It's almost here and gaining popularity.
When we become automatons, when computers and a sophisticated system is run by less than sophisticated people, then truly we become the pawns of the Designers:

December 24, 2001

By WILLIAM SAFIRE

WASHINGTON -- A device is now available to help pet owners
find lost animals. It's a little chip implanted under the
skin in the back of the neck; any animal shelter can
quickly scan lost dogs or cats and pick up the address of
the worried owner.

That's a good side of identification technology. There's a
bad side: fear of terrorism has placed Americans in danger
of trading our "right to be let alone" for the false sense
of security of a national identification card.

All of us are willing to give up some of our personal
privacy in return for greater safety. That's why we gladly
suffer the pat-downs and "wanding" at airports, and show a
local photo ID before boarding. Such precautions contribute
to our peace of mind.

However, the fear of terror attack is being exploited by
law enforcement sweeping for suspects as well as by
commercial marketers seeking prospects. It has emboldened
the zealots of intrusion to press for the holy grail of
snoopery - a mandatory national ID.

Police unconcerned with the sanctity of an individual's
home have already developed heat sensors to let them look
inside people's houses. The federal "Carnivore"
surveillance system feeds on your meatiest e- mail. Think
you can encrypt your way to privacy? The Justice Department
is proud of its new "Magic Lantern": all attempts by
computer owners to encode their messages can now be
overwhelmed by an electronic bug the F.B.I. can plant on
your keyboard to read every stroke.

But in the dreams of Big Brother and his cousin, Big
Marketing, nothing can compare to forcing every person in
the United States - under penalty of law - to carry what
the totalitarians used to call "papers."

The plastic card would not merely show a photograph,
signature and address, as driver's licenses do. That's only
the beginning. In time, and with exquisite refinements, the
card would contain not only a fingerprint, description of
DNA and the details of your eye's iris, but a host of other
information about you.

Hospitals would say: How about a chip providing a complete
medical history in case of emergencies? Merchants would add
a chip for credit rating, bank accounts and product
preferences, while divorced spouses would lobby for a
rundown of net assets and yearly expenditures. Politicians
would like to know voting records and political
affiliation. Cops, of course, would insist on a record of
arrests, speeding tickets, E-Z pass auto movements and
links to suspicious Web sites and associates.

All this information and more is being collected already.
With a national ID system, however, it can all be centered
in a single dossier, even pressed on a single card - with a
copy of that card in a national databank, supposedly
confidential but available to any imaginative hacker.

What about us libertarian misfits who take the trouble to
try to "opt out"? We will not be able to travel, or buy on
credit, or participate in tomorrow's normal life. Soon
enough, police as well as employers will consider those who
resist full disclosure of their financial, academic,
medical, religious, social and political affiliations to be
suspect.

The universal use and likely abuse of the national ID - a
discredit card - will trigger questions like: When did you
begin subscribing to these publications and why were you
visiting that spicy or seditious Web site? Why are you
afraid to show us your papers on demand? Why are you paying
cash? What do you have to hide?

Today's diatribe will be scorned as alarmist by the same
security-mongers who shrugged off our attorney general's
attempt to abolish habeas corpus (which libertarian
protests and the Bush administration's sober second
thoughts seem to be aborting). But the lust to take
advantage of the public's fear of terrorist penetration by
penetrating everyone's private lives - this time including
the lives of U.S. citizens protected by the Fourth
Amendment - is gaining popularity.

Beware: It is not just an efficient little card to speed
you though lines faster or to buy you sure-fire protection
>from suicide bombers. A national ID card would be a ticket
to the loss of much of your personal freedom. Its size
could then be reduced for implantation under the skin in
the back of your neck.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/24/opinion/24SAFI.html?ex=1010176660&ei=1&en=5e