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Two U.S. senators met with President Obama on Thursday to push for a national ID card with biometric information such as a fingerprint, hand scan, or iris scan that all employers would be required to verify.

Linking national ID cards to immigration reform is a popular idea in Washington political circles. After all, if every U.S. citizen has a biometric-equipped cards, the thinking goes, it’s easy to order employers not to give a job to someone without one.

But concerns about privacy, security, and federalism have torpedoed each one of these proposals so far. A similar national ID plan–which also required that employers do verifications–sunk President Bush’s broader proposal for immigration reform in 2007. A proposal three years earlier by Rep. David Drier (R-Calif.) to create federal ID cards with Americans’ photograph, Social Security number, and an “encrypted electronic strip” with additional information was even less successful.

Then there was the controversial Real ID Act, which tried unsuccessfully to compel states to standardize their drivers’ licenses. But a libertarian grassroots revolt, including an anti-Real ID vote a few weeks ago in the Utah legislature, has halted Homeland Security’s plans. (Rep. Ron Paul, the former Republican presidential candidate, argued it would do little to curb legal immigration.)

Read original: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20000758-38.html

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