This is a Kato's special podcast. I'm Caleb Brown. The phrase Papers Please is meant to remind

us of totalitarian states of old determining who is a member of the in group,

and more importantly who is a member of the outgroup. Today there may be no need to

ask even for papers. Surveillance technology can track you from home to office and back and they're hardly foolproof.

Jim Harper is author of the new Cato paper, The New National ID, out today.

I can remember when the idea of a National ID card was just anathema to most Americans, but now it seems

like depending on how you it's presented or in what manner in which it's created, people just don't seem to have a problem

with it.

There are sort of two things going on.

One is that the DHS is pressing, pressing, for the implementation of

real ID, the national ID card that was created by a law that passed in 2005.

Signs at the airports tell people they're going to have to have one of these

things before too long and routinely over time they change the date but they goad states

into complying with the national ID law and they're progressing in that way.

The other thing happening is more concerning really is that lots of other systems are being

put in place that together are going to form what I'm calling the new National ID.

That's an ID that doesn't even really rely on a card.

It'll include facial recognition and other biometric identifiers possibly so that you don't even have to be asked to show an ID,

but you'll be tracked as you move around in society.

So the classic opposition to a national ID card is fading because DHS is avoiding the term

national ID and people are getting on board around the country, states really, and the new National ID, a cardless ID system is being implemented through multiple

programs coming together.

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