A number of technology-related ideas such as national I.D. cards and the extended use of the FBI’s email wiretapping device, Carnivore, have been proposed as a means to help stop terrorism. But in the haste to stop the terrorists in their tracks, technologists and politicians alike risk damaging America’s great tradition of liberty.

One month after the terrorist attacks, Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy told a crowd in Florida that a national I.D. card system, using Sun’s technology, is necessary to guard against future terrorist attacks. Not only are his comments popular — a September Pew Research poll showed that 70 percent of Americans support the idea of a national I.D. system — they also follow on the heels of similar comments by Oracle’s Larry Ellison.

Ellison offered to provide Oracle software free of charge for a government-run national tracking system and in the past week he’s met with U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to discuss the idea. It’s nice to see Silicon Valley executives concerned with the security of the country, but as technologists, both McNealy and Ellison should know that a computer system is only as secure as the people running it.

Governments routinely fail to secure data against prying by outside sources. A case in point happened last year when just hours after the Department of Justice posted details of the Carnivore review process on its Web site, computer users were able to uncover secret information about the reviewers, including their ranks and security clearances.

These flaws were not surprising given that, over the last couple of years, the General Accounting Office has issued several reports that federal agencies are “fraught with weaknesses,” putting the nation’s assets and operations “at risk.” All of this shows that even after government is repeatedly warned of problems and even when it does its best to protect the data it holds, it often fails.

It’s also worth noting recent reports that every year the California DMV issues more than 100,000 fraudulent driver’s licenses to criminals who could use them to steal the identities of unsuspecting victims. These examples show that it is far too easy for government database systems, whether they be national I.D. systems or data collected through email wiretapping activities, to be abused by malicious criminals. But that’s not even the most worrisome part.

The most frightening aspect of increased domestic surveillance is that it could in the future be used as a weapon by the government against its political enemies. Martin Luther King, John Lennon, and a bunch of other folks that J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI didn’t like, were targets of illegal government surveillance. But it’s not necessary to go all the way back to the 1960s to look for government abuses of privacy.

IRS employees have been known to “browse” the tax files of people they knew or wanted to know. In 1997, when an IRS employee was charged with browsing, he was let off the hook because no one could prove that he actually gave the information to anyone.

In 1998, it was revealed that the Los Angles police department was using illegal wiretaps to monitor citizens, collect evidence illegally, and invade privacy. The number of innocent people who were illegally wiretapped is unknown, but it’s likely in the thousands. Skip ahead to the future under increased surveillance using the FBI’s Carnivore system, and we could be looking at illegal police spying on World Trade Organization opponents or the National Rifle Association, depending on which government is in power.

Everyone wants to stop the terrorists but the question is how best to do it. There is no clear evidence that a new national ID card system or increased internet wiretapping using Carnivore would help guard us against new attacks. Gathering more data on mostly innocent people is not an efficient way to fight terror. Increased human intelligence on genuine threats will enhance security more than increased computing power.

Sally Pipes is the President and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute, a California-based think tank. She can be reached via email at spipes@pacificresearch.org.