Why Fear National ID Cards

Alan Dershowitz, an educated individual and a professor at Harvard Law School highly believes in the capabilities of a national identity chip and somehow revokes the ideas or opinions of those who are against it. In his written work entitled “Why Fear National ID Cards”, he illustrates or enumerates what he believes to be the correct or proper reasons why people should be in favor of this new technology regarding the identity of an individual. However, in these claims or reasons that he state are several loopholes and misunderstandings that requires a different perspective.

According to Alan Dershowitz, a “national identity card with a chip that can match the holder’s fingerprint” is an efficient tool to reduce or totally eliminate terrorism. He also believes that this would lessen the number or need for law-enforcement mechanisms that have certain biases that results to an increases risk of depriving an individual of his civil liberties. However, this is not the whole truth to it. Alan Dershowitz was unable to see that the national identity cards with chip could actually be used by the terrorist in order to create confusion, more violence and melancholy over the countries or lands.

If a terrorist would be able to hold of an information regarding the use or methods of formatting an identity chip, then he would be able to change his identity over and over again. Furthermore, he could use the identity of another individual to buy weapons, military tools or anything that the terrorists needs up to supplies to aid them in their goals and objectives as terrorists. Alan Dershowitz also thinks that the fingerprints used in these identity chips are difficult to fake. However, it is still possible.

There are already individuals working at the companies creating these national identity chips who were found guilty of using other’s fingerprints and identity through these cards to collect money from banks. If an individual is dead, getting his fingerprint is not a hard thing to do. The technology that he is trying to persuade people into can also backfire at it. The world has a lot of geniuses, especially when it comes to forging and faking documents. The national identity cards would just be another type of “paper” which they could explore and soon crack.

Through the use of a national identity card, Dershowitz believes that individuals belonging to a particular racial or ethnic group could be saved from biases or hassling from other individuals. He also believes that this would lessen the need for racial and ethnic stereotyping. However, again, he fails to see that it is not merely the identity card or the individuals with such group that matters but also the people who commit these ethnic or racial discriminations.

If one individual is determined to hassle another individual in an ethnic or racial group, he would still commit such acts no matter what identity card you show him. Sometimes, if not always, racists strongly believe that they are superior and the individuals in these ethnic and racial groups are far more inferior. The national identity card cannot simply change the perspective or believe of a racist. If exaggerations could be done, a racist could use these national identity cards and state that these individuals merely stole these cards for themselves, giving him the right to beat or hassle more.

He points out in the end of his written work that it is just fine to sacrifice a little bit of freedom in order to take a bigger chunk of it. Furthermore, he states that this sacrifice would not be in awe for it would give an individual the dignity from law. He again mentions the ethnic or racial group as an example to defend his claim. Lastly, he states and insists that these national identity cards would prevent terrorism. On the contrary, these sacrifices of freedom, no matter how small it is, still cross the rights for freedom.

On cannot fully say that he is enjoying the right for freedom that is given to him by his own government if the government itself takes a piece of it from them for itself. Furthermore, in a democratic government, the freedom of the people is very important and his rights are greatly valued or given importance. Moreover, it is important to understand that it is the people, especially in a democratic country, who elected these leaders, politicians, administrators, or policy makers in their position. As such, they cannot simply neglect the fears of the people by simply insisting its implementation.

There are many ways of combating terrorism, and this does not include the sacrifice of rights which should be fully given to a citizen or to the people. If the government itself crosses the rights of the people that it swore to protect, then he is no different from the terrorists or those racists that Alan Dershowitz is using as an example to argue his points of view. The word anonymity may not be exactly the same as privacy, however, consulting the thesaurus, one would notice that anonymity is synonymous to secrecy and secrecy is anonymous to privacy.

According to the transitive law, if A=B and B=C, therefore A=C. In this case, anonymity is privacy. As such, Alan Dershowitz cannot simply argue that people are being afraid of losing their privacy when it is different from anonymity; according to the transitive law, his claim is false. Thus, if one claim is false, then it is more likely that his conclusions are also false. This is why I believe that Alan Dershowitz arguments are just fallacies or of his own opinion.