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Driver's Licenses to Become National ID Cards
XorNand writes: "Time is reporting that the Dept of Transportation, acting on instructions from Congress, is in the process of linking together states' drivers' license databases. They figure that it'll be cheaper and easier to slip under the radar of civil libertarians and privacy watchdogs. Wonder if Larry is a bit peeved that he's not getting his cut?"
For more information, visit www.infowars.com. They've got the inside scoop.
Feminism is the wild notion that women are human beings.
So I just need to stop driving to become a nonperson! Well worth it, really.
If you don't drive, you're a terrorist, right?
You can opt-out!
MjM
rw-rw-rw- : the new sign of the Beast
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
Why don't I have a voice? It's almost as if I must be a litigator or wrapped up in corporate America for my thoughts to change anything. What a great, awful time.
So what's the big deal if my name is in some government database? It's not like I wasn't in any before...
Vhere arh your PAPers?! Ve must have your PAPers!
In MO (and probably most states) you can opt out of having your SSN (Social Secutiry Number) from being your DL number. What if these states overlap (ie I have 666 as my ID from MO and you have 666 from IL)? Wonder who will have to pay to correct this little oversite? This is just one thing off the top of my head...
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
I thought anything responsibility like this not expressly given to the US Gov't by the constition was by that same constitution given to the state as a responsibility? Is this legal?
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WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
I don't know very many places that don't require a driver's license as the standard form of identification. State sponsored photo ID's are basically the only form of ID that is accepted everywhere (i.e. using personal checks at stores, getting into nightclubs, etc). Making em national isn't going to be much of a change, except for 2 things. 1) Your less likely to be thrown out of a club in another state for having an ID they don't recognize, and 2) You can't get away with speeding in another state quite as easily, because now the state trooper has access to ALL the state databases :)
I am !amused.
wow, fp
bs bs bs
So if you live in Missouri (and another state, I can't remember which), your Social Security Number will become your National Identification number by proxy (in MO, the driver license numbers are the individual's SSN).
Scary.
did they go with oracle or sql...
Shouldn't the national ID be uniform across the country? In the sense that the kind of info displayed on the card and the lay out. If it is not uniform, then it's harder to detect forgery on those ID, especially if the ID is out-of-state.
Then, the question on the on-card security add-on implies that we're effectively getting a new driver's licence ID. I dunno why don't they just enforce a single, uniform ID in the first place?
Just my 2c.
--
Error 500: Internal sig error
Nope, not me, I must be someone else...
Does this mean I won't have to take a new driver's exam every time I move to a new state?
wohoooo
this is cool
Actually, the DoT was planning to tell you all about this tomorrow.
Please donate your spare CPU cycles to help fight cancer and other diseases
It's the mark of the beast I tell ya! The end times are near! Run coward! Run!
-
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
The danger is that such a bogus ID will be taken as valid in more places and for more things due to its "national scope", and it'll be easier to get into things and do more damage than it is now (difficult concept, I know).
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Not everyone drives. So maybe the Driver's ID can be replaced with a simple National ID card, which is stampted with driver's license stamp, PIN, alchohol stamp, voter's stamp...
But this actually sounds like a GOOD idea. You really aren't sacrifing your privacy, because it's info already avalible about you: Age, Gender, Driving Class. So what's the big deal? Or am I just igornant?
Everything is mainstream now.
Don't forget that most (all?) states take a digital picture of you when they make your license, so the government now has an immense database of faces.
I'll let everyone else debate whether this is Big Brother or healthy law enforcement. But one thing's for sure: buy stock in face-recognition software companies!
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
i win!
What about states (like NJ) that don't require a photo on the drivers license?
Well, I'm 17 now and won't have my license until after I'm 18. So until then what? Its a good thing I know how to fly a plane from military school. I'll just get my pilot's license and... wait, wasn't that what started this all?
What the hell is the point of the social security number then?
Seriously, though:
I'm gonna wait for the implants to come around before adopting this. Don't need my muggers getting free health care when they steal my wallet.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
This is frightning. So when do we get mod chips for our id's? Theres goes my after school job...
population will offer driver's licenses for out of state residents w/o any of the advanced id technology.
It'd make millions if not billions for say: Montana, Nevada, Wyoming, North Dakota, or Alaska.
Can you copyright/trademark your dna, fingerprint, retinal scan and then sue anyone who wants to have them in a database?
It's already the standard photo ID. It makes sense for the feds to require standardization of state IDs, so that all states have to meet the same requirments. E.g., I've lived in NY for a few years, and my wife has an NY state license...but my 4-year-old Florida license is much higher tech (plastic, digital photo, holograms) than the low-tech laminated paper NY state licenses.
You already have to show your license or something similar when flying. The chances of fraud will be reduced if we have common standards for all state ID cards.
Most of the privacy rights - if there really are such things - vulnerable to a nationalized ID card have already been trampled under the wheels of increased security, more efficient law enforcement and better business long ago.
And there lies the problem.
It's too bad that the 28th amendment will probably ban flag burning instead of doing something useful.
Try that in Hebrew/Israeli/Yiddish.
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Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
How about giving me a license to walk, eat food, or breathe air while you're at it? Driver's licenses are a ridiculous and unnecessary concept. Too bad all you people bought into it.
as the spork who fucked his mother on mother's day?
...has never been to an urban DMV location. I went to one to replace my "misplaced" driver's license during my lunch hour. (I gave my license to a security guard to get into a secure building and the numbskull gave it to someone else.) I found out that the DMV in NY gives out special "non-driver" driver's licenses to people who DON'T (or can't) drive. Since this was a poor urban area, I was the only one there in line for a "driver's" licence. The other hundred people on line were just there to get what amounted to an official NY State ID card.
How incredibly easy it was for them to get fake drivers licenses, SS Numbers and Birth certificates. So now if you get a driver's license in California under a fake name, you can create a person that exsists in every single state. I don't see how this will help.
We have never given up so many of our rights and freedoms.
I suspect that future generations will look back at us
and decide that we were as short-sighted as 1932 germany
There are lots of people who cant get a car licence due to disabilities. (limited vision, etc)
As fare as I'm conserned the main ID is a passport. (If you loose it your screwed if your in another country than your own)
- Name
- Date of Birth
- Address (Presumably current)
- Picture
- Eye Colour
- Hair Colour
- Height
- Weight
- Sex
As the article specifically says "This wouldn't be so different that what's already in place". In fact, the article is pretty clear in regards to exactly what ramifications this will have for the ordinary citizen...None. The major concern was for the fact that non-governmental agencies would soon have access to your personal records, which is more than a little fear-mongering."Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested." (LT 2004)
I know a lot of people who don't have a drivers liscense (live in large cities - don't need one.)
Sure, there are state IDs, but I'm sure we've all heard stories about how these aren't even readily accepted within the state they were issued in as pieces of valid ID.
I'm fron Nevada, and our DMV still uses Polaroid based, heat laminated ID's. CA, NT, AZ, etc. use digital camera, high tech things with magnetic stripes on the back. If these are going to be some form of national ID, it seems like the various states would have to agree on a standard format. Sounds like another excuse to waste money, lenghthen lines, and increase fees. Hooray.
Often in Error, Never in Doubt.
this sucks. Now, not only will the state trooper who pulls me over have my ID picture, but all the future state troopers who are going to pull me over in the future have it, too.
The preceding comment made no sense.
--because you can op out by not having a driver's license.
All us people that do not drive? Will we not be allowed to buy booze?
See the forbiden post Here
Billy Joe Bob with the mad-crazy mullet from hell gonna do when he was born in a barn and raised by sheep?
What if you move from one state to another? Will driving points remain? Come to think of it, what happens now?
and will be accepted at banks in the us.
they will complain but it is proof of citizenship and legal federal id.
You can even open a non-interest bearing bank account with a foreign passport...don't know about a domestic usa passport at a us bank
I worry not just a little about how this could go wrong, since when I applied for mine in California (which was already doing this with some states as of 1997) and informed someone did something shady with my Michigan drivers liscense (which had been picked with my wallet at Cedar Point) in Ohio and a warrant may be out for me there. I've been too lazy to contact the Ohio State Police (or whatever they call themselves, Buckies?) to straighten it all out (also worried I'd have to blow money on a lawyer and/or plane ticket just to claim my innocense :P ) As we all learn eventually, you have to work to preserve your freedom. Guess I should make an effort there before any of the above interfer with my ability to get Thai take-out.
"You bad man! We no serve! No gang phed for you Chollie!"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
If he does, his daughters fake ids won't work anymore.
:)
apparently you have to drive to have rights in the US
While I'm not excited about the privacy implications of a national ID system, I do think it makes sense for states to standardize the format of the ID cards they issue. I've heard of places simply refusing to recognize out-of-state licenses because they can't keep their employees up to speed on recognizing which ones are fakes.
Ever visited your friend in another state and have been denied alcohol because you had an out-of-state license?
Of course that won't be the greatest benefit. I think most European countries have some sort of national ID issued by the state and that's been missing in the U.S.
Don't get paranoid about 'big brother' stuff. If anything, worry about credit cards...
KemalCan
Jake: How you gonna accomplish your evil terrorist plot? John Ashcroft got your name, your address...
Elwood:No, they don't got my address. I falsified my renewal. I put down 1060 West Addison.
Oh shit! - I can't take part in an uprising today.
Cowboy Bebop is on Cartoon Network!
Bollocks.
I believe that you have to use your SS# when you get a drivers license in every state now. And SS#s were not to be used for tracking or identification other than for tax reasons, so this scares the heck out of me. ;-{
To have a membership card in the biggest and coolest club, the United States, I would gladly accept this.
In NY state now, you have to have 6 points of proof of name to get a DL. You get certain amounts of points for each of various docs -- out of state license, credit card, ATM card, etc.
You also have to have proof of date of birth, which is the tough one. Basically you need a passport, military ID or birth certificate. I have no passport or military ID, so I have to somehow track down my birth certificate (an original, not a copy) before I can get my NY state license.
I believe all this is post-Sep.-11. It used to be much easier...
There whole premise is the same as that of Scott McNeally - you already don't have any privacy so why get worked up about this. We've already fallen halfway down the slipperly slope, so why bother trying to climb back out?
It is arguments like Time's that got us here in the first place and once we've had cards forced on us in the "land of the free" the next thing they will be arguing is that it makes life safer for all of us and that so few people get screwed by the system that it isn't worth getting worked up over. Never mind that when you do get screwed by the system it is most likely going to be an ass-fucking royal with cheese.
You know, Single Identification Number, from the Gibson books. IIRC, it wasn't impossible to be SIN-less, it just made your life very difficult. The main SIN-less character was in Mona Lisa Overdrive, and she had a pretty lousy existence. So, everybody line up for your original SIN. Or become a homeless, drug addicted hooker. Your choice, really. And that's freedom, right?
Do not touch -Willie
What would the unique key be for something like that? Is there a link between SS# and Drivers Lic# ?
I am perfectly fine with the idea of a national database fully connected to all federal agencies, state agencies, and even private agencies.
What I don't want is a national ID card. Or even 50 state ID cards, or 4 credit cards, 2 library cards, 2 student ID cards, an ATM card, a subway card, a frequent buyer card, ad nauseum... I want biometric ID for everything. Screw an ATM machine, and a credit card swiper, and police asking for lic and reg. I want an optical (or fingerprint, facial, whatever) scanner that IDs you, and lets you do anything, anywhere. No PIN number, no account number, no nothing. Just a bio-scan. Heck, I'm sick of 10 email addresses, four phone numbers, two addresses plus a post office box....
Okay, so that's unreasonable. But all we really need is one ID number, with biometric ID backup. I should be able to freely give out my 'personal ID number' such as a SS# to anyone, at any time, with no fear of being abused, beacuse in order to do anything as me, you'd need to be me. Not even needing that number would be preferable, and fine with me (my full name is unique on the planet,) but all those John Smiths and Bill Johnsons would have problems. (Maybe name+birthdate? Nah, there's got to be more than one John Smith born on 1/1/50.)
So, if someone can find a way to uniquely identify each person on the globe with an easily remembered, (and transmitted via text,) and combine it with a universal, cheap biometric identifier, you'll be a billionaire.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
I'm not sure which is the scarier part of the article- the way it blythely assures you that this isn't really a significant step because the civil liberties damage is already done, or the fact that this is probably true. As they point out, all this involves is linking together data that's already kept and making it a bit easier to access. The problem is that making it easier to access will make it that much more tempting to access it for more and more trivial reasons. If it's really possible to check any driver's licence just by scanning it, how long will it be until you have to scan your license to buy alcohol or tobacco, rather than just showing it (or here in California not bothering to show it because nobody seems to care)?
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
This early post made in the name of Spain! Huzzah!
The Secretary of State has proven they can't operate a polaroid, so I put little confidence in their ability to perform a retinal scan and attatching it to an ID card. What good is a retinal scan when the information on your ID card is of your left nostril and not your eye?
Just a thought...
But seriously, though, if information is property, how long will it be before everyday citizens claim their personal information as IP? How long will it be before we get a right to privacy? How much of Big Brother and Big Corp invading our lives does it take?The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
My driver's license became my Natl. ID as soon as the State of Iowa started using digital cameras to capture (and no doubt store) my image for the license, and probably before.
Try doing much of anything that matters WITHOUT a form of state issued ID, and for the most part, you will be SOL. National ID's are here, and have been here for quite some time. Get over it OR get used to it.
This seems silly. They seem to think this will assure whoever is handing you the drivers license is in fact the person who is on the license. Exactly how is this done? You could just steal someone else's card who looks like you or possibly just have someone people in the inside create a fake record for you (lets not pretend this isn't already done).
Furthermore, whenever I don't want to be tracked (they use monica's books bought a credit card as an example) I just don't use a credit card. I pay in cash. Are we going to have to swipe our driver license for cash transactions? Or do we just continue to pay in cash and not get tracked?
End result: this fails in the same way the patriot act fails to deal with terrorists. It addresses the symptons, not the problem. If a terrorist is going to kill himself, I doubt he gives a crap if you can track down who he is after the fact.
I particularly like the tone of the article. "Give up, don't fuss, it's just too hard. Life will be much easier if you just conform." The Disneyfication of the Corporate States of America continues....
this is getting old and so are you
blog
What's the solution? Forbid the government from storing information like that? Limit how long they can store information on law abiding citizens? I have no idea.
Can I bum a sig?
What if you don't have a driver's license? Are you considered a terrorist? :))))
Are you going to be forced to get a driver's license?
Geez... if every american drove one car for 2 hours every day... after a year, the ozone layer would be a thing of the past
atleast it doesn't give the greedy hands something else to come up with.
After September, patriotism is the ruling battlecry and that means protesting anything the government tries to do to "protect us" has resulted in firings in the case of many newspaper editors, or just censorship as in many other cases. The high approval rating for the President (who IS NOT, I repeat, NOT, doing a good job) has given him a blank check to remove as many of our civil liberties as he sees fit, and moreover begin to execute more of his anti-worker coporate agenda.
First his "economic stimulus" package was nothing more than a massive money grab for large corporations. Repealing the law which requires large coporations to pay a minimum "token" tax each year. Without this law, many corporations, in conjunction with some clever book-keeping and ample lawyers end up not paying a single cent in taxes. Not only does he repeal this law, but it pays the money collected from this law since 1981 BACK to the corporations who paid it. Does anyone think Ford is going to take its billion dollars and "put it back into the American Economy"? Or General motors or IBM? Of course not. They charge prices based on what they can get away with (whatever price will achieve maximum profit), the pay workers as little as they can get away with (regardless of how much money they have in the bank) and they hire as few workers as they can get away with. No amount of money pumped into these INTERNATIONAL corporations is going to have ANY affect on our economy.
But if the senate tries to stop this, Bush will just call them unpatriotic and the pressure will mount and he will get his way. This is not the only assault on civil liberties. There is the comeback of Racial profiling, the fact that the FBI has decided it can now record private conversations between attourney's and client thus ignoring the constitutionally protected attourney-client privelage (but only when matters of "national security" are at hand. . . whatever that means).
