Response essay #8 of "The Threat of National ID" by William Safire

William Safire, notably credentialed with being a speech writer for President Nixon, television producer, and reporter for a well known news paper, laid out his argument against the National ID card in this short article. He used the appeal to the draw of modern technology that not only convenience our lives and calm our fear by the use of a chip developed to help locate our lost animals, to begin his argument. Due to the threat of another terrorist attack similar to 9/11, law makers and marketers are eager to use the opportunity to trample the Fourth Amendment he argues. Mr. Safire relates the current misuses of government power to trample that amendment, to support his case. Not leaving imagination to chance, he described the implications of what having a National ID card would lead to, only after explaining the difference between what a State issued license and the federal card are. Lastly, if you had not been convinced by his argument Mr. Safire leads you back to the beginning showing how the information stored on the chip of a small and insignificant card would naturally be replace by a chip being implanted behind your neck.

After reading William Safire’s argument, one could be left thinking that they had read a science fiction story. Sadly the truth is stranger than fiction. All of what Mr. Safire has written is true and modern reality. His purpose of writing is an obvious warning call.Many people believe, not just Americans, that they are marching toward an abyss that has been described by some biblical scholars as the End Times. Though Mr. Safire was not writing from a biblical persuasion, the question that he addresses gets to the very core of liberty. Are you willing to giving up anonymity, privacy, your liberty for convenience and false security? With the use of technology like the Magic Lantern and the Carnivore, our liberties are already in a precarious place. The way that he describes the natural evolution of a devise such as the National ID card is no scare tactic. He desires for the reader to think. The consequences of not thinking and taking action has been devastating for our nation and I fear that twilight has passed and the dawn of a new day for the US and indeed the world may already be here.