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You don't have to go far to see abuse of personal information in government records. Just go back to the top of the thread.
As far as personal identity theft being a worse problem than a dictatorial government, just go back to the IotD with the numbers of people killed in the last century, and ask all those statistics whether they'd rather be identity theft victims.
Protecting your identity is in the best interests of private companies, but it's expensive. If Visa wanted to, I'm sure they could develop a thumbprint or iris-scanning device to be used at all terminals.
What's more, identity theft is only as painful as the importance of the information behind that identity. If I "steal" Michael Jordan's "identity" for long enough to have stuff bought and sent to my house on his dime, that's tough for MJ but worse for the affected merchants. MJ doesn't see any serious loss for the "theft". If I "steal" his "identity" and he has every last bit of information connected with it, as is ONLY made possible by a nationalized system, then it's trouble.
The next question is (A) whether or not you trust the government to both own and operate such a system, and (B) to only use it for the best of intentions. Even if you answer yes to (B), You can't honestly answer yes to (A) and believe that W.'s intelligence gap has serious implications for the health of the country. After all, W. is only the top elected official. Could he manage to blow international relations, systematically create an economic downturn, etc. and somehow AVOID misusing a nationalized ID system? Come on, now.
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