Ironically from the perspective of 2026, the actual "conservative" conservatives were the key opponents. The "total information awareness" and national ID efforts were really killed by the conservatives in congress. The "neocons" and moderate/conservative democrats were mostly fine with both.
What does national ID have to do with government surveillance?
Why do you think people are having a bird over age verification? Or LinkedIn profiling browsers?
Tying chain of custody of online actions to identity makes data incredibly valuable information.