Identification has become one of the great public annoyances of New York. To non-Americans, showing identification may not sound like a big deal. But we Americans pride ourselves on free movement. Alas, thanks to guys with the “Allied Security” patches, the fake badges and the low hourly wages, the expression, “Lemme see some ID” has replaced “Go to hell!” as the most commonly heard words in Manhattan.
I, for one, am fighting back against the incursions of what I call the Security Guard State. Fed up with the constant demand to proffer identification, I bought a fake ID–the same kind I bought when I was 16 so I could drink in bars–from some guy named Vladimir in Times Square. Vlad’s command of English was limited to the words “sign here” and “40 dollars,” but he produced the fake in seconds. At first glance, it resembled a real driver’s license–if your first glance is taken when you’re drunk. Sure, it says New York on it. And it has an “expiration date” of Dec. 31, 2006. It has my sex, my hair and eye color, my height (I lied; I ain’t 6 feet 2) and my weight (only 170 pounds? As if!) It has my Social Security number (the wrong one, of course). It even has a hologram like a government-issued card–except when held up to the light, it does not reveal a three-dimensional image of New York state but merely the word genuine. In my experience, items that brag about being “genuine” tend not to be.
My favorite thing about my “genuine” fake ID card is the fine print on the back that (if anyone bothered to look) fully discloses the card’s sham. “Card credibility is supported only by my signed ’truth pledge’.” In reality, I never signed such a pledge, on which I would’ve lied anyway.
I immediately put my new ID card to the test, dropping by my brother’s office in the heart of Times Square, where eight security guards patrolled the lobby. Is such a force necessary? My brother’s an accountant! Do suicide bombers target CPAs? Perhaps they will; my fake ID was accepted without question and I was permitted upstairs.
At the office tower next door, my trusty ID was again accepted readily–ironic when you notice the huge concrete planters in front of the building to thwart enemy attack. Farther up Broadway, my fake ID foiled Viacom’s Dantean system of security rings. Not only did my fake ID get me past the outer perimeter, but also past the actual ID checker, a menacing man with a fake police badge and an education that clearly stopped in the single digits.
A few blocks away at the Time-Life building, they X-rayed my bag like at an airport. At the reception desk, a woman accepted my ID but asked which “company” I was from. I replied, “The Acme Company,” the same respected firm from which Wile E. Coyote bought all his explosives in the old Roadrunner cartoons. Like my ID, the answer did not raise any red flags.
In the course of an entire day on my fact-finding mission, my fake ID was never refused. If I could gain entry into New York’s most-secure buildings with a fake ID, clearly the Security Guard State is as big a sham as a $40 card with falsified height and weight. I may not have overthrown the Security Guard State, but I had punctured it. The terrorists have won the battle, but I’ve won my own private war against the rent-a-cops.
