While the idea of a national identity card (NIC) may sound laudable as a crime fighting tool, there are downsides to its institution.

I would argue that one of the rights of upright citizenship in a democracy is the right to anonymity.

Instead of an NIC, the Government should start bytracking every criminal who has been arrested for any serious crime. I am, of course, excluding the petty stuff and starting with anything violent, from domestic abuse to all other types of violence against property or person and any serious offence against society.

Access to information

Subjecting John Q Citizen to having to produce an NIC would prove an undue hardship and expose the ordinary citizen to abuse by the enforcers.

I concede to the obvious and that is that fighting crime is not easy. Knee-jerk reactions, however, are often more detrimental to the innocent that to the target group.

Since many of the miscreants are repeat offenders, I say gather all available information on the guilty and have it in a database readily available to the cops by computer. In this day and age, every patrol car should have a computer and every precinct should be able to access the information.

There is no need to want a national identification card in a non-informational-access society, as it would not solve the crime problem and yet the innocent would be the victims as usual.

DATABASE

I certainly do not want the Government to know more than they need to know about me and my movements and I assure you that I have no criminal intent. Life is restrictive enough already without some functionary prying into my affairs on a whim during his/her lunch break or some overzealous cop demanding, 'bwoy a weh yuh khaad deh?'

This national identity card proposal is not a bright idea and should be scrapped instead for a national criminal database.

I am, etc.,

S. PETER CAMPBELL Sr

speterc@aol.com.

Havertown, PA