----- Original Message -----
From: aipl51@hotmail.com
To: aipl_na@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2001 7:10 AM
Subject: [aipl_na] Software Giant CEO Proposes National ID Card
Oracle boss urges national ID cards, offers free software
Idea driven by security concerns
BY PAUL ROGERS AND ELISE ACKERMAN
Mercury News
Broaching a controversial subject that has gained visibility since
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Oracle Chairman and CEO Larry Ellison
is calling for the United States to create a national identification
card system -- and offering to donate the software to make it
possible.
Under Ellison's proposal, millions of Americans would be
fingerprinted and the information would be placed on a database used
by airport security officials to verify identities of travelers at
airplane gates.
``We need a national ID card with our photograph and thumbprint
digitized and embedded in the ID card,'' Ellison said in an interview
Friday night on the evening news of KPIX-TV in San Francisco.
``We need a database behind that, so when you're walking into an
airport and you say that you are Larry Ellison, you take that card
and put it in a reader and you put your thumb down and that system
confirms that this is Larry Ellison,'' he said.
`Absolutely free'
Ellison's company, Oracle, based in Redwood Shores, is the world's
leading maker of database software. Ellison, worth $15 billion, is
among the world's richest people.
``We're quite willing to provide the software for this absolutely
free,'' he said.
Calls for national ID cards traditionally have been met with fierce
resistance from civil liberties groups, who say the cards would
intrude on the privacy of Americans and allow the government to track
people's movements.
But Ellison said in the electronic age, little privacy is left
anyway.
``Well, this privacy you're concerned about is largely an illusion,''
he said. ``All you have to give up is your illusions, not any of your
privacy. Right now, you can go onto the Internet and get a credit
report about your neighbor and find out where your neighbor works,
how much they earn and if they had a late mortgage payment and tons
of other information.''
Attempts by the Mercury News to reach Ellison for further comment
Saturday were unsuccessful. Many questions about the proposal remain
unanswered, such as whether foreign nationals would be required to
have a card to enter the country. The hijackers in the Sept. 11
attacks are not believed to have been U.S. citizens.
In the TV interview with anchorman Hank Plante, Ellison said shoppers
have to disclose more information at malls to buy a watch than they
do to get on an airplane.
``Let me ask you. There are two different airlines. Airline A says
before you board that airplane you prove you are who you say you are.
Airline B, no problem. Anyone who wants the price of a ticket, they
can go on that airline. Which airplane do you get on?''
Oracle has a longstanding relationship with the federal government.
Indeed, the CIA was Ellison's first customer, and the company's name
stems from a CIA-funded project launched in the mid-1970s that sought
better ways of storing and retrieving digital data.
Civil libertarians said caution is needed.
``It strikes me as a form of overreaction to the events that we have
experienced,'' said Robert Post, a constitutional law professor at
the University of California-Berkeley. ``If we allow a terrorist
attack to destroy forms of freedom that we have enjoyed, we will have
given the victory to them. This kind of recommendation does just
that.''
Post said while such a system may catch some criminals, it could be
hacked or faked or evaded by capable terrorists. Nor is it clear that
such a system would have foiled the Sept. 11 attacks, he said.
Strong support
But polls last week show many Americans support a national ID card.
In a survey released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center for the
People & the Press, seven of 10 Americans favored a requirement that
citizens carry a national identity card at all times to show to a
police officer upon request. The proposal had particularly strong
support from women. There was less support for government monitoring
of telephone calls, e-mails and credit card purchases.
The FBI already has an electronic fingerprint system for criminals.
In July 1999, the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint
Identification System became operational. That system keeps an
electronic database of 41 million fingerprints, with prints from all
10 fingers of people who have been convicted of crimes.
Faster response
The system has reduced the FBI's criminal fingerprint processing time
from 45 days to less than two hours.
Paul Bresson, an FBI spokesman in Washington, said Saturday that he
is unaware of the details of Ellison's proposal and declined comment.
Howard Gantman, a spokesman for Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said
that she would be interested in discussing the idea with Ellison.
``She does feel that we do need to make some important advances in
terms of increasing our security,'' Gantman said. ``A lot of people
have brought up ideas about how to create more security and she's
interested in exploring them. She'd like to find out more.''
One group certain to fight the proposal is the American Civil
Liberties Union.
A statement about ID cards posted on the ACLU's national Web site
says: ``A national ID card would essentially serve as an internal
passport. It would create an easy new tool for government
surveillance and could be used to target critics of the government,
as has happened periodically throughout our nation's history.''
Serving Freedom
and Liberty
