National ID a Contrast Analysis

National ID A Contrast Analysis of Arguments by Woellert and Magnusson The debate over whether the United States should institute the use of National ID cards in the wake of 9/11has raised many questions among citizens concerned both with safety and government intrusion. Lorraine Woellert and Paul Magnusson debate the issue in BusinessWeek Online. Woellert cites the failure of such cards to ensure safety and highlights the tighter control government will have with the implementation of such cards.

Magnusson, on the other hand, defends the affordable technological advances which the National ID card will employ. However, Magnusson's style, logic, and supporting evidence give him a weaker argument than Woellert, who spends more time considering her audience, acknowledging opposing views, and giving an organized, balanced, and well-reasoned report. This paper will show why Woellert's argument is better than Magnusson's. Paul Magnusson begins his case with a condescending and presumptuous air: first he apologizes not to Ms.

Woellert but to Lorraine (as if she were too simplistic to deserve the respect of a formalized reference) -- and not for his rude counter but for her being wrong.

Then he proceeds to suggest that his point is so obvious it does not even require argumentation, as though the case has been stated and won: "The great debate over the national ID card has already been decided." Has it? When and by whom? Magnusson displays the kind of trumped up rhetoric of a sports analyst whose job is merely to fill a two-minute gap between advertising. Unfortunately his rhetoric is not backed up by much: he gives two references for Woellert's five.

Authority is on the side of Woellert, who in this case provides analyses from a technology expert at the University of Pennsylvania, the associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union, the former director of the National Security Agency and head of Cylink Corp., and Professor Jonathan S. Shapiro of Johns Hopkins University. Magnusson, meanwhile, cites only the tech-corps CEOs who stand to profit from a National ID card distribution. Magnusson's use of style and language is also shabby.

He loosely refers to "our system" as makeshift (what system? And how is it makeshift?), current IDs as "dumb" (because they lack the latest technology), and suggests that smart computer chips are the solution to our "haphazard" ways.

In fact, Magnusson immediately strikes a chord signaling that he is on the fire-and-brimstone path of preaching against the jaded hypocrisies of people such as Lorraine, whose path may be full of good intentions -- but whose disinterest in computer chips marks her as one of the incompetent ignoramuses who prop up "our makeshift system." Magnusson uses a lot of dicey language in his opening speech, but none of it is very sound or backed by evidence -- nor does it give Magnusson a firm footing for making an intelligible point.

Woellert, however, quickly establishes her credentials as an objective observer by recounting the state of the union and admitting a climate of fear and anxiety. She does not immediately begin disparaging the opposite point-of-view which she intends to contend. She states the case for National ID cards, and then poses the question: Will they work? No, she says, calmly and clearly -- they will not. Woellert's standpoint is one of practicality and efficiency.

While Magnusson displays the kind of religious belief that technocrats place in Silicon Valley's "next big thing," Woellert sounds the alarm of prudential American thinking: "A national ID card would rip at the fabric of our constitutional freedoms. It would cost billions and be technologically imperfect. Most troubling, it would lull the populace into a false sense of security." Her thesis is clear, palpable, and logical. Magnusson offers mere hyperbole.

Woellert's essay also stays focused on her thesis by showing exactly how such a card would be cost-ineffective, and how it would do nothing to prevent malefactors from (presumably) using the same technology to garner their own false IDs.

Magnusson, on the other hand, cannot stick to his argument, which, apparently, is that there is no need to argue since "the debate has already been decided." So he feels free to launch into the great perks of "smart-chip technology," such as its allowing one to stow away much forgettable information -- like.