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The Wall Street Journal May 4, 2004 REVIEW & OUTLOOK Getting Carded May 4, 2004 The Scottish historian and philosopher David Hume once wrote that "it is seldom that any liberty is lost all at once." British Home Secretary David Blunkett seems to have taken Hume's lesson to heart with his slow-motion effort to introduce mandatory identity cards in the U.K. Last week, the U.K. began issuing national ID cards with biometric information. The pilot program will issue 10,000 ID cards. But this plan is scheduled to expand. By 2007 cards will be distributed "voluntarily" when renewing a passport; those not interested in a biometric card will be free to surrender their passports. Before the Parliament votes in 2012 or 2013 on whether to give everyone over 16 years of age a card and require people to carry them at all times, 80% of the population will have been issued a card. That's why now is the time for a serious debate over the merits of national ID cards that will include a retinal scan, fingerprints or measurements of the exact dimensions of the face in addition to the usual name, address, and passport number. The cards might make life harder on illegal immigrants, but it's hard to see how they would protect British subjects or anyone else from terrorists. Mr. Blunkett has managed to muddy the water by introducing the cards incrementally and by fueling a stir over whether royals would carry them. He is quoted in the media describing the level of fine for failing to update an address, (£1,000), or failing to carry a card when (and if) the program becomes mandatory (£2,500). A Home Office that argues that such a program would protect against identity theft, benefits fraud and illegal immigration has sought to capitalize on fears and anxieties prompted by terrorist attacks to build support for the program. But all this distracts from the basic debate of whether the net benefit of universal biometric ID cards is worth the cost in terms of civil liberties, privacy and freedom. That debate has nothing to do with recent Home Office hype. It's important to acknowledge what a national ID program would and would not do. Such a program undoubtedly would make life more difficult for economic refugees and other immigrants. That is not to say that immigrants would cease to flee unlivable economic and political situations because of an added layer of regulation, but such persons would be driven into an underground economy to an even greater extent than currently. If Mr. Blunkett wants to debate immigration policy, he should do so. Hiding xenophobic policies behind the terror threat, from which many look to the government for protection, is disingenuous. ID cards might also reduce some social security fraud. But British taxpayers shouldn't see the cards as saving money. ID cards could prevent an estimated 5% of the £2 billion of social-security fraud each year. But once you've paid for the cards themselves (just over £3 billion according to Mr. Blunkett's estimate) and bought 4,500 card readers, it's hard to see a huge net gain. There are better, cheaper and less invasive methods of curbing fraud. Most importantly, ID cards would not protect against terrorists. To argue that a small plastic card would present an obstacle to a suicidal fundamentalist terrorist is preposterous. Mr. Blunkett has danced just shy of this argument, saying, of course it wouldn't prevent terror, and in the same breath arguing that it would help terror enforcement. In the introduction to the bill, he's written "the threat of global terrorism . . . make[s] secure identification more vital than ever." But better protection against false identities wouldn't have prevented the 9/11 attacks, where individuals -- most with clean records and bona fide papers -- entered the U.S., in some cases years before the attacks. Unlike economic migrants, terrorists have the wherewithal to get their papers in order. Al Qaeda terrorists are far too sophisticated to get tripped up by a regulation requiring IDs. The attempt to harness the anxiety from the Madrid bombings and channel it to provide momentum for his bill is intellectually dishonest. Mr. Blunkett at least owes an undisguised debate about ID cards. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'