At the end of September Oracle CEO Lawrence Ellison called for a national ID card system and offered to donate software to the U.S. government that could be used to create a database of fingerprints of all citizens and residents in the country. "We need a national ID card with our photograph and thumbprint digitized and embedded in the ID card," stated Ellison in a KPIX TV interview.

With technology known as biometrics, government officials could scan fingerprints or handprints and make this information available to a multitude of police agencies throughout the country.

The U.S. ruling class has long sought to establish a national ID card system. A debate has been under way since 1935 when Social Security cards were first introduced. The card was supposed to only be used for tracking an employees' wages, though over the years it has been used for a variety of purposes, including identification on drivers licenses issued in 29 states. Protests by working people in California, Minnesota, and elsewhere over the past year have demanded an end to state regulations requiring a person to show a valid Social Security card in order to receive or renew a drivers license. The actions have been made up in large part by immigrant workers.

In the 1990s the Clinton administration probed issuing national health-care cards that would have computer chips containing medical records, but backed down in face of opposition pointing out that it would become a national ID card. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California, along with others in Congress, advocated issuing such cards as a move aimed at preventing undocumented workers from obtaining employment.

One of the measures adopted under the Clinton administration in the anti-worker Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act is a mandate that starting October 1 all those entering the United States from Mexico use special identification cards embedded with a fingerprint mark. Authorities have pushed back the deadline for use of the cards because the computer system used to scan the cards is not yet in place.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service is also starting up an ID-type system for international students studying in this country. A computerized database is now supposed to keep track of the estimated 500,000 people who travel to the United States on student visas.

Meanwhile, the British government is discussing issuing mandatory identity cards to all its citizens. David Blunkett, the home secretary stated that he gives the question of issuing such cards "a fairly high priority."

"Britons carried identity cards during World War I and again in World War II and beyond," stated a September 28 New York Times article. "The cards were abolished in 1953, after a court ruled that the police powers that went with them--including the power to stop citizens at random and demand that they present identification--tended to make people resent the authorities."

The new cards, if they are introduced, will be more sophisticated with encoded information such as fingerprint or iris identification.
 
 
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