NATIONAL ID: Big Brother Graham trying to decide for you

Commentary by Elwood Sanders for Virginia Right!

The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank reports that Sen. Lindsey Graham of SC is trying to make a deal with President Obama:

Graham has provided Obama a way out of this standoff: Send KSM to a military tribunal in exchange for Congress abandoning legislation that would deny funding to close Gitmo. Next, the administration would work with Congress to create a “national security court,” which would govern how other current and future terrorism suspects can be held in preventive detention.

This was criticized rightly by Glenn Greenwald who suggested it might lead to something like Minority Report, the adaptation of the Philip K. Dick short story where the police receive telepathic indications of crime before it happens. But the real crime is having the venue of a criminal trial decided by political branches like a health care bill. Where is due process in all this? This invites intervention by the federal courts in a way injurious to the cause of justice. How would you like politicians deciding whether say you get tried by a jury or not? It’s outrageous.

Besides, Senator Graham is also involved in an intrusive effort that is more dangerous than the Dangerous REAL ID that the states beat back in an monumental political effort. It would require an ID card for all legal workers in the United States. Check this out from the New York Times:

In addition to opening a path to legal status for an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants, the bill Mr. Schumer and Mr. Graham are shaping would tighten enforcement against hiring illegal immigrant workers by creating a national biometric identification card for all workers, including American citizens and legal immigrants.

A national BIOMETRIC identification card? ALL workers? This is what the Wall Street Journal described for such an ID card:

A person familiar with the legislative planning said the biometric data would likely be either fingerprints or a scan of the veins in the top of the hand. It would be required of all workers, including teenagers, but would be phased in, with current workers needing to obtain the card only when they next changed jobs, the person said.

I once admired Senator Graham so much I sent him an email hoping he would someday run for President. But any politician who would advocate a biometric ID card for all American workers is beyond the pale of my support. “I know not what course others may take,..” the most famous Hanoverian once said, but I know my choice. As a follower of Christ, I have no choice. If Senator Graham does not repudiate this idea I will not support him for any office nor encourage others to do so.