Moderator: Personal identification and privacy. In what ways should government safeguard personal identity and personal records? Do we need a national identity card? Is personal privacy a casualty of 9/11?

Ari Schwartz: I think the initial questions should be: "What is the problem that we're trying to solve with a national ID card?" and "Will a national ID card be effective in solving that problem?"

The public has been very supportive of the idea of a national ID card because in theory it sounds like it would solve a lot of the problems, but in practice it would not solve the problem we had on September 11. The attackers on September 11 would be in a national database. They would have legally gotten the card and would be able to use it. Instead of focusing on trying to integrate the identification data into a single place, we should be focusing instead on how to get better standards for ID card registration across the country.

Julie Leeper: Just this week the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (aamva.org) came out with their recommendations. AAMVA is an association of motor vehicles agencies across all 50 states and Canada. They're not looking at requiring biometrics because that would cost many millions of dollars, but at merging different technologies. The choice would be up to the consumer. They would bear some of the cost. It depends on how secure they want their card to be in identifying themselves. It could be biometrics; it could be simple bar codes; it could be PINs. Do they want additional private information to be stored in that national or state database? It would be their choice.

Alex Roberts: I have a comment that's not technical, but sociological. The vast majority of us have agreed to live our lives by the social compact. We're part of a community and all of a sudden we're face-to-face with people who aren't following the social compact. Now we're trying to come up with technical or social conventions to deal with that issue. We're moving from a village perspective to a world perspective. It used to be very simple to say who's part of my community, who's part of my tribe, who's part of my little cave group. Now our community is the world, and if we keep coming up with technical solutions that don't account for the whole global community, then we won't be able to adequately address the problem.