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The reason the US lacks a national ID system ties back to a strongly held belief about state's rights, and that a national ID system would violate those rights, IIRC. I think it's already somewhat happened though, as I understand REAL ID to more or less be that.


Not to mention the fact that SSNs are horribly insecure and used as a national ID anyways because it's the only national number (almost) everyone has.

I just use a passport for govt identification because it usually only requires the passport, where most other ID methods require two.


Having a national ID would make it harder for states to abuse minorities and low-income communities. That’s why states object to it.


Yup, I heard the same. SSN's are the relatively recent "compromise" made in the 40's. Initially as a way to access your, well, social security. In post depression times where people wanted security more than freedom.

ofc it was never meant to act as a national ID (and thus never tried to be secure), but more and more things are hacked in to make it act as such since there's no better option. A bit ironic given the state of social security nowadays.


I wish we used the covid vaccine system to finally push for it one of the best chances we've had in a while




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