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National ID cards
Advantages and disadvantages of national identity cards
National ID cards
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The debate regarding the national id cards centers around a few key issues such as: its potential effectiveness of catching terrorists and apprehending criminals, reliability of this system , the financial costs of implementing this new program, and lastly, it would infringe on our personal privacy rights. You are essentially being monitored by the government and recorded your every move, and being monitored for all your normal day to day activities. 1. Privacy: This card will hold a vast amount of personal information such as your name, address (and former addresses), names of other family members, your religion, education, fingerprints, and much more. I personally wouldn’t feel comfortable carrying around that much information about myself, let alone trust another family member who could accidentally misplace their own card, thus exposing my personal details to a stranger. What if the government were to keep adding more and more personal information to that card in the future? It’s already a frightening world that we live in today with so much of our personal information floating around cyber space, and to keep adding more, would just leave people in a state of complete paranoia. I highly doubt that many people would even feel safer with this card. Look at how easy it is for teenagers, criminals to get a fake id right now. This system still would not guarantee that the terrorists could still obtain a card by fraudulently acquiring a birth certificate or a social security card. How can we trust that the government officials who job it is to secure our privacy wont have an insider selling our private information to a thief? Computer hackers are another potential threat. If they penetrate the government’s dat... ... middle of paper ... ...e securing our nation, but I believe that if the system crashes, we would be vulnerable to an attack, and hurt our nation even more. Technology is wonderful as long as its working, but when it fails you and has cracks in it, it becomes a huge burden. If our government wants to protect us , than why not invest that tax money and establish a new system to catch more criminals. There are a lot of more of criminals inside than terrorists anyways in our nation. Imagine a system where all of our law enforcement agencies communicate with one another and share the same information and enter information of the same system. Why don’t we have that already? America shouldn’t just stand united under a song, but also a system where it’s the same in all states. Imagine how many more criminals would be caught and not have the opportunity to become repeat offenders.
In William Safire’s “The Threat of National ID”, he argues against a National ID card. Safire published an article in the New York Times to establish different context. Safire gives details about the use of National ID card at different places in different situations. He emphasizes that many Americans are willing to give up personal privacy in return for greater safety, but none of us have privacy regarding where we go and what we do all the time. Safire disputes that mandatory National ID become necessary for people to prevent fear of terror attack.
Next on, the author presents the idea that national ID cards would not prevent all threats of terrorism, but they will for sure stop them from coming out in the open. Furthermore, the author says that National ID cards would reduce racial and ethnic segregation. Because someone’s information can be accessed online anytime it can be seen that that person is not a criminal. Summing up his thoughts, Dershowitz suggests that a national ID card would be effective in preventing terrorism and that he believes to follow a system that takes a bit of freedom for
In conclusion, the idea behind the 2001 USA Patriot Act was a solid one made in a time of extreme duress and fearfulness. Now that we have had time to readjust and really look at the consequences of this act, it is time to reevaluate and pass into law a modified version to keep in line with what our forefathers believed for our country.
With the introduction of the internet being a relatively new phenomenon, the act of cyber espionage is not something that has been properly acknowledged by society. The American Government has done a stand up job of keeping its methods in the shadows and away from the eyes of its people since its documented domestic surveillance began on October 4th, 2001; Twenty three days after the Twin Towers fell President George Bush signed an order to begin a secret domestic eavesdropping operation, an operation which was so sensitive that even many of the country's senior national security officials with the...
The NSA and U.S. government sifting through our private information is but a small inconvenience that we must sacrifice in order to protect our own freedom and safety. Domestic Surveillance roots back to the 1910’s, where the assassination of President McKinley, created a Bureau of Investigation that would trace the efforts of the Communists attempting an uprising in America. This would be the foundings behind Domestic Surveillance in America, and would continue on after World War II where the government created the NSA and CIA, with the main purposes
Today, half of state prisoners are serving time for nonviolent crimes. Over half of federal prisoners are serving time for drug crimes. Mass incarceration seems to be extremely expensive and a waste of money. It is believed to be a massive failure. Increased punishments and jailing have been declining in effectiveness for more than thirty years. Violent crime rates fell by more than fifty percent between 1991 and 2013, while property crime declined by forty-six percent, according to FBI statistics. Yet between 1990 and 2009, the prison population in the U.S. more than doubled, jumping from 771,243 to over 1.6 million (Nadia Prupis, 2015). While jailing may have at first had a positive result on the crime rate, it has reached a point of being less and less worth all the effort. Income growth and an aging population each had a greater effect on the decline in national crime rates than jailing. Mass incarceration and tough-on-crime policies have had huge social and money-related consequences--from its eighty billion dollars per-year price tag to its many societal costs, including an increased risk of recidivism due to barbarous conditions in prison and a lack of after-release reintegration opportunities. The government needs to rethink their strategy and their policies that are bad
Maybe if I saw more reports on how prison has improved our society and the criminals who live among us, I would see why we should work on reforming our prisons. Until then, it does not seem to be working. We trust in the government to provide for our safety, but we must take responsibility among ourselves. To understand that the current system does work and that its intent is not to provide a safe society. History has shown us that. What we have done or continue to do will not make this a safer place to live. The problem is not to reform our prison system, for this won't stop criminals to commit crimes, but to find ways and means to deteriorate them from doing the crime.
