As a Pajamas Media blogger, it struck me as unseemly to disagree with Roger L. Simon, so I wrote much of this post, but hesitated to publish it. (This blog's archives contain many hundreds of "permanently-hesitated" posts, for other, innumerable reasons)

But hey, now that Glenn Reynolds has seen fit to say what he thinks, and I'm looking for an excuse not to drive to New Jersey as I'm supposed to be doing right now, I figure that I have two good reasons for finishing what I started.

I hope Roger will not take offense at my cowardly about-face in deciding to publish what last night I decided to neglect, and I also hope he realizes that I agree with the soundness of his reasoning. In principle, I agree with the idea that we need to be able to identify people more easily. And certainly, the fact that we have no privacy is beyond dispute.

Here's Roger:

Pajamas Media is spying on you, as is--assuming you have cookies enabled--nearly every other website you have visited in the last couple of years. At PJM we try to keep this snooping to a gentlemanly minimum but others, like Amazon, seem to know more about us than do our mothers. Then there are the credit card companies and the banks, the department stores and utilities and insurance companies, credit reports, stock brokers, internet providers, cable and satellite companies, the federal and state governments, social security, the IRS, Medicare and your mortuary. I could go on, but you get the point.

Privacy, to paraphrase the great Preston Sturges, is not only dead, it's decomposed.

So what's the big deal about a national ID card already?

I'm sure you'll have some. But please, no ideology. Just practical considerations.

If not, sign me up, Big Brother. I'm ready for my card - today.

There is a difference, though, between Amazon.com watching my book purchases because it wants to sell me more and the government watching them because it wants to know whether I'm a political threat. I can easily opt out of Amazon knowing what I read (or any company knowing what I'm buying) by going to a store and paying cash. It's a question of degree. What people and companies do, I can control, and I can decide to withdraw my consent. When the government does it, I can't. Amazon.com can't make me do anything; the government can.

That element of coercion is what I don't like about national ID cards. I see no way to implement such a thing without making it mandatory in nature. Mandatory, by the way, would mean get one or go to jail. A crime not to have it? I'd be pretty pissed if Amazon were able to get laws passed forbidding me from buying books outside of Amazon, and the gummint is a lot more powerful and threatening than Amazon.

Now, if the cards were made voluntary, that would assuage some of my concerns. But I just don't like the government telling me that I have to do something (or that an employer has to make me something) or go to jail. Besides, I already have a passport; why should I be forced to get something else? To make the country safer?

This is not to suggest that there aren't many good reasons for implementing national ID. Roger outlines them in detail. But the desirability of something is not a justification for doing it, especially if the government does not have power to do it.

Where in the Constitution does the federal government have the power to declare that citizens must have federally-issued ID? Back in 1919, it was believed that the federal government didn't have power to prohibit alcohol; hence the 18th Amendment (which I call the "Telltale Amendment").

Many good arguments were advanced in favor of Prohibition, and I think a powerful argument can be made for national ID cards, which Roger makes in a compelling manner.

If there's a huge overwhelming consensus that the federal government involve itself in people's lives to the point of issuing mandatory ID for all, I think that's a perfect case for doing it the right way -- with a constitutional amendment. (Or do we not do things the right way anymore? Could Prohibition be reenacted today by Congress?)

The Constitution aside, I have one other practical concern. What about the uncontrollable border? Will the ID card requirement stop anyone from crossing the way they do now? I don't see how; all that will happen is that the responsible employers will now have a way of verifying someone's identity, and making sure he has the right to be here, and to work. Won't the countless aliens who hang out at lumber yards and construction sites begging for work still do that? Won't people still hire them to do the unskilled labor that teenagers refuse to do? If stringent gun control measures failed to stop Jose Carranza from getting a gun and shooting innocent college students, what would an ID card requirement have added except another charge?

As to me, I just don't want to be forced to stand in another long line, and I'm with Glenn when he sites our "current passport woes." Why do I need yet another government-issued document? Not only will it irritate me, but it will irritate hundreds of millions of other Americans, who will probably be even more irritated at the people who don't -- or can't -- get the card.

What will be done about these people? Who will do it? Exactly how is a tamperproof card for the legals supposed to make the illegals go away?

I guess the cards won't be for everybody.

But isn't that just another double standard? Yes, unless they unleash a new policy requiring constant, regular stops for citizens at ID checkpoints, along with mandatory deportation of non-compliant aliens (something I don't think is likely to happen unless Manhattan is nuked).

Anyway, those are my thoughts, hastily published now, because I have to drive to New Jersey. (Bad as that is, it's better than standing in another huge $%*# line to get the card knowing all the while that the target group will never stand in it.)

UPDATE: Regarding the terrorist issue, considering that many of the 9/11 hijackers had entered the US legally, I would assume that had there been a national ID card at that time, they'd have each been given one. How would any such card deter terrorism, especially if the cardholder is willing to commit suicide? And if we assume that the visa-holder overstays illegally (as did Mohammad Atta), the card won't turn him in unless it's equipped with RFID technology or feeding into a GPS device like parolees' electronic ankle bracelets.

As commenter Doug S. points out, "it's not the ID but the database that will be linked to it." Might it do more than that? Technology is relentless; is there any reason why these wouldn't be made "smart" and ultimately behave like implantable biochips?

Are we just talking about a tamperproof card?