So are we really suprised when suddenly we find ourselves subject to yet another attempt to put us in our places? The government (which is just a function of the large coporations who own it) has found the perfect opportunity to finally circumvent that irritating constitution, and they WILL use it.
tsop tsrif
Right now, driving is considered a "privilege" (If you ask me, it's pretty much a requirement nowadays), which makes it real easy for states to take away your driving "privileges" for accumulating too many points, etc... If this becomes a national ID card, what is going to happen to that "privilege" philosophy?
of my country's government to try and slip something like this in under the radar.
Anyone read Turner Diaries? In it, they blew up the FBI building which housed the main database of a system like this. Of course, this would be a little harder (each state has their own system) to take out.
Besides, the terrorists will just get an overseas ID.
The plan, Congress hopes, will be cheaper and easier to implement, and less likely to incur the talk-show ire of civil libertarians and states' rights purists (the same type who squawked in 1908 when the FBI was born).
I'm not one to usually "squawk" about bias in journalism, but what kind of sorry excuse for objectivity is this? "Congress" hopes? since when did congress think all alike? "Talk-show ire"?
I feel genuinely ill.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
I read about this yesterday... It's good to see that /. is on top of things...
"Look where we worship" -- Jim Morrison
With all the fakes in the world does this seem like its going to help anything at all?
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
Time to start using the airlines...oh wait.
fp
Is it about time the US got itself a federal ID? I would answer that with a firm and decisive - maybe, it depends.
Wow, and I thought I was cynical.
Many states will allow you to get a drivers license without actually being a citizen. Linking together all of these state-based databases will do nothing more than give you a complete record of drivers in the country, which counts really no one. The goal, at least as initially stated, was to create one true set of data that represented the U.S. population, and this falls well short of that.
I think that Larry's still got room to argue the benefits of his system before the legistlatures throw it away. Mark my words: this isn't done yet.
---- Please be nice in case my Slashdot karma ~= my real life karma.
Q: When I buy beer with my FL drivers license, what does the man / woman selling me beer need to know?
A: If(age 21! That is it. The danger of more and more info on one card, with NO control over it is immense I think. But the information is needed, but a system needs to be in place for us to control who sees what.
I may make a paper cover for my existing license, and see what people say when they see me hiding stuff. But with the problems with identity theft it may be a good idea!
-Paul
Nope, not me, I must be someone else...
suckah'Z
So, we will get even more bad drivers going rampage on the roads? What a wonderful idea!
The current situation is already terrible. Most americans think they have the right to have a driver license, and that's probably why the license is so ridiculously easy to get. But now, even the failures who couldn't pass the driving tests will have access to a driver license...
Insurance quotes will go up, up, UP !
Oracle makes a good metadb. Plus that means more consultant time writing processes to feed and syncronize it... The PSO group at oracle will make bank off of this.
Lets face it, it's the credit cards companies that have all the real dirt on you anyway. Stick your picture on your VISA and that would be that. And you can't order a frickin pizza without a credit card these days. I'd like the chip-in-a-holo on my forehead please.
go bush go bush go
First Post! YAY!
What if you don't drive?
Because of visual impairment, for example?
(yes, I know USA has not been designed for people that can't drive, but just theoretically speaking...)
Sigged!
Of course, that could make life easier for you too. What if your state/national ID card was your passport as well as your drivers' license? What if you could do your taxes at an ATM -- and then withdraw your refund? Or what if your national ID card was your ATM card, and your credit card, and your HMO card and your work ID and the passkey to your maximum-security apartment, all at once? There's the freedom to continue to come and go as you please, in (relative) anonymity, and there's the freedom to carry a dozen different cards and identifications around with you wherever you go.
Excellent! Someone can steal my ID card and go buy booze, withdraw my cash, purchase lottery tickets on my credit, get into x-rated clubs as my age, purchase firearms with my clean slate, shoot someone, and then leave the country..... all as "me". Then one day I'm buying groceries that happens in include beer and the grocery store reports my wearabouts to the cops who arrest me outside for things I didn't do.
Sounds like its FULL of benefits.
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
/me burns drivers licence and looks up taxi in the phone book...
f i r s t p o s t
...this sounds like a good idea to me. In fact, I'm surprised all the databases weren't already linked together. I mean, you've given this information anyway, what's the difference if all the DMVs have access to it?
SIGFEH
They could have just used your SSN, so that you have to give it out to a hundred MORE companies and organizations that would be very careless with it.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
...they're called passports.
Good. Now all the criminals have to do is stop renewing their drivers' licenses and they can simply disappear.
The World is Yours.
Ahhhhhh. Why, why, why? Do people honestly believe that a National ID card will improve security in this country?
Security is an illusion, and there are always be holes in the fence.
Correct me if i'm wrong (I'm sure you will), but isn't the Social Security Number System already a country wide ID system?
It didn't work before, what makes these people think it will work again.
Yes, my girlfriend is a BitchX
Yesssss!
damn 20 seconds
Whew. I can go back to sleep now.
Case in point.
.. not because of fleeing the police)
.. I was clean as a whistle. Cheap insurance for me.
.. will this "information" now allow insurance companies to go back and collect "past dues" that they felt they deserve?
.. just inject the id chip in my arm get it over with.
I had a nasty no-no on my driving record (and lack there of for 3 months after it was revoked) in one state and moved away in 6 months of it happening. (it was because I graduated college
Nevertheless, in the new state I arrived in, they did a run of "my license" to see if I had any bad marks on it. Guess what
Now with this "new" systems, they will probably be able to back track all your offenses from state to state.
"Sorry John Doe, you received a speeding ticket 10 years ago and we consider you high risk."
Another thing
We are screwed
-- Knowing too much can get you killed, but knowing who knows too much can make you rich.
Use your passport instead. It's what I do, and I haven't had any problems yet.
This
Here in Southern California, we have many people from Mexico who need or want to have a CA drivers licenense. This means that not the best documentation is provided as it is hard sometimes to get good certificates and such from rural areas of Mexico. Not to say that people never get good documentation, just that it would make a really good way to fake one.
The point is... it's a driver's license, not an ID, and although it may be used that way.
In nearly every state driving is a "privledge" (which is bullshit in this day and age, but allows government to control drivers and cars to 'protect' the public from unsafe drivers).
Does this mean that citizenship is now a "privledge" as well?
At least I can fly.
First post! This is the first time and it is exciting!
hell yeah!!!!!
I am peeved to no end that the government attaches so many strings (Trackability) to the services/priveleges it provides (Roads). The government should serve the people in a nearly transparent manner. We already sacrifice income taxes to pay for those services. At what point does a service or privelege become a right? I'm seriously wondering. Must I retreat to a 19th century standard of living to maintain my privacy?
Why isn't anyone here asking the question: What benefit does the individual tax payer receive for covering the cost of implementing and operating a National ID card?
A national id that replaces all the requests for health care, drivers licence, SIN, university, credit, etc. cards isn't bad... they have the data anyways, so it's just up to them to police themselves no matter whether it's one card or (my) 6.
The point of the national ID is that state by state drivers licenses are too easy to forge to serve as reliable ID's. One consistent national ID would have a host of benefits, and could be combined with smart card technology to actually add value to the user (e.g. smart card could be loaded with medical allergies, emergency contact info, etc.).
None of the privacy arguments against the national ID hold water. Even those arguments that look superficially valid in the end only apply if you currently live "off the grid" (no state driver's license, no soc. security card, no passport, etc.)
this doesn't (and actually isn't) at all that much different from what is already in place but is not the inevitable step that which the article takes most litely, namely that i couldn'y buy a tall latte from starbucks or even walk into one, without showing ID?
Great! Now all those in prison (lack reason for having a drivers license) or have had their license taken away from them for driving crimes, and all the pre-driving age, and old and handicapped beyond drivable people are....
You have been a number for years. Now it's overt. The technology has made invasion cheap, we can fight it or roll over. Any ideas on how to fight?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
When California Drivers' Licenses can be had for 5-6000 dollars of money to the right fixer, and theirs is one of the most "secure" systems in the US, with its fingerprinting and the like, this just means the system will only be as good as the least fraudulent state.. and it'll provide a really great way of tracking utterly false identities.
f-i-r-s-t--p-o-s-t
resistance is futile, prepare to be assimilated
Who cares if they link drivers license databases together? If you get a ticket in another state, they'd just call your home state anyway. This might cut down on forged/altered licenses a bit, but I really don't see it changing much, if anything.
The day they start requiring you to SHOW your ID of whatever form in order to travel by car/bus or do certain things, then I'll raise hell. Until then, concentrate on Terrorists and Microsoft.
John Sarek
...like they do here in Virginia, that's OK by me. It's why I don't have a VA license- I also have homes in NV and CA, so I just use my CA license for everything. Having your SS# on your drivers' license for everyone to see is outrageous.
Tell them to reconsider. You'd be hard pressed to come up with 5 reasons why anyone would want to live in this state.
It hurts when I pee.
Ignoring for the moment that I wouldn't trust the DMV to identify a subtle plan if it painted itself purple and stood on top on the counter singing "Subtle Plans Are Here Again," there's also the issue of putting all your proverbial eggs in one basket. If your driver's license is your ONLY valid identification, and you MUST carry it everywhere, what happens when your wallet or purse gets stolen? What happens when you renew by mail and the new card gets sent to the wrong address? I feel an Excedrin headache coming on...
Your comments show your ignorance of basic economics:
Of course not. They charge prices based on what they can get away with (whatever price will achieve maximum profit), the pay workers as little as they can get away with (regardless of how much money they have in the bank) and they hire as few workers as they can get away with.
Let's see, you don't want companies to determine what price they can charge for some product. And you don't want big brother tracking you.... Hmmmmmmm...who will determine what a fair price for a product is..????? Could it be a government agency (aka big brother).
You cannot denounce an entity in one line and then ask for it to regulate business more in the other.
I also suppose that if IBM has $1 more because of lower taxes, they will bury the $1 in a jar in the ground behind the factory. That's the only way the $1 will not impact the economy.
The $1 even invested in a money market account will:
1. allow someone to borrow money to buy a house
2. allow someone to borrow money to start a business and possibley create jobs
Those don't affect the economy...right?
Get some economics knowledge...not emotional bs
fp!!
My huge cock is my National ID. All chicks already knew that.
Alex Jones is staying on top of a lot of this stuff.
He does go a little over the top but does a great
job of pointing out a lot of issues we discuss here,
and more.
Do the shortwave if you can, I think his streaming
link is getting maxed out.
Radio Shows M-F 11AM-1PM, 9PM-12PM Central Time
Audio Stream:
www.infowars.com
(click the antenna)
Shortwave:
9320
12.172
"When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere." --From the notebooks of Lazarus Long
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Isn't this pretty much how it has been? They don't ask us for our social security card, our birth certificate and our high school diploma when we get pulled over..they ask us for our drivers' licence.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
- Decentralized database. States would be the only repository of the information associated with the DL. This as opposed to a large federal database (and at much added cost).
- Standardizing the info on the cards. This would include a photo id, signature, and a magbar for quick input into a computer. Instead of the mess in which some states don't have photo IDs, some require SSN, etc. This still leaves enough up to the states as to not trample their states' rights.
- Improved communication between databases. Because the system would be decentralized, there would need to be an easy way for government officials to request info from such DBs; because states would be required to at least store a minimum of information, it would be simple to define a query standard. This way, rules can be put in place that if information is requested without a warrent, only specific pieces could be sent. If the database was centralized, then this would be much harder to enforce.
The groups are not completely at ease; this plan would suddenly give several DMVs near-absolute power, and unless regulations are put in place, this might be abuse. They also do worry, as many have posted, that there are both legal and illegal reasons not to have a DL; those that legally lack one may be forced to get one despite not having to drive -- this may cause states to have to provide DLs with "No Driving" restrictions to be issued in general for those currently without one."Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
I don't really have too much a problem with this. I hope that they make licenses valid for all states then. Nothing more annoying than moving and having to retake the written test with a bunch of 16 year olds.
As an aside I'll bet someone will try to get a National DNA database together. I know its been discussed and some states already make all prisoners give up their DNA. A national DNA database is something I am definitely against.
It's really hard to get anything done these days without some sort of government-sanctioned (be it state, federal, whatever) picture identification. Can't cash a check, board a plane, get a loan, or a few hundred other things that you may or may not need on a daily basis, but there's going to be a point where you have to have it. For people who don't have a car or don't know how to drive, the non-driver ID is the easiest option. Not unique to NY, I imagine most states have them now. I know the 3 states I've lived in (AL, GA, SC) all offer non-driver IDs.
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
well Zieg Hiel! everybody!!!!!!! jews and christians get ready to flee the country - it`s just a matter of time!
He'll just start bitching the first time some old lady gets flagged as a terrorist and gets stripped searched. Then you'll hear "If they were using Oracle 8i this wouldn't have happened..." Whats that saying... To Error is human, to really screw things up and ruin peoples lives takes a whole goverment... Yeah, either way with or without Larry's help, I'm sure when I go to get my drivers license renewed the lady will swipe my drivers license through the little slot and suddenly I'll be lookiing down a really large caliber weapon and some guy will say "Sir.. could you come with us" and they'll interrogate me about the rash of naked sky diving bank robberies or some other outlandish thing...
Pretty much, I don't have much faith in the goverment not screwing the whole thing up and then screwing people.
-- I'm not stupid, I just pretend to be at work ---
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Some states already require you to give your SSN when you get your drivers license. I've been fortunate to live in PA where we didn't need to. But I need to renew my license next month, and if they change something, I'm going to have a bit of a hissy-fit. SSN for #1 is not a form of identification, and it should not be used for such, even though everyone asks for it. If you tell them you either don't have one or don't want to give it, you normally won't have a problem because they can't require you to give one!
Not everyone has a drivers license. Does this mean my grandmother would have been considered "sketchy"? What about my friend who cant drive because of a vision problem?
They should be two different cards, one issued when you can drive, and one as a form of ID.
--
Patrick Cable II
The challenges in combining 50 states databases, all in different formats, containing different information, stored in different formats, etc. will be a very difficult and time intensive challenge.
And, I wonder if they will even be able to get many states to give up their databses?
This is very bad and must be stopped at all costs!!!!!!!!!!
Nope, not me, I must be someone else...
And too think we only predicted this oh 3 - 4 months ago. This is already half way there considering the number of states that have reciprocity with each other and share these databases already
Especially for those of us who have a CDL. A state issues them, but they are on a National Database somewhere.
It's also pretty easy for another state to run a check on a person with just having their drivers license number (often their ssn).
I can't picture this doing anything more about 'security' but I suppose it will be harder to get a new Drivers License after a DWI (Sorry Delaware).
I'm not entirely sure what driver's liscences look like in the states right now, but here in Ontario we already have . We also have health cards(for the national health care system that us socialists have) that look identical to the drivers licenses, only they're green.
All cops have a little computer in their cars where they can swipe your lisence and bring up your criminal and civil record. It's gotten to the point now where some dance clubs swipe licenses in order to check ID for age. There is already significant talk of uniting both of these card into a one piece that also contains the Social Insurance Number(Social Security for you americans).
Anyways my point is that this all managed to slip under the radar in Ontario about five years back and there was almost no public resistance to it(probably because the old two-piece driver's lisence was so damn ugly and inconvenient), and there is almost no public knowledge as to what kind of information is actually stored on that magnetic strip.
Don't let it happen if you can avoid it.
lysergically yours
The time article, and concept is really nothing that should incite the civil libertarian crowd. It mentions nothing of the rampant drivers license fraud already taking place in California and other states.
The main difference talked about in the article, is that a national system would allow law enforcment to check the record of someone in their home state when they are travelling. While there is a one-liner about biometric additions to the licenses, c'mon, do you really believe each state will implement a unique biometric system, or perhaps more imposing - that every person with a drivers license will have to stop-by the DMV and update their biometric scan?
This is merely the "homeland security" office attempt at getting the most gain from the least expense, and makes complete sense. For those who can't afford to purchase a "clean" drivers license, it would me much more difficult to hide convictions/offenses/immigration violations if your record followed you to any state.
I know I'll have tons of Americans up in arms about this, but I really don't see what the big deal about a national ID card is. I mean, its just another piece of plastic in your pocket. Any major financial or personal move you make is tracked these days. Getting a credit card, purchasing a house, a car, getting your degree. Everything is recorded, what difference does it make if you can look everything up based on one single ID number?
