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Comment by ie9rifikr | Hacker News Reader

I'm not American, why is it a thorny topic?

They have a pathological fear of government overreach. An identity card issued by the government would lead to a slippery slope of something, not sure what. HN is fertile ground for such paranoia, so no doubt someone will explain exactly what will happen if all US residents received a free identification card.

Anyway, they get around this by using their Social Security Numbers everywhere. All residents have one. They use this in a novel way, where it’s both a username and a password, that you share with every corporation who asks. You’re supposed to keep it very secret because people can open financial accounts in your name with this number. But not that secret. Your utility company may ask for it and won’t provide service without it.

Since it’s both a username and password, it’s stored very securely. Except when it isn’t, breaches happen, and people have no recourse. It’s immutable, so they can’t do anything other than say “don’t process any credit checks for me” and hope that works.

Anyway, that’s the short version of why Americans are terrified of being assigned an ID, actually have an ID (SSN), but can’t use that ID because it’s super secret, but then use it everywhere anyway because they have no choice.

> Both Republicans and Democrats have opposed a National ID system. President Reagan likened a 1981 proposal to the biblical “mark of the beast,” and President Clinton dismissed a similar plan because it smacked of Big Brother. A National ID would not only violate privacy by helping to consolidate data and facilitate tracking of individuals, it would bring government into the very center of our lives by serving as a government permission slip needed by everyone in order to work. As happened with Social Security cards decades ago, use of such ID cards would quickly spread and be used for other purposes – from travel to voting to gun ownership.

https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/broad-coalition-urges-pr...

As an American, this is an excellent rundown.

A national ID would indeed have us quickly slipping toward… something… and of course it’s unsavory if it has “federal” or “national” anywhere in it.

I leave my identity management to the private credit bureaus, who are guided by the infallible hand of the free market, thank you very much.

As an European with all sorts of IDs issued by my government I’m so confused as to what that “something” is supposed to be honestly. So weird.

The "something" is a consolidation of federal power. The US is not a unitary state like most of the countries in Europe. The states hold a lot of power individually, and many want to maintain that as much as possible. The rules around identification are something that is significant to how people interact with their government and people do not want those rules to be decided federally when they can maintain that power locally instead.

> The "something" is a consolidation of federal power.

Ok but I still don't understand what power are you consolidating here.

If the federal government decided to issue an ID card valid for all citizens, what's the issue?

You already have something that work that way and it's the passport.

Now, I know that having a passport is not mandatory but if tomorrow the US government decided to issue passports, for free, to all citizens, would that be an issue?

A passport is only used for international travel, which was already under the purview of the feds. It is also only used for travel, which means that many people don't have one.

Drivers licenses (/IDs) are used for everything else pertaining to someone's daily life. In this way it affects how/who/where/when people drive, vote, buy and sell controlled things, engage in some financial transactions, travel domestically, obtain social benefits, etc.

It allows local authorities to be gatekeepers. A commonly used and carried federal ID would shift that gatekeeping authority to the feds. It could also enable additional gatekeeping which is not currently possible in the absence of this ID, which is a primary concern of the people who are against this.

Hidden deep in the fog of American politics, there is also a fear of triggering the folksy religious conservatives who fear/anticipate a literal "mark of the beast". To them, a national, compulsory ID number would signal the arrival of the Antichrist...

Yep, which is convenient as it can be (and is) applied to any act of national unity, for example vaccination efforts.

And yet for some reason that doesn’t apply to a state ID. It’s all just nonsense puppeteering of manipulable people because it’s profitable to have a dysfunctional federal government.

You have a charming way with words. Yes, national IDs and the right to bear arms are wrapped up in our national identity.

To paraphrase Charleston Heston, they can put a national ID in my wallet when they pry the AR15 from my cold dead hands. Never mind I am trusted traveler with global entry and I have a real ID state drivers license. Never mind the Chinese government hacked the federal Human Resources database all those years ago and have the data for anyone who took a paycheck from Uncle Sam.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management...

^ yep. SSNs are also terrible to collect, as they are hard to verify if the user even gave you a valid number, as there's no self checking system like credit cards, you have to check against some 3rd party database that may know who that person is, but can't be sure, or just may not know who they are. Also, if you fuck up, you screw over a lot of people.

Fun fact, until 2011 SSNs were loosely based on where you were born. If you were a bad actor and wanted to use a fake SSN, just change a couple of numbers at the end and you could get a new number of someone that was born around when you were, in the same hospital as you.

This is probably the most rational description of what is clearly an insane system that I have seen. Thank you.

Not the person you are replying to, but... National ID cards tend to feel icky to people who live in countries that don't have them. People who already have them don't even seem to notice.

I think added to that is that Americans have a historical tendency not to trust any kind of federal govt oversight/information collection

The U.S. is rooted in freedom from overreaching governments. (Slavery, equality is a separate dimension). That's how we were formed. For a while we were nearly tribal and free. We got screwed over when we allowed a federal governemnt to "protect" us. The Bill of Rights was supposed to ensure we didn't lose our freedom. It should have kept us free but instead allowed key points of control like real estate tax incentives to enrich an oligarch class and now we have "corporotacracy." The recent/present leaders can not protect us without violating our rights to privacy... ...or won't.

Electric fences and RF food collars feel icky to cows in pastures that don't have them. Cows who already have them don't seem to notice.

Now im really curious what parts of this people disagree with?

For the same reason the UN telling every country they need a global ID for every citizen is a thorny topic. In the United States, the states are provided with fairly strong protections under the 10th amendment. This is the principle of federalism.

In many very important fundamental aspects, the USA is 50 different countries standing on top of each other wearing a long trench coat and pretending to be one country.

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