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           National ID Card A Ticket "To Tyranny", Critics Warn

 

 

Washington - A proposed national ID system that would enable employers

to verify workers' eligibility under U.S. immigration law represents

"a major leap down the road to tyranny," civil liberties advocates said

yesterday.

 

"This is a Frankenstein of a system," Ira Glasser, executive director

of the American Civil Liberties Union, said at a press conference. "This

is not about immigration. Its about a fundamental American right," the

right to privacy, he said.

 

At issue is the bipartisan U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform's

proposal for a computerized registry that would enable employers to check

whether job applicants are eligible to work under the 1986 Immigration

Reform and Control Act, which prohibits employment of illegal aliens.

 

The commission's proposal is due to be unveiled Sept. 30. In congressional

testimony Aug. 3, Barbara Jordan, the longtime civil rights activist who

is the commission's chairwoman, said such a system is the "most promising

option for a more secure, non-discriminatory" way of enforcing the law.

 

Jordan's testimony set off a firestorm of criticism among both privacy

and immigration advocates, who lost no time in painting the proposal

as an Orwellian nightmare that would lead inevitably to government

invasion of individual privacy.

 

Details remain sketchy, but Jordan said the system would be aimed at

preventing use of fraudulent forms of identification to obtain

employment. It would be built around the Social Security number, which

employees already give to employers when they start work.

 

"The verification process that the commission is looking at adds a step

to this existing requirement: checking that the Social Security number

is valid and has been issued to someone authorized to work in the United

States," Jordan said.

 

She added it might be tested as a pilot program in the five states with

the largest immigrant populations - California, Texas, New York, Florida

and Illinois. She added that protections should be built into the system

and unauthorized uses or disclosures of information should be punished.

 

"The commission is equally concerned about protecting civil liberties

and privacy in any computer registry that would be established," Susan

Martin, executive director of the commission, said in an interview

yesterday.

 

At yesterday's press conference, called to apply pressure to the commission

as it approachs its Sept. 30 deadline, opponents said that even a modest

system inevitably would lead to a national ID card long associated with

totalitarian regimes.

 

 

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 Protection of

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