IP: Gingrich says National ID card won't fly

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-national-id-card1116nov16.story?coll=sns%2Dap%2Dnation%2Dheadlines
November 16, 2001, 5:43 PM EST

WASHINGTON -- Newt Gingrich and other former Republican lawmakers predicted 
Friday that a new national identification card system will probably never 
become a reality despite the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"It's a dead end. It won't happen," Gingrich told a House Government Reform 
subcommittee.

Talking about national IDs smacks of Nazism and "Big Brother" in people's 
minds, and Congress will not have the political support to get it through, 
said former Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wy. "You use the words 'national ID,' it's 
over," he said.

Indeed, former Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Fla., called a new all-encompassing 
national identification system "offensive" and said it "contradicts some of 
our most sacrosanct American principles of personal liberty and 
expectations of privacy and is far in excess of what is needed to provide 
us with the security and protections we all want.

snip


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