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Article: The Biggest Hole in the Net: ONE DAY SOON, America may be rocked by a suicide bomber. We have no system to deal with that eventuality. Why the debate over a national ID card is long overdue.
- Article from:
- Newsweek
- Article date:
- December 30, 2002
- Author:
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Byline: Steven Brill
Buried on page 177 of the new law establishing the Department of Homeland Security is a one-sentence provision that has so far escaped public notice: "Nothing in this act shall be construed to authorize the development of a national identification system or card."
The provision was added at the insistence of Republican conservatives. In the wake of September 11 they became so fearful, they say, of government encroachment on civil liberties that one of their leading organizations--the Eagle Forum--banded together earlier in the year with the American Civil Liberties Union to attack a fledgling effort by state motor-vehicles ...