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No, as you can get ID cards which are functionally identical to a drivers licence, except you aren't allowed to drive. You go to the DMV for these ID cards, and they have the same ID # on them as you would if you had a driver's licence.
It's a pretty blue book that says "Passport" on the front.
But yeah, not everybody has one of those like they do those blue cards that say "Social Security" on the front with a name and a random nine-digit number...
-JDF
... but you can only get arrested for driving without one. If the U.S. domestic response to terrorism starts to resemble Zimbabwe's, which passed a law in November making it compulsory to carry ID on pain of fine or imprisonment, well, that's something to worry about.
I guess I'd always sort of been blinded by the concept of an enormous tracking database that it never really occured to me that they couldn't track me (beyond, say, tax or health care information - which is bad enough) if I just didn't carry or use Larry's national ID card. Boy, if we let this get out of hand it won't be long until our Ws sound like Vs and "Papers Please" is a common saying.
*shudder*
Ad in classifieds: Pandora's Box (no box) $5
Great plan
they were called papers, and you had to have them on you whenever you travelled. If we called them that, I don't think they'd ever pass, but call them "linked drivers licenses" and you find that they're acceptable. How long before they stop being a drivers license, and become a general ID card that everyone is required to carry? I'm hardly a conspiracy theorist, but these scare me.
Incidentally, not one single terrorist will be stopped by this system. They'll just happily show their (quite legal) IDs and step onto the plane.
"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for everyone else."
that it won't still use Oracle's software though?
Wohoo!, maby 20 sec delay! damn!
woot woot woot !!
Read the article, they're just talking about linking the state databases and adding other ID cues that can't be faked. So a cop in CA can pull my record up like a cop in FL can and both will know for sure I'm the guy really linked to the license.
That's a far cry from "Driver's Licenses to Become National ID Cards".
Sometimes I feel like Slashdot has turned into a cheap tabloid.
can they link the databases of first posts?
does this mean that when I go to texas now I will be able to buy beer with my CA drivers license?
oh wait. you said all of the states. texas is a facist regime pretending to be part of a union.
So what?.. if you want to be anonymous, just don't have a driver's license.
sorry, correction.
that first line reads:
I'm not entirely sure what driver's liscences look like in the states right now, but here in Ontario we already have Driver's Licenses with magnetic strips on them.
that link that unfortunately takes over the rest of the post is a link to a site with a picture of the Ontario Driver's License.
That's what i get for not previewing before i post. forgot an angle bracket.
lysergically yours
The DMV has already proven it's untrustworthiness
with citizens information in that it sells to the highest
bidder. Additionally, it usually ends up being an extension to the secretary of State's election office,
at the taxpayers expense.
DMV does not need more power or responsibility
at this time. I don't trust the DMV with my information,
and if I weren't legally required to visit the scumbags from time to time, I'd never give them so much as a scrap of information again.
So let's give a heartfelt boo to this crap legislation, and another to the crap that's pushing it.
But at least Canadians are safe from this for the second. Of course, pressure from down south will eventually get to our politicians, and we'll soon join this great database.
All Your ID's are Belong To Us
DC
It was clear a few years ago that they were setting up a national ID via the drivers' license databases.
That happened when they changed the law to require the states to collect social security numbers and link them to the licenses in their databases.
(I believe the excuse used was tracking down absentee fathers who were delinquent in their child support payments.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The way things are going, however, I suspect the answer will be Yes soon enough...
This could actually be a good thing. It seems like the next rational step would be a national driver's license/ID card. This would eliminate the vast disparities in states' requirements for driver licensing (here in Texas, when I got my license at the ripe old age of 16, I didn't have to take any test, written or "behind the wheel"), and it would go a long way toward preventing the use of out-of-state licenses as fakes (as someone who's worked at any establishment which sells tobacco or alcohol will tell you, an out-of-state driver's license is a good tip-off of a fake ID - this works this well, because I for one have no idea what, say, a New York driver's license is supposed to look like).
Man, what I wouldn't give for a good fake ID so I could buy alcohol. It was hell trying to get cigarettes before I was 18, too.
Ahh. Oh well. On the other hand, we'd all have to pay our out-of-state speeding tickets...
As a paranoid, personal identity protecting kind of guy, I was thinking about this the other day. The difference between a state level driver's license and a national driver's license isn't that big a deal, in and of itself. The fear is always what else the card can be used for. Feature creep could have dire, but hard to avoid, consequences for personal privacy. All you can do is set limits on how much you're willing to take and accept the consequences when the time comes. For me, the day carrying an ID becomes required is the day I burn every form of ID I possess.
Oh boy... Who didn't see this coming a mile away? One only need examine past government decisions to predict this occurance. For example, during the "Red Scare" the government tightened it's internal security and was afraid of anything it didn't know.
So, logically, the next step after 9/11 is to tighten security further. Therefore the government needs a way to identify (almost) everyone! So, the best way to implement this system is by using a system already in place... Well, it seems logical to use a driver's license. Almost everyone has one, after all, to acquire the "privelege" of driving you need to ask the government first!
I mean, how can you be "safe" and "secure" if the government doesn't know who you are, where you live and virtually every other detail of your life? Don't fbi projects like "magic lantern" and "echelon" make YOU overwhelmed with a sense of security?
I know they make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside!
They can't make everyone carry a drivers license, so this really isn't of any concern. They're just making it easy for state DMVs to share info they already have.
Do the shortwave if you can, I think his streaming
link is getting maxed out.
Radio Shows M-F 11AM-1PM, 9PM-12PM Central Time
Shortwave (AM):
9320
12.172
really they are!
Doenst take a rocket scientist to figure out that we already HAVE a national ID system in place, as Time pointed out. All theyre doing is making it a tiny bit tougher for criminals to ply their trade, and increasing the market value of a top-notch forger/conterfeiter. "Green cards" already have a ton of 'high security' features on them. Does it stop illegal aliens from working? No more than it'll stop libertarians and criminals (and how long is it before the media starts bunching those two classes together?) from finding ways to subert this new system.
-ZenRhino
The powers of Congress are not all explicitly enumerated in the Constitution. The last sentence of Article 1 Section 8 says that Congress can make all laws "necessary and proper" to enable their enumerated powers. This might not sound like much, but in practice it has allowed the Government extrodinary latitude. This was a big issue when Hamilton was pushing for a national bank (It doesn't say anything at all in the Constitution about the Government running a bank), but it's been a pretty much resolved issue for about 200 years. I wonder what percentage of current laws would survive without that clause.
Do they really think that this system will prevent anything?
Money talks. Simple as that.
enjoy your freedoms while they last.
these are truly the last days.
first?
FBI Officials said today, that they have detained 12 people who they think were planning the next major terrorist attack on America. At a press conference a spokes person explained how the fbi were only able to catch the terrorists with the new laws that have been passed since september 11 2001: "Our computer system is set to cross-reference the religon from the census database with anyone who buys an airline ticket. The system flashed up 12 people who were of the islamic faith one morning. We notified the airport and they put a flag on their video-face-recognition system to alert for all brown people. We say, people, because we didn't want to seem politically incorrect by narrowing it to just men." Explained the official. "Then we used the photos on the driving license database to cross check these airport matches. When the 12 turned up at the airport, we were able to arrest them as they passed the gate. Because of the drivers license, we were able to put little stickers with their names, on the cell doors, which gave a nice touch, and shows we care. Now the world is free of 12 dangerous terrorists."
The news conference was cut short when a plane crashed into the whitehouse near by.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Sorry the 9PM show is on 5085
Although I'm not thrilled with the prospect of being tracked, I'm glad in a way. The government has no more information on me than they did four months ago. They don't have a little file that lists my religion, ethnicity, and genetic information. Athlough some people might view the measure that the DoT is taking, in actuallity, they don't have any more information than what we felt comfortable giving them a few months ago. Why am I glad? They aren't wasting billions on Larry.
Colorado does fingerprinting too, if I recall correctly from last time I got my DL.
Denver Isuzu Suzuki
I am not required to own credit cards.
I am not required to have a social security number.
I am not required to have a drivers license or any kind of ID.
I am not required to have a bank or checking account.
It's an important point, because even though I do have all the above it was a choice. A government didn't tag me like some animal when I was born or doesn't require me to stay tagged.
A big part of freedom is being able to choose how free or not you are.
In a sense, this is really already in existence.
When you're pulled over in most states, your license is checked in the issuing state.
If your offense is particularly bad, it is usually ran through NCIC, which IS national, and even international. Some states automatically use NCIC (CA,FL,TX), regardless of the offense.
Privacy be damned, making this easier for law enforcement is a good thing; and the first time someone is caught in another state, whether it be for terrorism or wife beating, it will have earned it's stars.
Well, that was truly trite. I have never read an article that deals with the lives of citizens in such an incredibly blase manner.
To think that having a single point of failure in your pocket is a good thing. I LIKE to be able to lose my drivers license and STILL being able to withdraw my money. AND, I REALLY like the fact that I can lose all my CC's and ID's, and STILL GO HOME.
Additionally, it is a shame that there is no consideration taken to the POTENTIAL for FUTURE abuses. EVERYONE knows that laws appear by the minute, but they disappear after an eon. Once this becomes ubiquitous in the background, adding new "attachments" to current laws will become all the more easier.
Maybe then the movie theatre will be doing those background checks, and deciding that they do not need a pot-smoking, fast driving, public-pissing Joe/Jane in his theatre. On the way to the Ice Cream stand, you can allow the police to swipe you as you cross the street. Just in case you are a convicted J-walker. Perhaps we can pay a monthly fee to allow us "express" service as we walk through our lives, bypassing certain checkpoints.
Finally, let us hope that when we forget where we are, we can call our Reps and ask them, "Where have I been today?" Or maybe our spouses can do it for us?
So, if they're going to go this far, they could incorporate this into all the updates (that will probably never happen) to the voting/polling system. We can finally swipe a card and vote without the arcane system of manual voter registration we have today.
But wait... Then lots more people would probably vote. And all addresses/info could be automatically verified eliminating doubt and manual recounts. And 'elections' like Florida will never happen again!
$100 bucks says they don't incorporate the 1 thing into this system that could empower citizens.
I was surprised to find out that driver's license was NOT some sort of national ID card. I can rest easier at night knowing that my prophecy was somehow right. But I do have some questions about the ramification of using a driver's license as an ID card.
Does this mean that everyone will have a driver's license now? As in the blind-mute psychotic guy in the electirc wheel chair who lives next to me who's constantly threatening to crush me with his invisible tank?
Or does it mean that if you never passed the driving test you are exempt from having a "National ID"?
I can see having national ID will turn us into slaves of a totalitarian police state, but it's the little questions that bothers me.
So if you can't get a license because your disabled, blind, or enjoy mowing down crosswalks of kiddies while enojying Jim Beam at 8:15AM, how are you supposed to identify yourself? Wouldn't a Mix of SSN&ID be a better option?
Remember, most beople don't get an identification card unless forced to, and many don't do that because they can't drive to the DMV to fill out the ID card work...
If the U.S. domestic response to terrorism starts to resemble Zimbabwe's, which passed a law in November making it compulsory to carry ID on pain of fine or imprisonment, well, that's something to worry about.
But until Congress passes a law like that -- and until you can't enter a movie theater without the usher checking you for priors -- there isn't all that much to get exercised about.
Er, no Frank, that's when it's too damn late to start doing anything about it.
Once you get to that stage people start becoming afraid of resisting goverments attempts to be Big Brother in all aspects of life, as it becomes a lot easier for the government to make otherwise innocent peoples life difficult by 'accidently' putting false information on the cards.
Oops. We accidentally put that you've got a criminal history on your card...oh well better luck at the next job interview.
Most of the privacy rights -- if there really are such things...
Yes, Frank such a thing does exist in the rest of the world. Here's the government body that protects my privacy and data.
For some, the real problem with smarter, more centralized ID cards is that they give bureaucrats a better chance to screw up more of your life
No there are lots of people who don't like the idea of either government or companies being able to see anymore information about them, than is absolutely necessary.
With the growth of the Internet it is getting far too easy for companies and governments to trade information about their citizens.
"Free software as in beer, copy protection as in racket" - Telsa Gwynne
Great! So you get a fake driver's license. I mean, wasn't the whole point of a National ID card having a reliable way to identify somebody? What the hell makes them think that driver's licenses are a reliable method? You slip your friend at the DMV a few hundred and you can get a license no problem. Hell, in Illinois they'll even let you drive a truck!
It's all about trust relationships. At some point down the line you have to trust that somebody has verified who a person is and has done so accurately. As long as the system is dependent on trusting an underpaid, overworked, low level bureaucrat, people who want to get false identification will continue to do so. Heck, even if they are a well paid bureaucrat in a cushy position, they can still be bought, it just costs a bit more.
Ultimately the only people who this will effect is law abiding citizens who don't get fake ID's. Anybody who honestly wants to conceal their identity will continue to do so in any number of ways that are nearly impossible to prevent.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
I guess a fake id will be that much more of a violation of law, I wonder if the government will step up in prosecuting the fake id business
no one cares!
So, this affects me. But what about those who don't get a license, and opt to use an old caddy to get their crack, without the state's permission?
Every man shall bear the mark of the beast...
Who knows...
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
I imagine they are going to need plenty of beowulf clusters running Linus, to handle all of that information!
1984 here we come...
Makes ya think...
An ID Card, that is revolution
Do you also plant to have standardize vote processes ? remove death penalty ? pay your UNO due ? vote for the tubbin tax at IMF ?
Ok that was still kidding
this is BS, but if it protects us from those damn terrorists, have at.
First Post? I rule!
Sapere Aude - Homer
And once there are nifty little networked readers in all these places, it'll be incredibly trivial for Big Brother to track your movements-- hey, you had to give your SSN when you bought that prepaid cell phone after the PATRIOT II passed in 2003, right?
And, of course, Big Brother has lots of annoying minions working in the IRS, local law enforcement, and collections agencies, all of whom are going to have much easier access to records than the law would suggest.
This isn't the America I want to live in. I want to live in a country where the long arm of the law doesn't have the resources to pursue anyone but the real baddies, by conventional means like the ones we had five or ten years ago.
I want this for your sake. I want you to be able to escape bad debts, a warrant for your arrest on drug charges, the ex-spouse with an unfair judgement against you. Right now you could change your name, move to another state, pay cash, and live quietly, and thankfully, never screwing up again.
But once all this is in place, you'll be sickly aware that you'll never manage to avoid the little red light on the ID-card scanner that'll bust you in a moment. Then you'll be more prone to a violent solution to your desparate situation, once escape and disappearance are no longer a realistic option. That's worse for my own safety.
(Of course, it'll please the Feds-- more of an excuse to clamp down on gun rights!)
I want to live in a country with a little breathing room, without an omnipresent electronic nanny state.
Doesn't anybody else, in the country of Patrick Henry and Tom Paine? Isn't anybody going to fight this?
I know that some of you, for your "safety", want to have a national ID card, national ID number, surveillance cameras, and face recognition everywhere. But isn't there a place, actually otherwise a really nice place, that you could move to? I think it's called "Europe".
In many states, your social security number is PRINTED on your driver's license.
By doing this, you are making our SSN our national ID.
Good thing I live in Washington State, where we don't let them do that.
-
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
hell i live in NYC and have never had a car or a license like many other weirdo new yorkers -- what happens if I can't prove my existence cuz I can't drive?
1) If all the state databases are hooked together, how secure is a distributed database like that? Is it more secure than a fort knox like central DB or do all the connections make it easier to get into the system?
2) Extending from that, would it now be easier to mess with someone's records or for records to be confused? What's to keep them from mistaking me for Mark X. who is a drug dealer in NH? Are fingerprints really that secure? Will I be able to check my records so that I know the state doesn't have me listed as something I'm not?
3) Why does Time pay this particular journalist to write? When a journalist puts in a section like "The Real concern" and, instead of citing sources, tells his readers what to be concerned about, you can be sure his objectivity is lacking. Did anyone else feel like this guy was lecturing the civil libertarians as to why they shouldn't complain.
Grr.
What fun is it being cool if you can't wear a sombrero? - Hobbes
You live here too?
-Trollaxor, posting anonymously to preserve precious karma.
