To combat terrorism and crime, author Dershowitz makes it very clear that he supports a national identity (ID) card with a chip that can match the holder"s fingerprint. Civil rights activists cry out that the cards would infringe on a citizen"s right to remain anonymous. In response to this opposition, some such as Green contend that law-enforcement and intelligence agencies can easily achieve many of the same goals of an ID card by increasing the collection and sharing of information in databases among federal and state agencies, banks, transportation authorities, and credit-card companies. However, as this paper will discuss, databases cannot accomplish the same aims as national ID card. .

             The database approach will not work because basic photo-based identity cards are too easy to forge. Pooling data from databases provides a more complete picture about an individual, but does very little for immediate identification verification. On the other hand, with the type of ID card proposed by Dershowitz, security technology such as biometrics can make sure that holders of an ID card are who they say they are provided that individuals are required to carry the card. They cannot be options as Dershowitz suggests.

             It"s difficult to imagine how a national ID card is more of an invasion of privacy than sharing information about individuals in databases. As Dershowitz means, individuals are already required to have IDs for many activities such as driving and traveling. The key is to limit the use of the national ID card to identification purposes only and to avoid the inclusion of personal records. Databases, by there very nature, present the opportunity for storing and trading information about individuals' daily lives, habits and tastes, families, purchases, health, and financial standing, to name a few. Therefore, this technology is far more invasive to an individual"s right to privacy than ID cards are.