...imes which would inevitably send him back to prison. While making perfect sense this solution drastically changes the concept of prison. The effects of social programs integrated with prisons start with helping direct the taxpayers money to more prolific uses, and expand to making people in America smarter, more educated less dangerous people.
It transcends the line between public and private identity. When all of someone 's private information is being watched, then who are they as a person? Citizens cannot allow their identity to be confiscated for the protection of the unknown. Tamara Thompson states in her article Overview: What is Domestic Surveillance? that, the NSA has constructed a program that lets it hijack almost anything. Using this skill, most American 's information is automatically taken in, without a purpose. What is America 's deepest and darkest secret? Because what might be a secret, will be known to someone. With the hindsight of constantly being over watched, then how can America freely do what they please? Insecurities will consume the mind with the thought that the NSA, or someone like it is watching us. Not only is it hurting America emotionally, but it is hurting America physically with the economy. These government agencies are making numerous unnecessary purchases every day with the attempt at securing our homeland. Why is it necessary to live in constant paranoia if the majority of America is doing nothing wrong? There are other ways to stop terrorism, and spying on the public is not one of them. Domestic surveillance is not necessary by any
Someone has been pulled over in Europe and are asked to see their drivers licenses when writing tickets. The driver does not want their privacy to invaded, by simply getting pulled over. If things are not kept private, things such as credit card numbers could be stolen through the phone, simple as that. Our technology has changed throughout the years due to people invading privacy that is not theirs. Our right to privacy has increased by people only using technology to communicate, instead in person.
There have been several occasions throughout America’s history where voter fraud has changed the outcome of an election. For example, “a 2010 Kansas election ended with a one vote margin where 50 of the winning side votes were cast illegally by citizens of Somalia (Hans Von Spankovsky).” Another example is when “a 1996 congressional race in California was almost overturned by hundreds of votes cast illegally by noncitizens (Hans Von Spankovsky).” Voter ID laws are a sensible precaution to voting. Voter id laws eliminate all forms of voter fraud and restore integrity to elections, Government issued photo ids are inexpensive and easy to obtain, and voter id laws don’t restrict the right to vote and restore confidence to voters.
that would give the prisoners a future in the community and give them a chance at parole.
The attacks on American soil that solemn day of September 11, 2001, ignited a quarrel that the grade of singular privacy, need not be given away in the hunt of grander security. The security measures in place were planned to protect our democracy and its liberties yet, they are merely eroding the very existence with the start of a socialistic paradigm. Benjamin Franklin (1759), warned more than two centuries ago: “they that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Implementing security measures comes at a cost both economically and socially. Government bureaucrats can and will utilize information for personal political objectives. The Supreme Court is the final arbitrator of what the ‘law is”, causing a lack of circulated rule. The actual leaders with political purposes jeopardize our individual privacy rights, liberties, and freedoms.
In this mindset, privacy is a very miniscule price to pay for the “greater good”. The average American citizen should have no fear of anything happening to them with this relinquishing of privacy. They are protected from both the government and any perceived threat, because an average American has no tendency to criminality and because the government may now be able to locate any threats before they become a problem, respectively. If a person has nothing to hide, they should not have any problem with letting the government take possession of mass amounts, if not all, of their personal information.
The need to defend nation from terrorist attacks is a daily struggle. We have improved our security in airports, public and government building, sporting events and venues were large crowds are present. We have put protective measures in our theaters, schools, and places of worship. It doesn’t seem to be enough to add security personnel, metal detectors and body scanners. Terrorists still find ways to get passed the toughest security measures in place and cause mass casualties and destruction worldwide.