{"id":6677,"date":"2010-04-13T12:00:08","date_gmt":"2010-04-13T12:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/multiracial.com\/?p=6677"},"modified":"2017-09-06T15:14:17","modified_gmt":"2017-09-06T15:14:17","slug":"comprehensive-immigration-reform-must-respect-civil-liberties-and-privacy-says-aclu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/2010\/04\/13\/comprehensive-immigration-reform-must-respect-civil-liberties-and-privacy-says-aclu\/","title":{"rendered":"Comprehensive Immigration Reform Must Respect Civil Liberties And Privacy, Says ACLU"},"content":{"rendered":"
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April 13, 2010<\/p>\n

Comprehensive Immigration Reform Must Respect Civil Liberties And Privacy, Says ACLU<\/strong><\/h2>\n

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE<\/p>\n

April 13, 2010<\/p>\n

CONTACT: (202) 675-2312;\u00a0media@dcaclu.org<\/a><\/p>\n

WASHINGTON \u2013 A broad coalition of groups today sent a letter to the White House, the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee urging them to oppose a proposal by Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) that would include a biometric national ID card in comprehensive immigration reform legislation. Signatories are from across the political spectrum and include advocates for privacy, consumer rights, gun owners, limited government and religious liberty.<\/p>\n

A biometric ID card, like the kind under consideration here, is a national system for identifying individuals that is used to determine if they are eligible for rights and benefits \u2013 a classic national ID. In order to create a biometric ID, every worker in America would have to present a birth certificate and other identification documents, then have his or her biometric, like a fingerprint, captured.<\/p>\n

In its letter, the coalition stated, \u201cA 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Below is the full text of the letter and a full list of signatories:<\/p>\n

Re:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Oppose Schumer\/Graham Biometric National ID Proposal within Comprehensive\u00a0Immigration Reform<\/strong><\/p>\n

We write today to express our opposition to a proposal by Senators Charles Schumer (D \u2013 NY) and Lindsey Graham (R \u2013 SC) to create a biometric Social Security card \u2013 one that relies on personal characteristics like fingerprints to identify individuals.\u00a0 No one disputes that our broken immigration system harms both immigrants and non-immigrants, but a full scale National ID system is not the solution.<\/p>\n

Both Republicans and Democrats have opposed a National ID system.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 As happened with Social Security cards decades ago, use of such ID cards would quickly spread and be used for other purposes \u2013 from travel to voting to gun ownership.<\/p>\n

Contrary to the contentions of Senators Schumer and Graham, it would be impossible to create such a system without establishing a national database \u2013 a central electronic repository \u2013 of Americans\u2019 personal information.\u00a0 Every government identification system currently in existence requires a database.\u00a0 Databases are necessary in order to reissue lost or stolen cards and as a check on fraud and abuse.\u00a0 Without record keeping, the same Social Security number and birth certificate could be used again and again to issue new cards to different people \u2013 defeating the entire purpose of the system.\u00a0 Such a central repository will be irresistible to identity thieves, hackers and those who want to misuse personal information for crimes like stalking.<\/p>\n

The cost of this system will be extraordinary, running to hundreds of billions of dollars and dwarfing the expense associated with other parts of immigration reform.\u00a0 As one example, the federal government recently began to issue a limited number of biometric ID cards, called Transportation Worker Identification Credentials.\u00a0 It is estimated that the Department of Homeland Security will spend approximately $1.9 billion to issue cards to approximately 1 million workers.\u00a0 Expanded to the entire US workforce of 150 million people, that would translate to a proportionately greater cost of $285 billion.\u00a0 A biometric system would likely have to be fee based \u2013 requiring not just government permission, but also a government fee to work.<\/p>\n

Adding insult to injury, this unaffordable scheme will probably never work.\u00a0 Even ignoring the enormous difficulties of creating a system to fingerprint everyone and distributing readers to employers across the country, the truth is that some employers prefer the ambiguity of the current process.\u00a0 Unless significantly greater resources are dedicated to enforcing the law, employers will continue to have a strong incentive to circumvent a broken system.\u00a0 Such enforcement could be accomplished just as easily without a National ID.<\/p>\n

A biometric ID system would be controversial and unpopular with constituencies across the ideological spectrum.\u00a0 It would require the fingerprinting of every American worker \u2013 not just immigrants.\u00a0 It would also require the creation of a bureaucracy that combines the worst elements of the Transportation Security Administration and state Motor Vehicle Departments.<\/p>\n

For all of these reasons we believe that a National ID system should play no part in the otherwise needed reform of our immigration system.<\/p>\n

Sincerely<\/p>\n

American Civil Liberties Union<\/p>\n

American Library Association<\/p>\n

American\u00a0Policy Center<\/p>\n

Americans for Tax Reform<\/p>\n

Bill of Rights Defense Committee<\/p>\n

Calegislation<\/p>\n

Campaign for Liberty<\/p>\n

Center for Digital Democracy<\/p>\n

Center for Financial Privacy and Human Rights<\/p>\n

Citizen Outreach<\/p>\n

Citizens Against Government Waste<\/p>\n

Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms<\/p>\n

Competitive Enterprise Institute<\/p>\n

Consumer Action<\/p>\n

Consumer Federation of America<\/p>\n

Consumer Watchdog<\/p>\n

Cyber Privacy Project<\/p>\n

Defending Dissent Foundation<\/p>\n

DownsizeDC.org, Inc.<\/p>\n

Electronic Frontier Foundation<\/p>\n

Electronic Privacy Information Center<\/p>\n

Equal Justice Alliance<\/p>\n

Former Congressman Bob Barr<\/p>\n

Hispanic Leadership Fund<\/p>\n

Home\u00a0School\u00a0Legal Defense Association<\/p>\n

Indian American Republican Council<\/p>\n

Liberty\u00a0Coalition<\/p>\n

National\u00a0Center\u00a0for Transgender Equality<\/p>\n

National Lawyer’s Guild–National Office<\/p>\n

National\u00a0Whistleblower Center<\/p>\n

Patient Privacy Rights<\/p>\n

Privacy Activism<\/p>\n

Privacy International<\/p>\n

Privacy Journal<\/p>\n

Privacy Lives<\/p>\n

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse<\/p>\n

Privacy Times<\/p>\n

PrivacyRightsNow Coalition<\/p>\n

Rutherford Institute<\/p>\n

The 5-11 Campaign<\/p>\n

The Identity Project<\/p>\n

The Multiracial Activist<\/p>\n

U.S.\u00a0Bill of Rights Foundation<\/p>\n

World Privacy Forum<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

April 13, 2010 Comprehensive Immigration Reform Must Respect Civil Liberties And Privacy, Says ACLU FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 13, 2010 CONTACT: (202) 675-2312;\u00a0media@dcaclu.org WASHINGTON \u2013 A broad coalition of groups today sent a letter...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[103],"class_list":["post-6677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-releases","tag-press-release"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Press-Releases.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p89tuq-1JH","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6677"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6680,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6677\/revisions\/6680"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}