I agree. One of the large problems that is overlooked is that State's Rights to handle driver's licenses was just F*cked over by this one.
More and more the US is becoming a 100% federal entity. Things work best when you have choices and people are allowed to rule their town, county, state and country the way they want to. If you don't like what your state does just move to another one. That's what the entire Civil War was about.
What makes this really suck is that the US federal government is not only sucking away state's rights, but sucking away the rights of the world by using "economic sanctions" to get other countries to conform to our laws adn using the WTO as the big stick as we walk softly.
It won't be too long until if you don't like a law the only way to protest it or get away from it is to leave the planet. I've been considering leaving the US after I finish up a few obligations because their foreign policy pisses me off too much, but US law is creeping into every country. Once we have a homogenized world law system and a world culture, the land of Huxley's "Brave New World" is not too far off.
ASC(D) = 68 = 6 + 8 = 14 = 5
;).
ASC(M) = 77 = 7 + 7 = 14 = 5
ASC(V) = 86 = 8 + 6 = 14 = 5
Ergo, DMV is 555.
Too close for comfort, methinks
Seriously, this is *VERY BAD*. I for one am against the idea of the federal government collecting massive databases on us (especially biometric information of any kind) without cause (privacy in our papers and that sort of thing). I'm no conspiracy-theorist, I just know that the government is no monolithic being, it is just people (as error-prone and greedy as the rest of mankind) given more power than usual to collectively try to make things decent around here.
Consider another angle: some states have fingerprints either encoded on the cards or on file, but *all* have photos. Matching the normalized conditions of a driver's license photo (lighting, lenses, distance, angle, etc.) with a face-recognition database would be alarmingly easy.
You can't copyright facts. One of the necessary qualifications for copyrightable material is that it be "original", and facts fail this test. For example, if you copyright a map (of a real place, that is), it covers the coloring, symbols, etc., but not the actual factual meaning of the map (locations of things).
This was the subject of a lawsuit over phone books. One phone book produced sued another for copying the contents of the book, claiming copyright infringement. The court dismissed the suit, saying that the names and numbers in a phone book are factual in nature, and thus not copyrightable. If there were some novelty to the ordering, organization, or selection of the names -- some piece of "original" work -- then it would be copyrightable. But alphabetic ordering certainly fails this test.
Your name, address and personal data are all factual. So your idea doesn't really work. Cute, though.
excerpts of larger copyrighted peices can be freely passed around (eg. a paragraph of text, 30 seconds of music).
This is so untrue but everyone thinks it's gospel truth. True, there is no copyright interest in collections of factual data. That is why the data in the phone book are likely to be copied and sold in another phone book, freely. One could also conceivably read weather.com and then report exactly that factual information on one's TV show without permission... It's just facts. However, there is no amount of information that can be "freely passed around." Go out and pass out millions of flyers containing a paragraph from some book, not in a review or news coverage. Wholesale copying without permission is illegal, even if it is a small amount.
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
Canada and the U.S. already have a unified driver's license system -- if you live in a U.S. state for x months, you must get a driver's license from that state. Before they give you a license, they will take and destroy your Canadian province's license (and notify the province via their linked computer systems).
"I thought they were the dominant species..."
does that mean I cease to exist?
And does that mean my 10 yo son is not a citizen? If so, how did he get a US passport?
"May I see your ID, citizen?"
"I don't have one."
"I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to arrest you now, citizen."
-
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Just add computer chips under the skin, madatory id tags 'round the neck and stamp barcodes on the heads of all citizens?
How many of you allready have to "show your papers" just because you look different?
How long are we going to take being persecuted for being independent thinkers?
How muck longer should we be forced to prove our innocents?
Time to rise up, my brothers and sisters, to take ownership of the information technology world.
We need to show our power, I task all of you to destroy al electronic data you can.
We Will NOT TAKE THIS lying down.
We are the giant, and they have awoken US!
The WTO is global, all countries will have a common laws that they see fit to protect THERE corporate interests. Act now, act swift, destroy data.
We have more power then all the unions in the world, and they KNOW it. If so much as decided not to come into work for 1 week, together we would shake industry more then any other group in the history of the world.
WE are the power, they have been trying to keep the illusion that they are, but in truth, we control the data, and with out us, they would crumble.
Its time for them to bow to us.
My friends, Strike now.
Either by directly destroying the data, or "missing" a couple of security problems.
There is nothing they can do to stop us, the militaries of the world can not function without computers for logistics and communication.
Rising up is the only way to return freedoms to the people. When a few controll almost everything, and remove freedoms from the people, the people MUST strike back.
Its always about control, and balance of controll, now is the time to restore balance to the controlls.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Otherwsie how did they get on the planes. This is an example of a law with tremendous possibility for abuse and it wouldn't have stopped anything.
Free cell phone tracking
I'll point out one of the biggest:
The standardized databases would save the California state trooper a phone call to Atlanta; he'd be able to run a nationwide check from his car.
Everyone familiar with law enforcement will laugh at this statement. Officers and dispatchers do this now, via NCIC (National Crime Information Center). It's been years since there was a need for a "phone call to Atlanta."
All that is needed to find the drivers license of anyone is the DL number or name and date of birth. These can be used to run nationwide checks to locate the record. To find a drivers license issued out of the country, a request is made to US Customs and/or Interpol.
... is that there shoudn't be a "national ID" at all. Period.
:-(
Actung! Ziegen Sie mir Ihre Papiere!!!! Schell!!!!
Looks like Hitler finally won World War II
Unifying the ID isn't really a big deal in and of itself. There's no danger to civil rights that people could more easily verify the validity of identification. The particular set of information they choose to standardize on is likely to be innocuous.
The danger of a national ID is in the way it is used. In particular, in the use of a magstrip or other machine-readable common format. Most states seem to have something like this -- Illinois has some sort of 2D bar code, for instance -- but because there's no standard you cannot reasonably expect to scan every person's card at some given point. So I've never seen anyplace where they actually use a machine to read the card.
If you have a national ID, then this would no longer be the case. It makes it very possible -- and likely inevitable -- that IDs will regularly be scanned in all sorts of locations. Courthouses, airports (whether or not you are flying), privately secured locations (office buildings, etc.)... and the next thing you know there's random road blocks (to catch drunk drivers, drug smugglers, terrorists, or whatever other justification they choose) and they'll scan your ID.
If these systems were one-way, even this wouldn't be too terribly bad. That is, if such scans only checked to see if there was an outstanding warrant or other legal restriction placed on you. However, this is unlikely to be the way these cards would be used by the government, and certainly not the way they'd be used by private security. It is all too easy to record every time you pass such a checkpoint, and in that way coming up with an extensive profile of every person's movement and associations.
Of course, much of this already exists with credit cards. And who knows... maybe they'll join them together.
"National ID to Drive" starring Corey Haim
If you consider what it actually takes to *get* a drivers license, you'll realize that the pool of data is already so completely polluted that it's almost worthless.
Couple that with the fact that most state's DMVs are understaffed and their staff underpaid, slipping a few extra identities into the database should be *easy* for even the most novice idenity hacker.
Even states (like california) that are planning on useing propritary mag-strip readers and writer to prevent counterfeiting are going to find the organized criminals will obtain the limited circulation write heads through thieft and non-declaired importation. Add to that data inserted into the database that gets searched and viola'... you have an "identity"
Basically, it's a bad plan... I wouldn't expect anything less from our government.
Which is why you need to swipe your own card on a very strong magnet, and then feign ignorance when the cop looks at you angrily.
Mod my comments down. It'll be fun.
Cash a check: To combat fraud.
Get a loan: Again, to combat fraud.
Board a plane: Neither you nor the government owns that plane, the shareholders of your airline do. As having customers die in giant fireballs tends to be expensive (planes aren't cheap), they, too, are merely protecting their investment.
The problem with fraud and terrorism is, of course, that identity documents can be faked. Faked identity documents can be used to commit fraud and terrorism. (The only difference is that the terrorist doesn't care if his real identity is discovered after the crime.)
Unlike the old adage "If you're innocent, what are you hiding?", I fail to see how strenghtening the integrity of identity documents can be a Bad Thing.
Admittedly, changing the laws to require that I produce ID before I post to Slashdot, or purchase potato chips, could be a Bad Thing.
But that's not really what we're talking about here -- the notion of tying together state Driver's Licenses into a central database is really just finding ways in which things that require ID (and which require them for very good reasons) can be made more secure.
Given the alternative -- give Larry Ellison a billion dollars to develop a new bureaucracy around Oracle -- I'd say strengthening and integrating existing systems is the better way to go.
Thats a criminal offence in many US States.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You don't have to be a citizen to get a drivers license. You do need an SSN.
I am an Australian living in the US. I passed my driving test three years ago (the day after I got my SSN becuase I couldn't apply without it) and had to wait 10 months for my drivers license to arrive in the mail. The reason? The California DMV had to confirm my identity with the INS (I am sure you have heard about how many people they don't have a clue on their where abouts). Nothing has changed but hopefully they will do it quicker now. I gave up any rights of privacy the day I got off the boat.
Everybody knows the data is out there now it is just a matter of speeding up access to it. They get it wrong often enough now that you have time to correct it before your life is destroyed. I don't know what will happen when it is all connected at blazing speed and wrong.
And feign ignorance when he arests you, then feign ignorance when you face the judge.
The feign ignorance when you're slapped with a fine...
welcome to the new world my friend.
All your existencs is belong to them.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Yes, it is a stupid attempt at humor.
One *strong* motivator for you to turn in your Canadian license is for tax reasons...
If you are not a resident of Canada, you do not have to pay the taxman in Canada.
Conversley...
If you are deemed a resident of Canada, even though you live abroad, you CAN be taxed on your income.
Now.. some tax treaty may add some simplification to this (like, if the US considers you a resident, then you are automatically not a candian resident).
IF you, say, kept an apartment, car, provincial medical coverage paid up, and still have your bank accounts and driver's license in Canada, yet were working in the US, the CCRA most likely can still call you a resident, and tax you accordingly.
Having had a few deep breaths and calmed down a bit, I'd like to add that despite 30 years of terrorist attacks (sponsored by US citizens), the UK hasn't seen it necessary to introduce ID cards.
In fact the only time there was a widespread to detain possible terrorists was the internment in the 1970's, which cause so much hatred of the UK government, that it recruited a whole new generation of terrorists for the Republican cause.
To prevent terrorists striking against you, a country has three options:
1) Stop the terrorists hating you so much that they will risk their lives or commit suicide to hurt you.
2) Have focussed intelligence agencies that can actually gather and act on intelligence data, rather than destabilising other countries.
3)Kill _everyone_ who might not like you.
The US is having a good go at number 3 (3,800 civilians so far and counting), but in the long run methods one and two are cheaper in dollars, lives lost and liberties given up in the name of freedom.
"Free software as in beer, copy protection as in racket" - Telsa Gwynne
In IL I have a *BAD* driving record. Not from doing dumb things like DUIs, etc. Just from a large amount of small violations and about 7 insurance violations (In 1 week, it's a record and a looong story). I can drive with a WI license legally though. If this links up then it sounds like I be in trouble. :)
I recently got my drivers license. In the process of doing so, I was told that someone in Alabama with the same name birthdate as myself had multiple DUI convictions. So it seems this information is already national available to government agencies. I don't think we need to be really worried until they start talking about tying it to biometrics or something ridiculous like that. I mean, its worrisome, but only to the extent that systems like this have been worrisome since their introductions in the previous century. Not a new, or necessarily worse, problem.
As though no one possessing a valid ID has ever committed a terrorist attack...
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
Note to self: Join the police force, if for no other reason than to see the onboard dash camera footage the day Larry tries getting out of a speeding ticket this way ;-)
I am every bit a paranoid about this govenment as the next person... But I am not going to worry about this because it will never happen... It is unlikely that 50 State govenment can ever get their act together enough to share information.
It will 10 - 20 years before they finish... (If they ever do)
I beleive in Civil Liberties and all, but is a national ID card that bad? Before you mark this as 'Flamebait,' consider much of Europe (France and Switzerland spring to mind). Every French and Swiss person legally has to have a national ID card and carry it with them at all times, on pain of arrest. They're a little larger than a credit card, and have a strip along the bottom that you could pass through a passport reader (somthing like <<;), so if it wanted the Man could bring up your entire immigration record in one go. That's the theory: in practice, no one carries them or is ever asked for them, and if you are, you can just say "I forgot." Many of my French friends have never been asked for them in their lives, even when arrested. All they use them for is to travel within Europe without carrying their passports (yes, they can even fly with them on intra-Europeen flights).
The point is, just because they have a possibility to be used for evil, dosen't mean they will be. Look at Napster: it (in itself) is not illegal, it just has the possibility of being used for illegal purposes, yet we support it. Now switch the word "illegal" with "bad" and the word "Napster" with the phrase "National ID Card" and instantly our opinion chanages. Well-legislated IDs can be useful, and besides, most of you already have one; it's called a Passport (and if you don't have one you should). They can be well used in such things are preventing identity theft, reducing fraud, and miinimizing travel pains. The key to them is well-written and concrete legislation, crafted without the input of lobby groups or vested interests. In France, no bartender can ask for your National ID card, nor can an insurer, a municipal police officier, or a private company. In fact, I htink it may be a constitutional right that only the Feds can (not sure about that). Do they have a problem with it? No, because only (theoretically) responsible people have access to the card. Legislate well, and National IDs (be them in Driver's Licence form or whatnot) can be a Good Thing(tm).
Cue The Sun...
First there was the completion of the Human Genome Project, so the government could determine which genes do what. Then Washington State issues Drivers licenses that have a very complex and high storage capacity barcode on them (I don't know if other states have this). Now, all drivers licenses are being linked into a mondo database. The government may be headed toward a Gattaca like world. I assume someone has seen this movie where your entire existance is dependant upon your genes.
Not that our government would ever allow genetic discrimination, but just look at the pieces of the cospiracy puzzle!!
Whether we generally acknowledge it or not, we have an excellent system of government here in America. Some of this is based on the forethought and intention of the various people who helped found our country, and some of it is based on chance, or, if you prefer, luck. Things happened in many cases because of compromise, accident, and caprice.
One of the most important unintended features of our government is the amount of play between law and enforcement. It is widely understood (among law and philosophy students, anyway) that no society enforces its laws perfectly. Laws are usually written with the inherent limitations of the state in mind.
In many cases, a poorly or selectively enforced law is good for society - and I will take copyright as an example (albeit a hot button one). We currently have an impossibly strict and protectionist set of laws protecting authors (of books, software, etc). Yet these laws are rarely enforced at all, and when they are, typically against companies or large organizations doing what we would call "bootlegging" or "piracy" and hardly ever against "informal" violations. Person to person breaches of copyright happen with astounding frequency and, looked at objectively, constitute a massive act of civil disobedience, with just those acts we know about totaling millions per minute (napster, etc). This state of affairs, where enforcement lags behind the law, has two important effects it would have been difficult to achieve "head on:"
1) Artists do get paid, and they get paid quite well. Copyrightable media is a worldwide business estimable in the trillions of dollars. Most people who can pay the author, do.
2) Conversely, lower-income and disadvantaged users gain access to books, software, and other media for free (by violating the law without consequences).
Should this be stopped via systematic enforcement, a massive chilling effect would occur across all aspects of our society, as children, students, and low-income users could no longer learn on stolen $1,000 compilers, or depend on hundreds of "stolen" texts. Programmers lose their (illegal) access to the latest tools and work of the industry, slowing feedback and development overall. As copyrighted material represents our intellectual heritage, properly enforcing the tollbooth in front of it stymies our intellectual development.
Surveillance technology such as a national ID is dangerous because, aside from the obvious potential for abuse, it allows for enforcement which is too effective. Many of the laws in our country were written as copyright law is - to be enforced using traditional, 20th century law-enforcement techniques. In some cases these laws (copyright, taxes) have extravagant penalties by way of "intimidation" - since enforcement is expected to be difficult or impossible. While new technology may be effective in improving enforcement against violent criminals and other laudable activities (for which improved enforcement actually is better), it will have numerous negative effects as it surpasses legislative intent on good laws and reduces the "containment" of bad laws.
