At the time, I was as a college student sometimes making a 2 a.m. walk for coffee and a snack at a nearby diner when a patrol car would pull over and the officer would demand, "what’s your name and let me see the proof." Not carrying a wallet for such a trip, I would be lectured about how I should always carry ID.

We used to laugh, nervously I might add, that the next thing you know we would be asked to produce "our papers."

Now, 35 years later, the nightmarish idea of having to carry "papers" is much closer to reality, and was greatly advanced in the intelligence bill approved by Congress last week.

It requires federal agencies to set minimum standards for states in issuing driver licenses and birth certificates, and directs the Department of Homeland Security to establish standards for ID used to board airplanes.

There has been a lot of talk of a national ID card ever since 9/11, as a way to document immigrants and keep tabs on potential terrorists. And in the recent debate over the intelligence bill, Sen. John McCain warned that "... we’re heading down a path toward a national ID card. I think that’s something that we ought to discuss and debate at some length before we take that step as a necessary one, if it is, in the war on terrorism."

Unfortunately, the intelligence bill approved last week was not debated at length, but rushed through Congress before lawmakers’ holiday break. And setting the stage for an national ID card is just one part of the assault on civil liberties that could result from that legislation.

The thought of a national ID card rubs us the wrong way because of our feelings of personal freedom and our fear of what we know about such totalitarian societies as Germany under the Third Reich and the former Soviet-bloc nations of Eastern Europe in the decades after World War II.

We can’t imagine the authorities, at will, demanding, "your papers, please, Herr Brunswick."

We also like our privacy, the illusion thereof or what’s left of it. We tend to think that a national anything would infringe on our private lives in some way and allow a hypothetical "big brother" to keep tabs on us.

Well, those fears are certainly justified, but I’m afraid, even without "papers," we’ve already surrendered much of the freedom and privacy we value so much. And there’s no turning back now.

In the electronic age, there are so many databases chock full of information about us that, to keep our sanity, we don’t even want to know about them all. It used to be mainly because we were consumers, but since 9/11 it is also because we’re citizens and potential terrorists. It’s not just marketers anymore; now the government is a major player.

Why is it that the number of people with SUVs has grown 50-70 percent in the past decade? Because people wanted them and the car-makers responded with the product? No. Advertising created the need and the desire and set out to fulfill them. And people bought it. Still think you’re free?

If you use a credit card, the marketing databases know what you are buying and can predict what you will use it for in the future. Talk about a national ID card. Try Visa.

The government made a big deal a few years ago about new privacy rules for health care. Known as HIPAA or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, it was touted as a vehicle to protect the privacy of the health-care consumer. The real goal, however, was fraud prevention.

Do we really think data about our health care is being kept from insurers and the government, if they really want it? I doubt it.

The last time I went to a health center for a physical, I was in the reception area waiting my turn along with numerous other people. Finally a nurse came in and loudly spoke "Cary Brunswick." Whoa. Where’s my privacy? What if I didn’t want anyone to know I was visiting a physician?

Later, I suggested to the nurse that they start using numbers instead of names because of the new HIPAA rules. Her blood pressure suddenly got higher than mine; the idea wasn’t taken kindly. As far as I know, names are still being used in such scenarios.

The point is that national ID cards would only formalize and make much easier the process of collecting data on citizens, a process that already is well under way. I am free to write this column, but will my name end up in some database for doing so? And then what?

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Cary Brunswick is managing editor of The Daily Star. He can be reached at (607) 432-1000, ext. 217, or cary@thedailystar.com.