During an appearance on MSNBC last night, presidential candidate Ron Paul attacked Rudy Giuliani's support of a national ID card, pointing out that its true agenda was not to keep track of illegal aliens, but to force American citizens to carry their papers and have their privacy invaded by the government.
The Texas Congressman joined Tucker Carlson for an eight minute interview. Watch the video below.
"They should have a tamper-proof I.D. card. It should be in a database that allows you to figure out who they are, why they're here, make sure they're not illegal immigrants coming here for a bad purpose, and then to be able to throw out the ones who are not in that database," Giuliani stated during the debate on Tuesday night.
Mitt Romney also parroted Giuliani's call for a national ID card, before Giuliani backpedaled and claimed he only supported a national ID card for immigrants and not all American citizens. But since illegal immigrants by their very nature are elusive to track such a distinction is impossible to make without forcing everyone living in the United States to accept an ID card and metering out punishments for those who refuse. If an ID card is introduced, it will be forced upon American citizens as well as immigrants.
Asked if he echoed Giuliani's support of a national ID card and a database, the
Texas Congressman responded, "Absolutely not - I voted against the Real ID, I think the Real ID is the national ID card, it's introducing the notion that we will be carrying our papers.". Paul added that it was impossible to restrict a national ID card solely to illegal aliens or hispanics and that the idea made no sense.
"The (dangers) should never be bad enough to sacrifice liberty and there's no reason to sacrifice liberty in thinking that you're going to be safer," said Paul.
Giuliani cited credit card companies as an example of how large amounts of information can be stored safely without a violation of privacy.
In the Carlson interview, Ron Paul outlines the clear difference between the private and government sector holding information on an individual. If the private sector invades an individual's privacy, they can turn to the government to enforce the rule of law for a redress but no such opportunity exists if the government invades privacy, such as in the case of the warrantless wiretapping scandal, where the only recourse is to cite the Constitution.
In addition, there have been numerous cases where the databases of credit card companies have been hacked and the information of millions of consumers has been exposed to criminals, so how can we expect the government to safeguard our information to any greater degree, especially in light of the fact that many ID schemes across the world are financed by means of the government selling our information to all manner of corporations and private business interests in the first place?
Ron Paul's opposition to the introduction of a national ID, like every other issue he stands for, has remained steadfast and unwavering.
Shortly after the introduction of the Real ID legislation in January 2005, Dr. Paul denounced the national ID as "Not proper in a free society," adding, "This is America, not Soviet Russia. The federal government should never be allowed to demand papers from American citizens, and it certainly has no constitutional authority to do so."
“History shows that governments inevitably use such power in harmful ways. The 9-11 commission, whose recommendations underlie this bill, has called for internal screening points where identification will be demanded. Domestic travel restrictions are the hallmark of authoritarian states, not free nations. It is just a matter of time until those who refuse to carry the new licenses will be denied the ability to drive or board an airplane," Paul concluded