Of course, no discussion of federal or quasi-federal surveillance or information-gathering technology should pass without further acknowledgement of the general "chilling effect" on free speech and free expression these technologies create.
When people are aware that they are being observed (even in abstract, highly specific, or systematized ways), their behavior is altered - whether it is no longer stealing a kiss on a dark street corner for fear of the mute eyes of the surveillance camera on the traffic light, or altering the way they write their correspondence, choosing not to share an opinion in a debate, or choosing not to travel. This is an implicit and often unconscious reaction to authority, and it represents, collectively, the psychological weight of being observed. U.S. Courts have acknowledged that this kind of tacit "intimidation" sometimes constitutes a breach of our first amendment rights, as it makes us self-conscious and we work to avoid an implicit judgment. It is political dialogue on a primitive level - and where those in power are actively observing, "dissent" is stifled.
Common sense can tell you that to live in a state of "freedom" we must be free of the specter of observation.
The story of government is the story of uneasy compromise between freedom and conformity necessary for a healthy society. America has had its success on the foundation of personal freedom's default supremacy; here, our homes, our persons, and our daily business are meant to be sacrosanct and immune from invasion by both each other and the state, as evinced by many of our strongest legal edicts (the Bill of Rights is preoccupied extensively with personal sovereignty, and it is - theoretically - the highest legal doctrine in our country). Our lives were meant to be lived outside the view of the government, which must be absent unless it has "probable cause" - and by and large, this is true... at least for the moment.
This is not an accident, but by design. Our government's success is based on its distrust of itself. We could still have a monarchy if we believed people in power always know what's best, or do the right thing. Instead, we have a complicated, subdivided, cynical democracy; one which, even now, functions in spite of itself, its wheels greased with millions of illegal yet necessary actions every moment. In all of human history, Government has never, ever walked it's talk, but with new technology, it might soon be ready to try.
We're on the road to Tycho.
Well, if this is true that one can be accused of tresspassing a law in a country or state just by what this person is posting on local forums, well than I think we all should ask google to only allow Internet-friendly countries to it's magnificent log of all postings back till '81.
If you were a furious rebel in your childhood back than, you better watch out!
The new driver's license for California now has a barcode on the back besides the magnetic stripe. Not sure what it's used for and what the number is...
I'd like to know a bit more about this supposed Congressional authorization. It seems that something like this should be a bit difficult to sneak under the nose of many of the privacy advocates.
On the other hand, it *does* sound like the kind of thing many of these bureaucratic fiefdoms (eg, Dept of Transportation) might be quite capable of coming up with on their own, with a pointer at a nebulous phrase in some directive that supposedly gives them the authorization to do so.
When she can't get a fake driver's license anymore?
...
What will her sister do?
I tell you, National IDs have unintended consequences. Unless you think this is just GWBush's way of grounding his daughters
-
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Driving is a "freedom". The idea of driving as a "priviledge" was a concept created to convince you to give up that freedom. It worked.
So what if you're being identified by a number. You're already identified by hundreds of numbers - this just gives you a nationwide one. And so what if "They" could use this to track you - you already are. Weren't you ever bothered that just by having your supposedly-secret (and obviously not) social security number that someone could steal your identity? We've never had a way of proving to someone with certainty that we are who we say we are without jumping through hoops - and even then identity theft can still be committed. With a biometric-labeled national ID we can finally have a good way of authenticating ourselves, provided they develop the system right (dual-key encryption of biometrics, for starters). It beats some unlaminated blue card with no picture.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
I've taken to using my U.S. passport for ID where I can (i.e. just about anywhere except while driving). As an experiment, I even used it for ID at my last driver's license renewal, saying that I had misplaced my old license. Passports don't have addresses or Social Security Numbers on them, and I suspect that the fears of the civil libertarians will act as a brake on any ambitions that the federal government might have toward adding national ID features to them.
I find it amusing that many of the enthousiastic whiners about our Rights hide behind Anonymous Coward. They are so pissy about their right to free speech, and choose to do so anonymously. How's that for irony?
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
This despite any effort to show that these invasions of our privacy will have any value in fighting terrorism or other crime: we must take for granted that if The Government asks for it, it must be for a good reason, and good citizens keep their damn mouths shut.
When pesky civil libertarians (either from the right or left) dare question the value of shredding the constitution to save it, the only response they deign give us is that if we don't commit any crimes, we have nothing to fear: this is the FBI, the CIA, DOJ... They don't make mistakes. DOH! except for that damn Chinese embassy, those 93 people since 1973 released from Death Row, Countelpro... Trust them, they're there to help.
Even so, even granting that these mistakes are in the past, at least yesterday, and today's law enforcement etc. is completely error free and will never wrongly punish the innocent, or at least not more so given greater reach, we are occasionally reminded that there are some laws that really shouldn't be enforced.
Lots of them really.
It is said that the Ion Mobility Spectrographs they use to sniff for explosives at the airport also detect trace amounts of drugs. They've been used in England to sniff (and arrest) clubgoers. The United States has a Zero Tolerance policy for illegal drugs crossing borders - that is even a single molecule is a crime. While it's not illegal to smoke marijuana in Holland, it's criminal to return to the US after having done so, and new technology will help law enforcement punish violators.
Enter the Republic of Texas and if the x-ray machine sees more than 6 dildos in your luggage you're guilty of a felony.
There's a nearly endless list of ridiculous laws, and I haven't even got into the bizarre and disturbing world of sodomy laws or IP laws; but if it's OK to use magic lantern to hunt for terrorists, why not also those evil criminals who violate the DMCA?
If you don't fight when they come for your neighbor, who will be left to fight when they come for you?
At least two major reformations in law are long overdue: we must return to the pre DMCA definition of criminal copyright violations. And we need a new amendment: (not that the constitution holds much weight anymore)
Congress shall make no law respecting the private actions of consenting adults.
I fell sorry for anyone who actually needs to avoid using their driver's licence as an ID. Who might need this?
I just feel sorry for all the kids with fake IDs who will now be violating FEDERAL law. They are old enough to be drafted, but heaven forbid they have a beer.
Most (all?) states will issue non-drivers a state ID card, typically through the same agency that issues driver's licenses.
Essentially it's the same as a driver's license except it doesn't license you to drive. Use it to prove your identity, residency, and age, buy booze, cash checks, etc.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
New Zealand instituted a phto-ID driver's license a while back, and since then a lot of places assume that that is the form of ID that people will use.
The article says:
> but you can only get arrested for _driving_ without one
That's why I simply leave mine at home (I don't ever actually drive, so I don't need it). So far, other forms of ID have always been accepted - but I'm prepared to make an awful lof of noise if my driver's license is ever required for something else.
At the time the photo driver's license was introduced, there was some idea of turning it into a national ID card, with a 'non-driver' card for those who don't drive. Thankfully, that was rejected - this time. I suspect it's coming though, and if it does I'll be in there fighting it.
I'm in a very rare position of:
* have a license and eligible to drive
* _never_ actually driving,
so I'm aware others don't have the luxury of taking my position on this one, although what you can do is _never_ use your driver's license except for driving related purposes.
There is quite a bit of info online about the uses of SSN's that might clear up some misconceptions about the use of SSN's in drivers licenses numbers, but also raises questions about this "new" use that a drivers license number that happens to be your SSN. Is the new use of the your SSN been expanded and not IAW the 1994 Privacy Act?
Specifically:
The Privacy Act of 1974 (Pub. L. 93-579, in section 7), which is the primary law affecting the use of SSNs, requires that any federal, state, or local government agency that requests your Social Security Number has to tell you four things:
1: The authority (whether granted by statute, or by executive order of the President) which authorizes the solicitation of the information and whether disclosure of such information is mandatory or voluntary;
2: The principal purposes for which the information is intended to be used;
3: The routine uses which may be made of the information, as published annually in the Federal Register, and
4: The effects on you, if any, of not providing all or any part of the requested information.
The Act requires state and local agencies which request the SSN to inform the individual of only three things:
1: Whether the disclosure is mandatory or voluntary,
2: By what statutory or other authority the SSN is solicited, and
3: What uses will be made of the number.
If your truely concerned I suggest searching google for SSN (expanded) and pricay statement. There is a SSN faq here
I had a PA which did not use your SSN and now a VA which the SSN is optional.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
The states drivers records databases are collected into a central commerical database already for the purposes of (1) driver insurance (2) car rental screening (3) job application screening (integrity) and (4) general credit screening.
What, does ANYBODY _REALLY_ think this is going to help?
Really now.
It would _NOT_ have prevented 9-11 at all. Hell the FBI was able to figure out who the terrorists were with very little trouble. The fact is that a terrorist group is NOT going to send somebody who has 10 warrents out for them and is on the FBIs ten most wanted list out to hijack a plane! They are going to send some young dumb ***NEW*** recruit out to blow shit up.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
1. Already citizens have been refused the right to board airliners because they have no picture ID. Once a national ID card comes in the back door we will have a system where powerful bureaucrats will use these human license plates to track and restrict our movements--as Jonathan Turley testified to Congress--see
the L.A. Times commentary Jan. 9. He said Congress ought to form a committee to study this matter, not leave it to the Transportation Department and state departments of motor vehicles.
2. Applied Digital Solutions has introduced the VeriChip, a passive RFID chip to be implanted in humans as it has been in dogs and cats. See
http://eetimes.com/story/OEG20020104S0044
A company spokesman said, "The human market for this technology could be huge," especially if GPS technology can be included. "We are advocating that this technology be totally voluntary," the spokesman said. The article notes that the European Central Bank plans to embed RFID tags in Euro notes within few years.
Force everybody to run their ID card through a scanner before they will be dispensed toilet paper from public toilets.
That way, when we see a guy with baggy, crap-laden pants, we can yell "Terrorist", beat him up, and take his jacket.
It is not illegal not to have an ID card, you just have to tell the facist PIG ur name and address if they stop ya..I am officialy a non-person in Calif...been 7 years since I've had any sort of state ID..they have NO records of me beyond the DOJ file. I own property thru a trust in which my name is never mentioned..My employer has all kinds of record and the state has tax records of course so you can't actually go away unless you do GO AWAY...
How, after reading the majority of the comments posted here, (admittedly biased) I can't find a SINGLE person who actually likes this idea. What happened? Proactive stop working? How the hell does something like this happen in the first place??? I sure didn't vote for it!
Everyone on slashdot has a journal.
So why don't they just have a national driver's license?
Or do we just continue to pay in cash and not get tracked?
Too late, at least for those using the Euro. Recall the Europe Adding RFID Tags to Euro Currency ?
How long until US currency has this "feature?"Hands over papers.
I'm sorry, these papers are out of order. Please come with me.
So much for freedom in this country. Enjoy it while it lasted?
bBBLOW ME cocksucker
State driver's licenses/IDs already are effectively federal ID cards. The time to get all up in arms about such a thing was many decades ago.
max
If the ID presented is proof of US citizenship, then the driver's license (or state ID, if the user merely wants an ID without driving privileges) is issued with the usual expiry date.
If the ID presented does not prove US citizenship, then proof of legal status in the US should be required. As this legal status may have an expiry date (e.g. TN or H-1B or student visa holders), then the ID or license should be issued with an expiry date no later than the expiry of the alien's status.
Simpler would be check boxes:
O US citizenship proven.
O US visa/landed status valid through (date) proven.
And ditto for Canada (due to treaty interlocks with the US and Canadian driver's license systems.)
Visa extensions and status changes could then be handled like address changes, rather than by making the driver's license self-destruct and complicating the bureaucrats' systems.
Failure to get a box checked, or presence beyond the date shown, wouldn't automatically mean they WEREN'T citizens - just that they hadn't proven it to the state driver's license issuer, or hadn't updated the license document. (So they'd better have secondary documentation available if they don't want trouble with the immigration authorities.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
suck much cock lately
By informing people, that several of the 19 hijackers were actually known terrorists by various US "intelligence" agencies, and that they were all using completely valid and correct IDs, you will be working against the Homeland Security Agency (or whatever they call it) - and we all heard G. W. Bush say "if you aren't with us, you're against us", which means that you are now a terrorist. Good luck.
Oh by the way. The US now wants to decide how MY country designs it's passports. They want fingerprints and iris scans in the passports, because it will make it easier to identify people. Well - I guess you know what to look forward to on your new national IDs.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
cause your mamma sucks my cock
Name one.
No, seriously. I know a lot of people that constantly have to replace their credit cards and what have you because of EM exposure (hard to remember to take your wallet out every morning at the lab, ain't it?), and that's certainly enough to wipe the stripe on the license. Don't deface it, just set a magnet on it for a few hours. Poof! Blank slate.
Possible downside - "Geez, officer, I dunno why it doesn't work. Try it again!" The more information that's on these things, the less the officer is going to trust the information actually printed on the card, without support.
lick a lot of ball sacks lately?
cocksucker
Um, whoever modded you up as insightful, is clueless. You palestinian sympathizers are blowing your "oh please give us peace" lies way too soon, you have to wait until the Israeli's start believing them, and let down their guard. Granted, that could take up to 3 generations, and subhumans like yourself have neither the cleverness nor the patience for such a task. It will be fun when we (USA) come for you next.
Problems arise when the "card" isn't just a card, but a set of back-end databases and records that are exchanged in non-transparent ways and that you have no control over. Problems also arise when the "cards" and ID numbers are designed and used poorly (e.g., when knowing your semi-public social security number potentially can be used to get access to your bank accounts).
The problem with using driver's licenses and all the other bogus ID documents and numbers that exist in the US is that they don't work well and are being used for things they were never designed for. Self-proclaimed civil libertarians are at fault here: we won't get any good, secure ID cards and numbers as long as any such effort is immediately torpedoed.
What we should do to protect our civil liberties is to design a robust, secure system of identification, and create privacy legislation that lets us get control of who stores what data about us. Or, in different words, the complete opposite of the agenda of the libertarians and the conservatives.
Central to the entire proposition is a big, fat non-sequitur: that knowing who the person in front of you is tells you anything about that person's motives. Even if we blithely ignore the problems in standardisation and expense, the core problem is the same:
why should a terrorist / criminal to be appear any different to you or me (in terms of the information linked to the card)?
Consider: Joe Bloggs, a disgruntled Nuclear Plant worked, has nefarious (sp?) intentions. How does this register on his card? What possible difference can that make to the businesses who (in terms of the article) are crucial to the success of the system? Can people believe that Joe will have a "terrorist risk" label attached to him (and if so, how in heaven's name does it get there)?
So the prospect of "demand[ing] a swipe to weed out terrorists" is assinine in the extreme.
Finally there is one other belief: that this will make it easier to retrospectively track the actions of terrorist. Wow. The FBI can know that Joe (having now destroyed the plant) was a big fan of Coca-Cola and McDonalds. Congratulations. Everyone with those tendencies gets "flagged" as dangerous.
I feel safer already.
now all we need is congress to reduce the legal drinking age to eighteen!
eliminate the possibility to create fake IDs and eliminate the need for one.
:)
We call it a "walker ID".
Best Slashdot Co
Hi cocksucker still taking it in the ass?
You need either an SSN or a copy of the standard letter the department issues saying you aren't intitled to have one.
You then go into the DMV checks INS records cycle,
mine took 2 months.
Then what if you make your name a trademark?
i.e.
Martin Eddy Schou (TM) (which is my ugly true name).
Would that be possible?
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
Well as for the whole speeding thing, having a national ID won't change anything.
:)
When the cop pulls you over they can run your license through the computer regardless of what state issued it. When they run an out-of-state query, it gets forwarded to NLETS (that's National Law Enforcement Telecommunication System) in Phoenix which then routes the query to the relevant state database. So when you're pulled over for speeding in Maryland they can get your info from the California DMV (assuming you have a CA license of course
Also, they already do warrant checks through other databases (NCIC and whatnot) so in practice I really don't see how this changes anything, except NLETS is state run and the new system is run by the feds. Whoop-de-do. Honestly I don't see how a state run database and a federal database is any different if it does the same thing...
Neither you nor the government owns that plane, the shareholders of your airline do. As having customers die in giant fireballs tends to be expensive (planes aren't cheap), they, too, are merely protecting their investment.
And it's not like the government regulates flight, right? I mean seriously, why should a government have any say in the matter of flying bombs travelling over the country?
