A national ID card is not a new idea. Despite perestroika, Russia still uses Soviet-era Government-issued Prospekas (internal passports) in Moscow and St. Petersburg to identify citizens authorized to live in those cities. In America, we have the Social Security Card. Try opening a bank account or getting a job without one.

What makes the national ID card proposed by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison (who first proposed the national ID card scheme) different, is that it will use digital automation via the power of the Internet. This will make it a more powerful control mechanism than a Russian Prospeka or an American Social Security Card and likewise, far more corruptible and subject to abuse.

It wouldn't be a national ID card — not really. The Department of Transportation, acting on instructions from Congress, has begun work with states to develop electronically smarter drivers' licenses that can be checked for validity across the country, and that have more than just than that always-awful picture — like a fingerprint or retinal-scan imprint — to match the card to its holder.

More than 30 countries, from Italy to Malaysia, have already introduced "smart" ID cards. If you're eventually issued a national card, it will likely incorporate several of the technologies shown here, combined to make the card readable by both high- and low-tech devices.