Senators push Obama for biometric national ID card

"Two U.S. senators met with President Obama on Thursday to push for a national ID card with biometric information such as a fingerprint, hand scan, or iris scan that all employers would be required to verify.

In an opinion article published in Friday's edition of the Washington Post, Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) say the new identification cards will 'ensure that illegal workers cannot get jobs' and 'dramatically decrease illegal immigration.'

Schumer and Graham pitched the idea to President Obama during a private meeting Thursday at the White House. Graham said afterward that Obama 'welcomed' their proposal for a new ID card law; the White House said in a statement that the senators' plan was 'promising.'

This push for a national ID is part of what the senators say is a necessary overhaul of immigration law, including additional border security, more temporary workers, and a form of amnesty for illegal immigrants already in the United States. It comes just two days before a rally in Washington, D.C. sponsored by groups including the AFL-CIO, Farmworker Justice, and the National Council of La Raza that also calls for amnesty.

Linking national ID cards to immigration reform is a popular idea in Washington political circles. After all, if every U.S. citizen has a biometric-equipped cards, the thinking goes, it's easy to order employers not to give a job to someone without one.

But concerns about privacy, security, and federalism have torpedoed each one of these proposals so far. A similar national ID plan--which also required that employers do verifications--sunk President Bush's broader proposal for immigration reform in 2007. A proposal three years earlier by Rep. David Drier (R-Calif.) to create federal ID cards with Americans' photograph, Social Security number, and an 'encrypted electronic strip' with additional information was even less successful.

Then there was the controversial Real ID Act, which tried unsuccessfully to compel states to standardize their drivers' licenses. But a libertarian grassroots revolt, including an anti-Real ID vote a few weeks ago in the Utah legislature, has halted Homeland Security's plans. (Rep. Ron Paul, the former Republican presidential candidate, argued it would do little to curb legal immigration.)

Under the Schumer-Graham proposal, extracting biometric information from hundreds of millions of Americans is no trivial task. It could mean extraordinary lines at regional Social Security offices--and an inconvenience for Americans switching jobs who haven't had their retina or DNA scanned in and stored on the ID card.

'We would require all U.S. citizens and legal immigrants who want jobs to obtain a high-tech, fraud-proof Social Security card,' the senators' opinion article says. 'Each card's unique biometric identifier would be stored only on the card; no government database would house everyone's information. The cards would not contain any private information, medical information or tracking devices.'" ...more

FOXNews.com - 5 Reasons Why America Should Steer Clear of a National ID Card

"The Senate is working toward a ghastly compromise on immigration reform that includes a biometric national identification card for all Americans. The stated purpose of this national ID, which an employee must present before getting a job, is to prevent undocumented workers from being employed. Back in December I warned that a national ID is the inevitable conclusion of the anti-immigration movement. The failure of E-Verify to catch 54% of undocumented workers is only accelerating the call for a national ID.

A national ID hurts American workers while pretending to help them.

First, every worker would have to ask permission from the federal government to get a job. American workers shouldn’t have to beg or plead to anybody to get permission to work. Being employed should be a private agreement between an employer and employee. Period. The government should get out of the way.

Second, carrying around government papers with biometric identification on it conjures up images of a more technologically savvy Oceania or East Germany. No thanks.

Third, the system will exclude millions of legal workers by accident and fail to catch the majority of undocumented immigrants. For instance, if E-Verify were instituted nation-wide 3.6 million Americans would be denied employment each year and have to visit the Social Security Administration to correct their records. The employer either fires them or delays training. Will a biometric ID card make this system better? How does that help American workers?

Fourth, it will cost businesses up to $800 to buy a scanner. Or as Senator Chuck Schumer says, employers can just go down to the DMV. Senator Schumer doesn’t know squat about running a business. The last thing an employer wants to do is spend time at the DMV when he could be spending it improving his business. And all this during an economic slump!

Fifth, it would treat every American like a criminal by requiring them to enter their most intimate and personal data into a government database. One of the benefits of not having committed any crimes is that my information is not in a government record office. I’d like to keep it that way.

Has the very notion of liberty been so diluted in this great nation that no-one is willing to decry this as the naked government power grab that it is? Must every American now ask government permission to get a job? Think what you will about undocumented immigration, is ending it so important that every single American must be entered into a massive government database and given an ID they must present when applying for a job?

It most emphatically is not.

Alex Nowrasteh, is an analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute." ...source

E-Verify could add biometrics

"en. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has begun laying the groundwork for adding a biometric measure — most likely a fingerprint — to the E-Verify federal employment verification system. If he succeeds and the system covers 140 million U.S. workers, it would be one of the largest fingerprinting programs in the country.

Managed by the Homeland Security Department, E-Verify is a Web-based system in which employers check the Social Security numbers of their employees and new hires. Critics point out that individuals who submit stolen Social Security numbers can fool the system, which has no way to verify that the submitted number belongs to the person who provided it.

Schumer, who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s immigration subcommittee, is promoting a biometric-equipped E-Verify as part of the upcoming immigration reform bill.

Schumer held a hearing July 21 in which witnesses described the benefits of adding a biometric identifier to E-Verify. Schumer said it would make it harder to use stolen Social Security numbers. Individuals would provide their fingerprints and verify their identities with a government agency. Then, when seeking work, employees would provide the same information to E-Verify, and the fingerprint match would prove that the employees were using valid identification.

But critics are already raising privacy, cost and effectiveness concerns.

“A biometric solution may be going too far on the path to a national ID card and jeopardizing privacy,” said Jena McNeil, homeland security analyst at the Heritage Foundation. “It seems to open a door to an area that we haven’t explored yet. I think you could kill [E-Verify] by making it too complicated, costly, and too much an invasion of privacy.'" E-Verify could add biometrics -- Federal Computer Week:

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