Oh, right, there's the FAA.
Think before you post.
Kind of a useless bit of information, but isn't that what Slashdot is all about? ;-)
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
I'm not asking for the government to regulate prices. I'm not criticizing corporations for basing prices on whatever amount people are willing to pay (thus maximizing profits). What I am saying is the idea that giving these corporations 1 billion dollars (amounts are varying, but its a huge money giveaway to HUGE corporations who DEFINATELY do not need it) isn't going to stimulate the economy. It's not going to result in lower prices because prices are, and we've already established this, based on whatever corporations can get away with charging. It's not going to create new jobs because corporations, in order to maximize profits are going to hire as small a staff as they can get away with. It's not going to end up going to give workers raises because, again, in order to maximize profits, corporations will pay as little as they can get away with.
"As little as they can get away with" works ok to some extent in a free market. They can't get away with charging 1 million dollars for a car, but they can apparently get away with charging 20 dollars for a cd that costs less than a dollar to produce/manufacture. Or sell clothes made in sweatshops for less than a dollar as designer clothes for several hundred.
This is how things work. The market sets the price of everything (including labor). Giving more money to the people who sell things at those prices (or buy them at those prices if its labor) is not going to result in more money flowing into the economy.
"Americans are broad-minded people. They'll accept the fact that a person can be an alcoholic, a dope fiend, a wife beater, and even a newspaperman, but if a man doesn't drive, there is something wrong with him."
-Art Buchwald
Read the whole essay
For the record, IBM will probably end up using the money to build overseas manufacturing plants. Since most of these companies are doing most of there manufacturing overseas already anyways. These aren't American companies, they are international corporations. If any of the money finds its way back to the American Economy, it will be a lot less and alot slower than if the money was simply given back to the people in the form of a lovely check (50 billion dollars split 300 million ways isn't so bad, thats like 150 dollars per person).
please reread the part about burying the $1 in a jar behind the factory.
If you don't want to support 'evil' purveyors of $20 music cds, don't buy them.
Don't support your adversary.
The profits that the corporations keep will be in the form of some liquid asset or used to invest in new capital equipment. Both of these equal more jobs and thus economic stimulation.
It's easy to remember that a $1 at a bank is helping someone else get a loan of some sort which means that that someone is building/buying something which means economic stimulation.
!
I've got to say I'm not as upset about this as I was at the prospect of National Registration... if they were trying to soften the blow to Civil Libertarians, they did a good job, I'm a card-carrying member of the ACLU. ;)
I don't fear the government having a decent, reliable database of a limited amount of citizen info (Want to buck the system? Try not paying your taxes or not collecting a paycheck!), I'm far more worried about private companies getting access to personal data and exploiting or spreading it to make a buck.
Enough of my ramblings... I'm just happy the Fed isn't going to pay Larry off for his overpriced (but generally high-quality) database system.
People shape laws. Not the other way around.
Thus, I would propose the "National ID Plaque", something about the size and thickness (for durability) of a magazine, bearing a good-sized portrait on one side and blown-up thumbprint image on the other, with the bearer's name and one of those anti-tamper holograms embossed into either (or both).
The fact that the plaque would be too much of a PITA to carry around would prevent the sort of mission creep that linked the Social Security number (which was originally supposed to be presented to an employer when taking a new job, and used for no other purpose) to everything in sight. As an additional precaution, it would include no encoded information of any sort (this also insures that zapping it in a microwave, putting it under a magnet, etc, won't damage it).
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
So if you've only got a license for a scooter or a moped does that make you a second class citizen.
If conscription were to start what are the bets that the majority of groundtroops and frontline operatives will be the moped owners.
:)
In a limited sense. But not in the way most people think of. A friend of mine has 5 DUI's/DWI's (depending on the state) in 4 different states. The last DUI he got in IL showed the one from AZ but not the 2 in CT or the one on FL. That was the only one to see any of the others. Obviously, problems like this will no longer be possible.
If a child molester is convicted and registered in one state, and moves to another, his/her new neighborhood is going to know (can't decide if this is 100% good or not).
When some underage guy/girl goes to buy some liquor and the shop requires their card to be scanned, it should be obvious if it is a fake.
One major problem with all of this: people steal the machinery and the software involved from the state to make and sell fake "real" id's.
In the end, I do not think this will hinder any major criminals who are "well connected" from doing the things that they want to do without the government knowing who they are.
perhaps this explains why NJ is one of the terrorist's favorite launching grounds
on the part of slashdot...
Not everyone has or even can have a driver's license, so it obviously cannot be a national ID.
Linking the databases is a significant step, but it sure as hell is not a national ID.
Here in California the list of people eligible for jury duty are drawn from the drivers license and state ID databases, as well as the voter registration. In the past it was just voter registration (the theory being only a citizen is registered to vote and only citizens can be on a jury). The problem was that people weren't registering to vote because they didn't want to go to jury duty.
Well, that's been fixed and now the DMV databases are used as well... but now non-citizens are often asked to come in for jury duty (if you're called you can write a letter stating you're not a citizen and you're excused -- just make sure you tell them you're not a citizen otherwise you'll just create problems for yourself).
So a friend of mine (who is a citizen) is the kind of person who doesn't want to go to jury duty so he is not registered to vote and does not have any form of state-sponsored ID... no driver's license or ID card.
My understanding is that is 100% illegal, because once you turn 18 you are supposed to have some sort of valid ID. And let me tell you he doesn't carry his passport around with him.
That the terrorists presented valid ID's when the boarded the airplanes. So while this initiative may help spot fakes it wouldn't have actually 'caught' them.
That's not an adjective, it's a name.
... gah.
At least according to the 1½ L Coca-Cola bottle I'm looking at right now - it simple states:
Coca-Cola
Registered Trademark.
But what the hell - I'm prolly just tired or something - it's 02:31 AM, and I'm supposed to go to work at 08:00 AM
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
Hate to break it to you, but the current traffic laws are all about $$$. Plain and simple. You lock up a repeat offender like that, he COSTS you money. You leave him out on the street to do little minor infractions, and he MAKES you money, in the way of fines, etc.
The previous has been a secret message to my comrades.
At present, the only States that require an SSN for a driver's license are:
Illinois
Iowa
Kentucky
Mississippi
Pennsylvania
West Virginia
All other States do not require an SSN, but will usually ask for one. If an alien does not qualify for an SSN, usually a statement from the Social Security Administration indicating the alien is not eligible will suffice. Source: link
That is right.
The cops can arrest you for ANYTHING they want. Those cops are definitely on some kind of power trip, though.
But it is not necessarily against the law not to have an ID.
I beg to differ, and so do the courts:
Quoted from: http://www.ptialaska.net/~swampy/interest/travel_
You *don't* need a Driver's License (permision) to travel upon the highway, ONLY IF you are are engaged in commerce.
All German citizens are required to have a national ID card. The card is about the same size as a passport (see below for why). It has a photo, place of birth, ID number (which is not the Social Security number -- since the national ID has its own number, there is no need for using the pension fund number for everything as in the US), physical description and city/state of current residency.
The ID card also is used in the German passport (which is why the size is what it is), thus killing two birds with one stone.
The card must be renewed every few years, with a new photo and so on; any time you move, you must also get a new card or have the current one updated with the new place of residency. You have to show proof of residency -- a rental contract, a lease or a deed for land, for example. (Foreigners have to do a lot more -- proof of right to work, proof of employment or place of study, proof of income, statement of renouncing of rights to social services, no prior criminal record, in some cases an affidavit from a German sponsor, etc.)
The thing is, the whole infrastructure of making this work is missing in the US. Not only is there a lack of legislation regulating the use and defining abuse of the ID card (privacy is actually strictly protected in Germany, at least against private individuals), but a lack of people to manage that information.
Every German city and county (Landkreis or Gemeinde) has a residency office, or Einwohnermeldeamt, where all residents (citizens and foreigners) are required to register (and unregister if you move), along with showing documentation for previous places of residency, next of kin and so on. It is a serious offense to lie on any of those forms or to have a false ID; it is a minor offense to not carry an ID at all times (driver's license doesn't count).
Because the national ID is not directly linked to the retirement system (or anything else), there is a greatly reduced danger of identity theft WRT the pension or health insurance system. (Cashing checks almost never happens in Germany -- checks are rarely used -- and for an ID at the bank, you use your bank card anyway.)
The information stored is decentralized -- meaning, while the authorities can quickly access it if need be, it's not all in one spot waiting to be abused; and no one but the government and the inidividual may access that individual's information. Anyone caught trying to misuse or hand over that information to third parties is in deep doo-doo.
What I want to know is, why not have such a system in the States, rather than this half-arsed idea with driver's licenses? As many have pointed out already, it's vastly open to abuse or chaos and won't do a thing to identify people out-of-state...
Anyway...
Cheers,
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
At my company we have a card printer that we use to make ID badges with. These badges have antenna that work like the alarms on meat at the grocery store or CDs, so when we approach the door, it unlocks. To get in the server room, you swipe your badge and it reads a magnetic strip. For the hourly employees they scan a barcode to clock in/out. We only have the barcoding and magnetic striping options in ours, but there are expansions available for holographic watermarking, 3D barcoding and even embedded smart-chip programming. If they can mass produce them, someone can (and will) forge them. I DO NOT think this is a solution.
"Da ist ein Technölüst in mein Unterpanten!"
The reason why I don't have anything like that and why identity theft is rampant is because people keep fighting it, under the misguided notion that it increases privacy. Fighting a national ID card doesn't increase privacy, it decreases it, because people still need to identify themselves, but there is no secure or legally protected way of doing that.
Fight for a secure national ID card and fight for legislation that limits how it can be used. That is much more valuable to your and my privacy than what you propose.
It's required for both federal and state tax returns, for military registration, and dozens of financial and legal documents.
If national IDs are so imporatant why not just tattoo a number on everyone's arm? Too much like Facism? Doh!
Are retinal scans safe? I'm not sure I want my eyeballs probed. Taking a fingerprint impression, while I have privacy issues with that, is much preferable.
Welcome to America, where you're innocent of a crime until proven guilty, but all I have to do is say you owe me money and the burden of proof is on you to prove you don't and get it erased from your credit report.
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
Is Tiger Woods good enough for ya?
1984 will be a story about how the animal of the old world can resurface in the best of us, so beware and watch for suspicious signs.
Hey buddy. The sad fact is that you need travel papers to travel in Israel and the occupied territories just like you would have needed them in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. Call me a Palestinian sympathizer all you like, but you cannot deny the fact of the need for people to show their papers in Israel, former Nazi Germany, and former Soviet Union. It does tend to be the hallmark of oppressive regime's.
Your papers seem to be in order... move along.
-
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Are they going to also try to take further steps on locking down a more theft-proof design for these cards? I mean even in Cali the changes to the licenses only have pushed up the cost of illegal copies that look exactly the same. It's fairly easy to make your own identity and I'm just curious as to what thought was put into this to make it a secure system.
( o ) one could say I'm rather baked
"subhumans" Spoken like a true adherent to the precepts of racial superiority. You'd make an SS officer proud.
-
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
I get it know!! The government is competing with Microsoft on how much "Control" over people they have. Next thing you know we will all turn into Robots.
It turns out that the KKK motto is "Non Silba Sed Anthar" (not for self, but for others.)
.sig
So I will keep my
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
But that's the kicker. Genetically, there is no discernible differnce with these people (with the possible exception of some superficial stuff, skin color or whatever). They choose, note that word, CHOOSE, to be as they are. That is, they are subhuman by act, by deed, by choice. Besides, aren't you supposed to be arguing the holocaust was a fraud, pro-zionist propaganda to earn them undeserved sympathy?
Naah, it could easily happen "accidentally", some of us have had credit cards that stopped being magnetically readable.
Mod my comments down. It'll be fun.
Nah, let 'em pick and choose. But if they withhold any funding from a state, then residents in that state, don't have to pay any federal taxes.
Get rid of ugly words like "succession" and call it something nice like "opt out."
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Will you idiots please stop saying "civil liberertarians". Have you ever met a "civil libertarian" in your life or seen one talking on TV. NO!.
Your just playing into mainstream medias ploy to discredit Libertarians and people who "oh no" actually think freedom is a good thing.
ROTFLMAO!!!
That is SO true!!!
Rough being a radical centrist here, I tell ya...
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Not being able to get into somewhere in another state seems trivial until it actually happens. I drove over four hours with some friends to catch a concert in Chicago last spring, and we were turned away at the door after they decided they didn't trust our drivers licenses.
Supposedly some people had come to the same place two weeks before with Iowa licenses and they turned out to be fake. It didn't help that my license looked slightly different than that of my friend's, since we got them on different years and the design had been changed. We even stuck around another half hour for the officer on duty who was going to be around, but he didn't feel it was worth the effort to actually check into the matter.
Four hours driving there, four hours back. I would have appreciated some sort of standard license.
You got points on your license for being pulled over?
Try a little more honesty in your communication from now on.
I don't think so...
Please take note of a several subtle differences among your 3 examples. While the Nazis and the soviets thought nothing of massive genocides to deal with people they didn't care for, Israel has never once done anything to suggest that it has even crossed their minds. And if you were honest, you'd admit that genociding the palestinians would be the only thing that would stop their terrorism. (Note: Not that it is a solution, mind you. Worded a more diplomatic way, I'd say that the palestinians won't stop until the last of them is dead). Right there, it says to me, that even if they can be a bit heavy-handed sometimes, the Israelis are a bit more enlightened, and that it's unfair to lump them in with the villains that you have.
Another thing I've noticed is this. If a palestinian "freedom fighter" blows up a bus full of civilians, every single death he causes is considered a victory to be celebrated. Civilian, women, children, infants... it doesn't matter. Even with a twisted sense of justice, real men would only ever attack soldiers, or the politicians that command them. That's fighting your enemy, the palestinians are only capable of cowardice. Now, look at the Israeli side of the equation. When they kill palestinians, they specifically target those who commit these acts of terrorism. And sure, quite often it seems that palestinian civilians die too. The Israeli goverment expresses regret, and offers compensation. While not perfect by any definition (they are only human, after all) they seem to make the effort.
Then, why don't we dig up some pseudo-cultural-religious stuff. On the one hand, nearly all (arab) muslims quite obviously actively hate jews. Hate people they've never met, that have never done them any personal harm. I can't quite figure out if this is a hatred mandated by Islam or not (religious or cultural). Certainly the leading clerics say as much, so does that count? Do Israelis hate palestinians? I'm sure they do. But the rabi's don't go around telling them that it's their religious duty. Bessides, it's tough to warm up to someone from a different culture, when you can never be sure if he has 20 pounds of dynamite under his clothes. Now, as far as jews go, my understanding is that their religion is very different from this. Among other things, it says that you don't have to be a jew, to "get to heaven" for lack of a better way to word it. Judaism, it would seem, is a duty to adhere to an extended set of rules, and if you don't commit to those extra rules, you'll do just fine if you live by the basic ones (and though I don't remember those exactly, they are things like "don't commit murder" and the like). What's so important about all this? Well, while I'm no rabi, my non-jewish interpretation is that as far as they're concerned, muslims have a right to exist. More so than that, jews would never try to convert them (something that I find particularly cool about their religion). Funny, that certain Islamic schools teach arabs that it's their religious duty to kill jews. And if somehow they weren't that way, then I'm sure they'd be busy trying to bribe them into converting to Islam, like they do us atheists and christians.
You see, I look at the Israelis, and see a people that have been through alot of shit the last few centuries. And I see them being given this crappy little piece of desert that isn't fit for camels, and within 50 or so years, turning it into a military and economic power. And then I look at the arabs, and I see a people that for many centuries were the leading scientists of this world. Explorers, travelers, traders. While europeans were living in the dark ages. And for whatever reason, they threw it all away. And their tolerance for other religions (jews and christians, even hindus I believe, were welcome visitors, even citizens). And however their intolerance crept into the mainstream, I dunno. And now, in the last few decades, they seem intent on nothing but destruction.
