Biometric Database of All Adult Americans Hidden in Immigration Reform
The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system.
Buried in the more than 800 pages of the bipartisan legislation (.pdf) is language mandating the creation of the innocuously-named “photo tool,” a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID.
Employers would be obliged to look up every new hire in the database to verify that they match their photo.
This piece of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act is aimed at curbing employment of undocumented immigrants. But privacy advocates fear the inevitable mission creep, ending with the proof of self being required at polling places, to rent a house, buy a gun, open a bank account, acquire credit, board a plane or even attend a sporting event or log on the internet. Think of it as a government version of Foursquare, with Big Brother cataloging every check-in.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/05/immigration-reform-dossiers/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+wired/index+%28Wired:+Top+Stories%29
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Go left enough, go right enough, and some of us will surely meet in the middle.
Bad idea, BAD. 
ALL Documented AKA Green Card Holders TODAY - have all their biometric information on file. My husband had to go down after 9/11 and give up his hot body for documentation. 
So although it may be buried in Immigration Reform - it's DOES even things up and make it fair from an Immigrant perspective. I.E. I fully support undocumented workers going through the same finger printing and stuff as every single green card and visa holder had to go through.
Fair is fair.
As for a Federal Database in and of itself? For Voting Identification? You betcha. But then again, I think I ought to be able to get a receipt showing the number of votes when I started to vote, my vote, and the number of votes after I've pressed the button. I can keep this to challenge a rogue election official. It would eliminate this bullshit voter ID meme if we could vote by fingerprint. Cost time and money to implement? Yep. But we built the Hoover Dam. I think we can figure this out too . . .
