This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, May 7, 2010. I'm Caleb Brown.

How National ID's Would Work in Practice may mean the power we give to the government to fight illegal immigration.

Maybe next applied to the products we buy, how we travel, and other activities we take for

granted.

Christopher Calabrese legislative council at the American Civil Liberties Union says a national biometric

ID reverses the proper relationship between people and government.

He spoke at a Cato Capital Hill briefing April 23rd.

This massive system that we're going to have to build, I call it the worst combination of

the TSA and the DMV that you've ever seen.

I mean, it really is, this is a federal identification system, federal workers identifying

you similar to the DMV.

Now if there are errors anywhere in the system, you've got those same DMV delays. You've got the

bird, you know, hours to fix the problems, delays in getting benefits. Its delays can

come from a lot of places.

You cannot have the source documents they want.

Lots of folks who got caught up in Hurricane Katrina

lost everything, including their birth certificate

and their or their passport and all these relevant documents.

Suddenly they are literally unable to prove their identity and that problem has to be

fixed and that before they can get this biometric ID card.

Here's an example from the real ID days.

Bill Katarini spent 33 years with the Chicago Fire Department.

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