You tell me, is there a single thing the Israeli goverment could do, that would change anything? Offer more land, more economic aid, more whatever? Or would the palestinians grab whatever was offered, slink back to their slums, and try to figure out how to use the "whatever" to go kill more jews? Look at it from the other side, though. If the palestinians started acting like civilized human beings, would it not lead to better conditions, at least in the long run? If there were no terrorist incidents for 12 months, the israeli goverment would be forced to ease up a bit. And the longer it lasted, the more easing up that would happen. The ball is in the palestinian court.
A national ID will just be another ID for people to steal. What makes you think the post office is going to detect fraud any better than a national bank? You delude yourself to think any kind of computer program can take the place of personal service.
Get to know the people you trust your money to. If you want to know your banker, go visit him! Open an account at some nice stable local bank and get to know someone there. If you want to be sure of ticket purchasing, get to know a travel agent. The local banker can offer you the same account and credit card insurnce that the national bank does but he might know your spending habits better than a computer program. Sure, it costs more but there's a trade off to everything isn't there? As a society, we get what we demand.
Identity theft is rampant because big institutions are irresponsible with their lending. The same fool that thought automatic executions of email attachments thought it would be a good idea to offer credit cards by mail. It just screams, screw me and everyone else, I don't care so long as I'm raking in the cash.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Since someone already asked about being required to have a driver's license, I won't ask again, I'll just waist your time mentioning it :D.
On a more relevant note, I thought that at least 48 of the 50 states had linked databases already. At least that's the impression I got from driver's ed 4 years ago. Will this just be the fed taking advantage of that database (as if it hadn't already), and forcing the last two states to join? Or is this just a fiction in my head?
BlackGriffen
The 9th Amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people" is one such reassurance. All it's saying is "don't worry if you don't see one of your rights explicitly spelled out in the Constitution - just because it isn't in there doesn't mean that the Constitution gets rid of it."
The 9th Amendment has been brought up as an argument for the right to privacy, but to my knowledge a court has never accepted that argument. However, the Supreme Court has said that a right to privacy does exist as an implication of some of the other amendments (specifically in the Due Process clause of the 14th amendment.)
The 10th Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people" is another amendment that you could say doesn't really do much. The authoritative word on the matter was set down by none other than John Marshall (who is probably most famous for articulating the theory of judicial review in Marbury vs. Madison). In Marshall's decision of McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) he said two things - 1) the people who wrote the amendment didn't mean for it to limit the powers of the Federal government because they wrote it to read "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution..." instead of "The powers not [explicitly] delegated to the United States by the Constitution...". It might seem somewhat absurd to parse the sentence so much, but for the most part members of the First Congress, which submitted the amendment in the first place, agreed that the court was interpreting their intent correctly. 2)Marshall pointed out that any document that explicitly enumerated every power of government would be too large, convoluted, and cumbersome a document to even be understood. Remember, we have the Constitution was written by a group of men who considered the Confederation too weak to fix.
What may be confusing, though, is that the history of the 10th Amendment isn't as simple as that. Even though the authoritative decision was made in 1819 the Courts would occasionally use the 10th Amendment to curtail the powers of the federal government. It's generally accepted that the court wasn't doing this because it had stumbled upon a more correct interpretation of the Constitution (after all, James Madison himself agreed with Marshall, and he wrote the Bill of Rights, so he should know!) No, the Court was curtailing Congress's power for political reasons, specifically the fact that most members of the court believed in laszie faire economics. The fact that the Court tried to cut the legs out from under Congress is a great example of the way the 3 branches fight amongst each other, and the reason we need checks and balances. Anyway, speaking of checks and balances, the practice of using the 10th Amendment to cripple Congress came to an end when FDR enacted all those government programs that he's so famous for. Think about it, the Depression era programs have to be the greatest expansion of Federal powers in our history - how was he able to get it past a Court that wanted explicitly wanted a weak federal government. In 1937 FDR checked the power of the Supreme Court by threatening to expand the Supreme Court and to add members who would give him the results he wanted. It's an amazingly dirty tactic, but it did restore the interpretation that is regarded to be the correct interpretation. This interpretation was reiterated by the 1941 case United States v. Darby.
So, what was the point of the 10th Amendment? Just like the 9th amendment it was a statement intended to reassure the people, but not to alter the functioning of the Constitution - it was simply a statement of a truism.
I have to admit though, that the argument isn't 100% dead. Why? Because in 1995 the conservatives of the Supreme Court (the same political types that were invoking the 10th Amendment before FDR) invoked the 10th Amendment again (US vs Lopez) - now, so far this seems to be a fairly limited ruling (because it hasn't affected any laws outside of the original law yet), but it may be that politically inspired use of the 10th Amendment is coming back in vogue. (Mostly depends on if more conservatives get added to the court, the decision to invoke the 10th was one of those 5-4 affairs.)
So, in summary, there's a chance that the Supreme Court would agree with you as far as the 10th Amendment goes, but 1)I doubt they would be correct in so agreeing, and 2)cynically speaking they probably won't do that to a law enacted in this environment by a Republican President. For better arguments than mine, I suggest reading the remarks of the Justices for the cases I've mentioned.
IANAL, but I was a history major.
Yes your honour, the defendant chose to copyright a name and address that coincided with a name and address we had already trademarked in our national ID database. We'd like to restitution by transferring them to our subsidiary which is a radium mine near Vladivostok...
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
It's all about
If you're going to call for an overthrow of the system, at least don't be laughed at for your words as they drag you away.
The more and more I search, the more it looks like at least in VA, this could be somewhat illegal.
The Virginia ID card and drivers license form state:
The information provided on this application is for DMV's record-keeping purposes and may be disseminated in accordance with 46.2-345.
46.2-345 states:
G. Any personal information, as identified in 2.2-3801, which is retained by the Department from an application for the issuance of a special identification card is confidential and shall not be divulged to any person, association, corporation, or organization, public or private, except to the legal guardian or the attorney of the applicant or to a person, association, corporation, or organization nominated in writing by the applicant, his legal guardian, or his attorney. This subsection shall not prevent the Department from furnishing the application or any information thereon to any law-enforcement agency.
The Department of Transportation is NOT considered a law enforcement agency, is it?. I'm sure this can seen differently by others.
If your VA license number is your SSN, it probably violates other information reporting laws also.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
SSN cards aren't proof of citizenship since anyone who works in this country (with a few exceptions) is required to pay into the system, pay Federal income taxes, etc.
This doesn't affect tourists or students, who are legally prohibited from working, but it does affect resident aliens.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Why would they ask something as stupid as weight?
For many that vacillates wildly.
Where do you get these stupid ideas?
I love my DL number, had it changed to Pi. Hope they won't make me change it!!!
Car rentals?
Plane tickets?
Hmmm, looks like "movement" is one of their worries, one of the things they feel the need to track.
Make you wonder WHY that is, eh?
You have a right to travel. That is to say, you can walk. (Hey, how do you think the early settlers in California got there?) You can take a taxi. Hop on the bus. Bum a ride from a friend. Stick out your thumb where permitted.
You even have the right to drive your car around your own property in whatever manner you want, including blind drunk, as long as you don't cross onto public property, other's property, or recklessly endanger others.
What you don't have is the *right* to hop into the left seat of that 747 and fly it to Vegas yourself, not even if you're a qualified pilot. You don't have the right to drive the bus. Or your SUV, or even (in some areas) ride a bike on the city streets if 1) you haven't demonstrated your basic proficiency and 2) you haven't demonstrated your ability to avoid being a threat to others.
I do NOT like the idea of turning a DL into a "good citizenship award, e.g., revoking the license if someone is behind on child support payments. This is not directly related to public safety and should be uncoupled.
But at the same time, I support mandatory prison time for anyone caught driving while their license is suspended for being a hazard to others. Hell, give people life sentences without parole for their second DUI resulting in death. When I hear about some Bubba with 16 DUI convictions, including 5 resulting in deaths, I start thinking about death penalties... for the government officials who let this idiot back on the road. I doubt they would be equally sanguine about someone who just punched strangers at random even when on parole for earlier assaults.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
So you couldn't be further from the truth, what you describe is very illegal.
Doesn't the law say that your SSN is NOT supposed to be used as ID or for any other purpose except for tax purposes? Nobody seems to pay attention to that one...
Here, ODOT decided that it would be irresponsible to use the federal money to widen the FEDERAL freeways in portland. They said they should levy local money for that. They decided it would be wiser to use the money to rennovate local city streets and build a city park, and add bike paths and such... WHAT THE FSCK?!!!
heh. check out Maureen Dowd's column in NYT yesterday regarding CNN's promotion of Paula Zahn.
Not innocent until proven guilty anymore I'm afraid. My little brother was arrested, thrown in prison for a weekend, and now has to go to "therepy" where doctor patient confidentiality has been thown out the window because the state needs to know, "why he did it, and if if he'll do it again."
He has yet to go to trial, where is his innocence before proof of guilt?
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
"Please take note of a several subtle differences among your 3 examples. While the Nazis and the soviets thought nothing of massive genocides to deal with people they didn't care for, Israel has never once done anything to suggest that it has even crossed their minds."
The history of Israel and the Hebrews in the Christian bible well document actions of genocide, war crimes, and the enslavement of others by the Israeli's.
"And if you were honest, you'd admit that genociding the palestinians would be the only thing that would stop their terrorism. (Note: Not that it is a solution, mind you. Worded a more diplomatic way, I'd say that the palestinians won't stop until the last of them is dead)."
Only a sick and demented mind would even consider genocide to be a possible solution, and even sicker to phrase it more 'diplomatically' as you did.
"Right there, it says to me, that even if they can be a bit heavy-handed sometimes, the Israelis are a bit more enlightened, and that it's unfair to lump them in with the villains that you have."
The only reason they don't do it is because they know the world will wipe Israel off the face of the planet if they did. As I stated earlier, their villainy is well documented, and I'd go so far as to say that it's embedded in their socio-religious view of the world and their view that non-Jews are animals.
"Another thing I've noticed is this. If a palestinian "freedom fighter" blows up a bus full of civilians, every single death he causes is considered a victory to be celebrated. Civilian, women, children, infants... it doesn't matter. Even with a twisted sense of justice, real men would only ever attack soldiers, or the politicians that command them."
The Jewish resistance in Nazi Germany attacked civilian as well as military and political targets with no regard as to any innocent bystanders such as children and other non-combatants. Of course, I expect you to try to point out some difference, but fighting the oppressor wheather it be a Nazi in jackboots or and Israeli in jackboots will always be a dirty business since the oppressors prefer to mix themselves with the general populace.
"That's fighting your enemy, the palestinians are only capable of cowardice."
Fighting an oppressor is never cowardice.
"Now, look at the Israeli side of the equation. When they kill palestinians, they specifically target those who commit these acts of terrorism."
I won't call that an outright falsehood, but , rather, a lie of omission. They enact group punishment such as destroying homes and orchards. A hallmark of the oppressor.
"And sure, quite often it seems that palestinian civilians die too. The Israeli goverment expresses regret, and offers compensation. While not perfect by any definition (they are only human, after all) they seem to make the effort."
Sure, I guess they all look at each other and say "Oopsie!" If the Israeli government truly regret civilian killings it would do more to reign in it's troops, which it chooses conciously to not do.
"Then, why don't we dig up some pseudo-cultural-religious stuff. On the one hand, nearly all (arab) muslims quite obviously actively hate jews. Hate people they've never met, that have never done them any personal harm. I can't quite figure out if this is a hatred mandated by Islam or not (religious or cultural). Certainly the leading clerics say as much, so does that count?"
Given the history of the region; I do not find their hatred all that puzzling.
"Do Israelis hate palestinians? I'm sure they do. But the rabi's don't go around telling them that it's their religious duty."
No, they tell people that the land was given to them by god, and it's their duty to push the goyim off of that land.
"Bessides, it's tough to warm up to someone from a different culture, when you can never be sure if he has 20 pounds of dynamite under his clothes."
Or if he's got a boot on your neck at a checkpoint.
"Now, as far as jews go, my understanding is that their religion is very different from this. Among other things, it says that you don't have to be a jew, to "get to heaven" for lack of a better way to word it. Judaism, it would seem, is a duty to adhere to an extended set of rules, and if you don't commit to those extra rules, you'll do just fine if you live by the basic ones (and though I don't remember those exactly, they are things like "don't commit murder" and the like). What's so important about all this? Well, while I'm no rabi, my non-jewish interpretation is that as far as they're concerned, muslims have a right to exist. More so than that, jews would never try to convert them (something that I find particularly cool about their religion)."
The religion teaches that all non-Jews are no better than animals, and can be treated as such. Under their religious law the only persons with any rights are Jews, and only they are considered to be fully human.
"Funny, that certain Islamic schools teach arabs that it's their religious duty to kill jews."
I don't find it funny at all.
"And if somehow they weren't that way, then I'm sure they'd be busy trying to bribe them into converting to Islam, like they do us atheists and christians. "
Nobody's ever offered me so much as a dime, nor have I so much as heard of a rumor of the practice untill now.
"You see, I look at the Israelis, and see a people that have been through alot of shit the last few centuries."
Absolutely, through a lot of shit in different countries and cultures. Who do you think is the common denominator there?
"And I see them being given this crappy little piece of desert that isn't fit for camels"
They wanted it, Britain gave it to them, and the UN mandated the creation.
"and within 50 or so years, turning it into a military and economic power."
ONLY with the help of Britain and the United States.
"And then I look at the arabs, and I see a people that for many centuries were the leading scientists of this world. Explorers, travelers, traders. While europeans were living in the dark ages. And for whatever reason, they threw it all away."
This was brought about by several factors of invasion of which the Crusades is one. The decline started when they had to constantly (in historical timescale) defend themselves from foreign invaders and live under occupied rule.
"And their tolerance for other religions (jews and christians, even hindus I believe, were welcome visitors, even citizens). And however their intolerance crept into the mainstream, I dunno. And now, in the last few decades, they seem intent on nothing but destruction."
This is a factor of the decline as I stated immediately above. The radical religious elements took the advantage and gotten more than a foothold in the region.
"You tell me, is there a single thing the Israeli goverment could do, that would change anything? Offer more land, more economic aid, more whatever? Or would the palestinians grab whatever was offered, slink back to their slums, and try to figure out how to use the "whatever" to go kill more jews? Look at it from the other side, though. If the palestinians started acting like civilized human beings, would it not lead to better conditions, at least in the long run? If there were no terrorist incidents for 12 months, the israeli goverment would be forced to ease up a bit. And the longer it lasted, the more easing up that would happen. The ball is in the palestinian court."
As far as I'm concerned the ball is in both their courts. Both sides need to immediately crack down hard on the radical elements. In the case of the Palestinians that would be the underground paramilitary organizations and their leaders. On the Israeli side that would be the zealots in the settlements. No need for a 12 month wait. That would only give time for them both to find more reasons to continue fighting. It would also help if Sharon and the other criminals in the Israli government would stop destroying Palestinian infrastructure and the ability of the Palestinian Authority to police it's people.
Neither side is the peace loving people that they try to paint themselves to be. Both sides have criminals in their governments and military organizations that simply want to kill the other side. The best solution would be for the UN to crack down on both sides, and the sooner the better. The only way to stop the fighting is for someone to come in with a big stick and start knocking heads.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
The holocaust happened, but it happened not only to Jews, it happened to Gypsies, Germans, Pols, Czeks, gays, the mentally handicapped, the physically deformed, and a great many others.
Those that survived the holocaust are the ones that deserve sympany wheather the survivor was a Jew or not, but to hear it only the Jews where the victims there. I will say, and believe that the holocaust was hijacked for propaganda purposes which in my view is as tasteless as the original deed.
-
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
This is the norm up here in Canada. Everywhere you go, your driver's license is the first choice for ID, whether you're applying for a loan, renting a hotel room or just picking up some registered mail.
The main reason why it is used is because it has an imprinted photograph and is rather strictly controlled by the government. It makes it easy to track down someone 'on the run' since it is linked to auto registration data and all your vitals, and people will tend to keep their address and phone number up to date, because that info is cross-checked with other databases and any discrepancies can quickly result in a revoked permit. It is good enough to deter small-time crooks, and secure enough to make it a pain for big crooks to forge.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
You father likes it.
For those of you who don't see why this is bad, consider how much fun it would be to have yourself locked out of the economy for having dissident political views. --Or for failing to pay a traffic ticket. You only get to buy bread if you heartily agree that Arabs are evil. Mm. Fun!
