Papiere Bitte!
By Robert Higgs • Thursday March 18, 2010 11:53 AM PDT • 8 Comments
I will be taking a short business trip in a few days, and some time ago I made reservations with a Sheraton Hotel at my destination. Today I received via e-mail a confirmation notice from the hotel, along with a weather forecast and some boilerplate about the hotel’s facilities. Quickly scanning this message, I was struck by something in a section labeled “Your Privacy” that reads as follows:
Please note: For security purposes, you will be asked to provide a valid government or state-issued photo ID at check-in.
I cannot recall ever having been required to show official identification papers merely to register at a hotel — a credit card, yes, but not a government-issued photo ID. Though offended, I cannot say that I am surprised by this turn of events. I wonder whether some law or regulation now requires the hotels to check their guests’ official papers.
Anyone who has paid the least attention over the years has noticed that more and more businesses and government agencies have required that one show his official — that is, government-issued — identity papers in order to be served or admitted. Airlines, of course, have required such identification for many years, although I can remember a time when they did not do so — indeed, a time when one simply walked, with freinds and relatives if one wished, to the departure gate and boarded the airplane without any interception for security screening at all. Auto rental companies demanded an official driver’s license. Now, even hotels treat their customers as suspected terrorists.
Who’ll do so next — the dry cleaners, the grocery store, the bank, the gas station? Will the gestapo lurk outside my front gate to make sure that I identify myself properly before driving my automobile onto the highway? Will the church demand my papers before administering the Holy Communion?
Most Americans, of course, will take such new impositions in stride, just as they have accepted the outrageous treatment they must suffer at the airports. If you have nothing to hide . . . la, la, la. One who protests or complains will be viewed as paranoid or as a troublemaker.
The slope toward totalitariansim is slippery, indeed, but sometimes the slope is so gradual that one scarcely notices that one is sliding downward. Ask the ordinary Germans who slid down that slope after 1933; heed the voice of those who still recall, with a chill, the horrible sound of those dreaded words, “Papiere Bitte!”
Tags: Business, Civil Liberties, Civil Society, Fascism, Law, Liberty, Personal Liberty, Regulation, Surveillance, The State 
It may be a government requirement, or it may be to combat credit card fraud.
Dan Hill | Mar 18, 2010 | Reply
How many among us will pledge to refuse a Real ID once it finally becomes law? I hope that I have the courage to do so.
mikehell | Mar 18, 2010 | Reply
Psft... Real ID, I think my state already does it with drivers licenses, you have to look down and not smile when being photographed, that could be a clue it’s for Real ID. Mine expires after 2011, I don’t think I can Not smile or look down, surely that is “failure to act as expected”... will that be grounds for extermination? Extermination from middle-class life and any upper-class activities that required ID, that’s for sure.
In a similar vein: To me, another insult is when a store asks for my ID and info when I return an undamaged product that was a cash sale. Some kind of anti-theft reason I suppose, but I stopped shopping where it’s the policy.
Recently I tried to buy an auto-part at a national auto parts chain with cash (not large bills mind you, a ten spot for a five Dollar plastic widget) from the way the cashier was acting, the cash register wouldn’t allow the sale unless I gave ‘em a name and phone number.
Again, at a national hardware store I couldn’t pay with a $100 bill for $65 Dollars worth of plastic widgets without giving a phone number.
I hope a lot of people are noticing why it was a bad idea to do this sort of thing in the beginning to smokers and purchasers of alcohol.
Years ago, it used to be that the signs at the cashier said “we card everyone who doesn’t look over 16 yrs old”... then after a couple of years it became “over 18yrs old”... then it became “over 21yrs old”... then it became “over 27yrs old” ... then it became “Over 40yrs old”... the last time I looked it said “we card everybody” The not so funny thing is, they followed me every step of the age bracket so the result is I always got asked for ID, and some of those mean old women cashiers are on one heck of a power trip.
I always wondered how they came up with those specific ages, especially 27, is that the magical age when society can rest assured a person is an adult? Must not be, that’s why they card everyone now.
Oops, got kind a long, sorry.
Clark | Mar 18, 2010 | Reply
For fraud? ... And yet, a person doesn’t even have to sign or show ID for purchases under $25.
Clark | Mar 18, 2010 | Reply
Robert, you asked a lot of questions, and the answer to all of them is – yes.
Mikeshell, you want to know how many will refuse “Real ID”... the answer is not many. Most of us pay income tax, even though the Supreme Court declared that we do not need to. We pay Social Security taxes, even though the Constitution says that we do not need to. The laundry list goes on, but the point is, above it all, we are afraid of going to jail, so we do what we should not do.
This has been the tool of the state since time immemorial, and fear is the tool alive and well in Amerika today.
joe4liberty | Mar 23, 2010 | Reply
The point is that illegal immigrants are demanding greater privacy rights than are enjoyed by American citizens, and Democrats are complicit in this, particularly as they simultaneously push for a national ID card. Citizens will have to have one, by law, but illegal immigrants will not, by definition. And they won’t be asked to show any ID, otherwise it will be considered a “crime against humanity”. Criminals will be even more highly privileged over law abiding citizens, and citizens will see the erosion of their rights, as Higgs fears, courtesy of a federal government completely controlled by Democrats.
Kent Lyon | May 4, 2010 | Reply