. Like every kid from 
> Queens who started exploring the streets of Manhattan as an adolescent, I 
> knew just where to go-the nameless storefronts of indeterminate businesses 
> on the still slightly disreputable streets of Eighth Avenue, just north of 
> the Port Authority bus terminal-in other words, Times Square, or what's 
> left of it. I walked into the first place with a sign that said "Photo ID."
>
> <snip>


For archives see:
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/