Skeptic, You're right on!

Good old J. Edgar used to keep files on me because I was a member of the NAACP and keep files on anyone he thought was connected with "subversive" organizations.

When I was in Italy in 1971 I got into fierce verbal fights with my Italian boyfriend and his friends because we were refused lodging on a trip because I would not let the innkeeper have my passport.
I had been advised by our government never to let anyone have my passport (for obvious reasons), yet I found it common practice to have hotels and pensione ask for it as a sort of security deposit.
The first time I let anyone have it for such purposes, I learned my lesson. The proprietor violated the terms we had agreed on for lodging and was going to overcharge me and the other two tourists he had (without permission) installed in the same room with me. When I refused to pay the single-room charge, he was going to keep my passport. It was only when we threatened to call in the police that he gave it back to me.
When I refused a later innkeeper, my Italian friends could not empathize with my reluctance to surrender my passport.
I wonder if this would become a common attitude here in the US if we had National ID cards.
Even now, if you refuse to give business contacts your social security number, they will often refuse to do business with you. Would that not be likely to happen with a National ID card? However, someone's stealing my driver license or SSI is not, I think, quite as disastrous as would be the theft of a card with my photo, thumbprint, eye color, and all other pertinent info all in one!

Doug R, I can think of several things women would never be able to do with ease any more if we were required to have our ID on us "at all times:"

• Go swimming in a lake, river, or ocean (if we travelled there without a car or did not think the trunk of the car was a safe place for valuables)
•go dancing wearing the kinds of clothes women often do--no place in the dress to contain a wallet, for example
•go white water rafting or do anything like that where it would be easy to lose a wallet

I almost never carry my social security card on me, and I don't need my driver license unless I am driving. I don't need any kind of card when I am not doing any non-cash transactions.
I don't carry any cards when I go jogging, go to the gym to work out, go folk dancing, go to jam sessions, etc. if I take public transportation or bike or walk.

It is primarily the idea of being required by LAW
to carry it with me at all times, and the idea that I can be arbitrarily asked to produce it (when I am not a criminal suspect)
that I object to.

The fact that there are a number of situations where I choose NOT to carry it--where I think it would be unwise to carry it-- shows that it would be an inconvenience to have to have it on me.

Genie