Being able to accurately trace & identify any individual, (National I.D. cards), and the on-going movement towards a virtual money society, (debit & credit cards: note the effects of the Euro introduction, where citizens are being strongly encouraged by authorities to avoid 'confusion' with the new cash by relying only on plastic money), will make it MUCH easier to control the populace.
Anybody who thinks that any aspect of this is a good thing should remove from their ears and eyes the filters which only allow in the 'Very Reasonable Sounding' B.S. arguments as supplied by the U.S. propaganda departments, and take a good, hard look around.
9/11 was almost certainly manufactured, and even if it wasn't, it is being exploited to the hilt. Turn off CNN, (propaganda), grow a spine, (ignore the accusations by the popular kids of 'tin-foil hatters'; Time to grow up, ignore the Gap wearing sheep and their desperate to be accepted
If you are critical enough, (of words from BOTH sides of the fence; Very important), intelligent enough, -and if you work for long enough to get a solid feel for all the available information, then you will begin to see another reality rise from the fog.
Otherwise, you might as well just accept a nice ear-tag.
Remember: Sheep get tagged & numbered. They also get fleeced. And eaten.
Some links to get started:
A brief, but solid essay on the nature & mechanics of propaganda, with examples from the U.S. during WWI to present. A 7 minute read, approx.
An article about Gulf War propaganda, outlining how the 'Babies Torn from Incubators by Iraqi Soldiers' was manufactured and used by Bush to instill war fever. 2 minute read.
Article on how IBM made a fortune during WWII by covertly supplying Hitler with the punch card technology used to process Jews for termination -Throws an interesting light upon national identification tracking systems.
7 minute read including excerpt.
Significant anomalies regarding the flight lists of the planes used in the terror attacks. 5 minute read, (10, including searches of the passenger lists to verify the writer's sources)
Empty but maintained concentration camps in the U.S. This link is half sensationalist, alarmist B.S.. Read with caution. Although it is worth noting that FEMA and the Rex 80 programs are real; the laws can be found on-line. Food for thought.
Okay. That's enough for now. Read. Think. And don't waste my time with dip-shit flames unless you've actually read this stuff. Flames are usually a waste of time with me, but if you have legit questions or criticisms, I'm always happy to respond and/or update my own knowledge base. Growing and learning is fun!
Good luck.
-Fantastic Lad
For those of you who don't see why this is bad, consider how much fun it would be to have yourself locked out of the economy for having dissident political views. --Or for failing to pay a traffic ticket. You only get to buy bread if you heartily agree that Arabs are evil. Mm. Fun!
Being able to accurately trace & identify any individual, (National I.D. cards), and the on-going movement towards a virtual money society, (debit & credit cards: note the effects of the Euro introduction, where citizens are being strongly encouraged by authorities to avoid 'confusion' with the new cash by relying only on plastic money), will make it MUCH easier to control the populace.
Anybody who thinks that any aspect of this is a good thing should remove from their ears and eyes the filters which only allow in the 'Very Reasonable Sounding' B.S. arguments as supplied by the U.S. propaganda departments, and take a good, hard look around.
9/11 was almost certainly manufactured, and even if it wasn't, it is being exploited to the hilt. Turn off CNN, (propaganda), grow a spine, (ignore the accusations by the popular kids of 'tin-foil hatters'; Time to grow up, ignore the Gap wearing sheep and their desperate to be accepted
If you are critical enough, (of words from BOTH sides of the fence; Very important), intelligent enough, -and if you work for long enough to get a solid feel for all the available information, then you will begin to see another reality rise from the fog.
Otherwise, you might as well just accept a nice ear-tag.
Remember: Sheep get tagged & numbered. They also get fleeced. And eaten.
Some links to get started:
A brief, but solid essay on the nature & mechanics of propaganda, with examples from the U.S. during WWI to present. A 7 minute read, approx.
An article about Gulf War propaganda, outlining how the 'Babies Torn from Incubators by Iraqi Soldiers' was manufactured and used by Bush to instill war fever. 2 minute read.
Article on how IBM made a fortune during WWII by covertly supplying Hitler with the punch card technology used to process Jews for termination -Throws an interesting light upon national identification tracking systems.
7 minute read including excerpt.
Significant anomalies regarding the flight lists of the planes used in the terror attacks. 5 minute read, (10, including searches of the passenger lists to verify the writer's sources)
Empty but maintained concentration camps in the U.S. This link is half sensationalist, alarmist B.S.. Read with caution. Although it is worth noting that FEMA and the Rex 80 programs are real; the laws can be found on-line. Food for thought.
Okay. That's enough for now. Read. Think. And don't waste my time with dip-shit flames unless you've actually read this stuff. Flames are usually a waste of time with me, but if you have legit questions or criticisms, I'm always happy to respond and/or update my own knowledge base. Growing and learning is fun!
Good luck.
-Fantastic Lad
I don't have a "choice" about supporting my adversary. The president has already decided to give them a billions of dollars. These are not banks that lend money. These are companies that seek only to make it.
I don't see how Genearl Motors building yet another plant in mexico to produce car parts for 2 dollars an hour is going to help the American economy. I'm not saying that NONE of this money will end up somehow filtering into the economy, just that MOST of it will not.
Own a credit card? How about a driver's license? A checking account? If you answered yes to any of these, you have already sacrificed a significant amount of your privacy for the sake of convenience.
None of these things are mandatory. You don't have to get a credit card and no one is holding a gun to your head making you drive. Any (and especially all) of those 3 things gives the state an enormous amount of information. They know where you get your money from, what you spend it on, probably where you live, what kind of car you drive, where you got this car, what you do with it, and can practically learn everything about you without ever meeting you in person.
So, why do we do it? Simple. Try to survive without a credit card. Pretty doable, but it rules out most e-commerce, and makes staying at hotels pretty difficult. No driver's license? Sure, but if you don't live in a city, you're probably fucked without a car.
No checking account? You're going to have to go far out of your way just to perform basic life functions. You expose yourself to great personal risk by mailing cash (and many companies will flat out refuse it). You have to get money orders for everything, and you could never accept money orders because cashing them requires ID. You'll probably fail most credit checks (which are done for everything nowadays; mobile phones, apartment leases, etc)
Beginning to see a trend? To function in society, you need to have some degree of accountability. You forfeit quite a lot of your freedom just so you can function. It's no coincidence that many ultra-privacy/paranoid people are drifters.
Being unknown is entirely your right, but fat lotta good it'll do you. A National ID card is entirely voluntary, so if you want the convenience of speedy airport checkout, you'll do it. And if not, no biggie. Get on the other line.
Most of the european countries like Portugal, have national id cards, for centuries !!
So what's the big deal ? The state has an id with your information. They already have that in your SS#, in your driver's licence, in your insurance,
in your bank account, and so on.
Face it, nowadays the governments have tons of information about their citzens, like it or not.
I don't like the idea of putting a collar around my neck and a leash into the hand of big brother any more than the next person, and the current course of events appears to be doing just that. There's freedom in anonymity and my snap emotional response is to say "to hell with it, I have a right to privacy". But, if we don't come up with any alternate solutions, the solutions on the table right now will most likely fill that vacuum, and we'll proceed down the "slippery slope".
This country has become extremely effective at defending itself from overt, frontal, military attacks, but remains unable to defend itself from infiltration, which can come to terrifying ends as we witnessed on 9/11.
This is the single strongest argument for the tightening of the information net, and if no alternate solution becomes evident, those lobbying for their own solutions will most certainly have their way.
oh wait, no one is listening. I wonder if these national id cards come with karma points.
In London you simply have to be able to answer yes to one of these two questions:
and look at least 15 years old.
But of course you can be banned for fighting, or dealing drugs on someone else's turf :-)
Uhm, ok, excuse me... by whom was 9/11 manufactured? Before someone really starts to argue with you, I'm just curious what exactly that meant.
--
RumorsDaily
You've missed the point. There's a huge difference in being assigned a Social Security number vs. being required to present an ID card for entrance into public venues and to travel on airplanes and other public services.
I don't mind carrying a license or a social security card, but I do mind being forced to present my "National ID Card" at every traffic stop or stadium event I frequent or for every purchase I make that requires authorization.
...a Drivers license national ID because the Drivers license has nothing to do with the SSN. That way CorpGovMedia can keep all those illegal aliens quasi-slaves working and thereby keep all those wages low and also keep all those rents high. CorpGovMedia just wants more livestock on its ranch named America....
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
Here are the thoughts of security guru Bruce Schneier (of "Applied Cryptography" and "Secrets and Lies" fame) about national ID cards.
Definitely worth a read.
His conclusion:
"I am not saying that national IDs are completely ineffective, or that they are useless. That's not the question. But given the effectiveness and the costs, are IDs worth it? Hell, no."
Raymond
"There are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare." - Blair Houghton
Where is *East* Germany?
Here is a discussion of smart card security by cryptographer & computer security expert Bruce Schneier. It's pretty hard reading, but the main point is that, by depending on an external keypad and display, the smart cards allow a lot of new security breaks. For example, a hacked ATM terminal may steal your PIN and also divert the money -- the screen says your deposit is going to your account, but actually it's going to the somewhere in Belize, from which it will be untraceably transferred before you find out you've been robbed.
Bruce didn't consider putting a fingerprint sensor in the card itself. That will rule out some breaks -- neither stealing the PIN by "wiretapping" (and European PIN keypads have some protection against that), nor stealing the card and beating the PIN out of you will get someone into your accounts. But other vulnerabilities still remain. If you build the keys and display into the card itself, you may be quite a lot more secure -- especially if the card does good enough encryption internally and talks directly to the server, which is the only thing outside of the card which knows the key.
But then you've got the case of the Saudi terrorist (say) with a German ID (say), at a traffic stop in Maryland. Will the police car be carrying equipment that can query a database in Germany? Will results come back in a reasonable time? And even if they do, why would a German database show that the FBI wants this guy?
There is also the big issue of how identity is confirmed when someone is first entered into the system. Anyone with my birth certificate and social security number could get an ID in my name, and the SSN is in all sorts of records while you don't have to prove identity to get the birth certificate. If I'm alive and in the system, it should notice the duplication, but there are plenty of dead people to choose from. Internationally, there are many nations where records got blown up or never were complete, so you've pretty much got to take people's word about their identity.
..This is a *good* thing.
;) And they do have the right to force you to get a license to drive - after all, the roads are theoretically theirs.
:p)
If Cop A over in Japrica can access the database over in East Yugofriendsdontletyoudrivethem, and can thus find out that Perp B's driver's license was gotten out of a cracker jack box, it's a good thing.
From what I understand, they can do this right now - it's just time consuming. Instant access would help law enforcement greatly in various matters.
Furthermore, they're leaving it so that privacy nuts can opt out of the system. Don't get a driver's license. Don't drive.
Sounds hard to do? In some places, perhaps, but in most, it's an inconvenience. Hitch a ride with a friend - carpool. Ride a bike. Walk.
There's no constitutional right saying you have the right to drive.
(Yes, I know, your taxes paid for the roads. Right. The average taxpayer insists that the entire country belongs to him, when his taxes actually wouldn't even buy a toilet seat for the white house.
"Driver's Licenses to Become National ID Cards"
Having a National Identity
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Hello,
in Italy, driver licenses have always been accepted as valid ID documents, and soon they won't only because of some major issues with the latest (plastic, not paper) edition. Maybe they removed the photo, don't know: my one is still on paper, heeheehee!
This hasn't ever been seen as a privacy statement here, and has often been considered convenient (especially while the city admin are re-preparing your ID after it went void).
Here, ID cards become void after 5 years and driver's licenses must be renewed each 10.
meant.
Hm. Yes.
To be very precise: After looking at the available information, much of which conflicts or is filled with peculiar elements which do not mesh with the official story, it seems evident that numerous parties other than the terrorist body may have been aware before hand what was going to happen, did nothing to prevent it, and may in fact have been assisting in its development.
By whom was 9/11 manufactured?
Not easy to answer in a word, however.
The party/ies, assuming they exist, were either able to:
*Quash FBI investigative efforts which would have prevented the disaster.
see interview with David Shippers, the attorney who headed the Clinton impeachment trials, now representing FBI officers who charge that they were regularly prohibited or coerced into withholding their discoveries of the terrorist activities long before, not just the 9/11 attack, but Oklahoma and others.
*Affect the airline check-in systems so that none of the alleged hijackers names appeared on the passenger lists.
See Perplexing puzzle (I linked to this one already in the post above. I assume you have read through it?)
*Affect the major news outlets by removing seasoned staffers to replace them with young and untested journalists all throughout 2001, with many cuts right around 9/11. CNN launched it's new 'look' and staff structure only days prior to the 9/11.
Link 1, Link 2, Link 3
(This is just a brief sampling of pages I looked for just now. I seem to have lost my links which contained a list of CNN staffers fired just prior to 9/11. Can't find it on-line anymore. Annoying. In any case, this last might have been coincidence, but it was very convenient that the American news structure was reduced in brain-size right when it was most critical that good journalists be around to question the weak points of this story. The powers involved, if they were opperating from such high levels, would certainly have been both able to affect such changes and would have been foolish not to. But, of course, that's just speculation.)
There are numerous other aspects of this which are not quickly summed up and require more detailed searching, and indeed, the above links were only selected for their simplicity in demonstrating what I'm talking about; there is much more information for those willing to look. Other aspects include:
*The possibility of remote piloting. (Although, while there are three specific points which indicate a strong possibility of this, including private documents recovered from the terrorists written the day prior to the event wherein they described their willingness to serve jail sentences for the crimes they intended to commit the next day, (ie, they didn't realize they were on a suicide mission), and other crash investigations (AirIndia) the black box voice recordings from which indicated a strong possibility that control of the plane was removed from the pilots and directed into the ocean against their will, (ie, demonstrating that such a thing may be possible), and the 100% perfect paths of descent and vectoring, with zero corrections made, that the planes used to make their impacts into the towers; calculated only once from the first moment the planes changed course, (i.e. suggesting that the human pilots were not involved. In any case, I think these particular arguments, while in themselves are interesting, do not necessarily indicate remote piloting.)
*The numerous links between Bin Laden, Bush and the CIA.
*The various reports of warnings hours before and 'lucky' absentees
*The numerous strange questions surrounding the rented car and Arabic flight manuals.
The list goes on.
Anyway, that should clarify what I meant by, "Manufactured."
Hope this helps.
-Fantastic Lad
Oklahoma is the same way. My drivers license # is my SSN. How many other states do it this way?
US SSNs cannot begin with 000, 666, 729-749, or 764-999. (I had to learn this to write a SSN validator for a personnel project.) That gives 257 prefixes.. let's say 256 and keep 000 invalid for testing purposes. Now, the remaining six digits give us 999,999 suffixes (keeping the one with all zeros invalid for additional tests). That gives us just under 256 million numbers (actually 255,999,744). That may do it, especially if we can find a way to recycle the numbers.
Now unfortunately we cannot use this to give EVERYONE a number, as the US population according to the US Census bureau's census clock is somewhere around 285 million, but how many of those have drivers licenses?
In South Carolina our drivers license numbers look like SSNs and my number very well could be a valid SSN since it begins with 004, but it is specifically NOT your SSN. In fact, they used to be only seven digits (which is why the first two digits on mine are zeros) but they added the extra to to make it able to conform to the pattern of a SSN.
As much as I do not like the idea of a national ID or national drivers licence, it seems fairly simple to implement the number assignments. Preventing forgeries, however, is another story.
Wichita. Used to live in KC for a while as well.
In actuality, I try to advise everyone not currently in this state to stay away, and everyone that is currently here to move. Eventually I hope to get it down to just me and people who live in trailer parks. At that point, I can take over all of Kansas with a butane lighter, colorful beads and trinkets, and 400 cases of Boones Farm wine.
TheGreenlantern, posting anonymously just to make you wonder if it's really me.
Wasn't he going to give the software to the Government for free?
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
he's a minor right? Parent's probably consented.
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
Once again I've read an article that inspires me to leave this country and never look back. However, I have no idea where to go. I searched the net but only half of what I read can even be considered truth and I'm not sure which half is. Does anyone, outside the US, know of a country where freedom still prevails? Perhaps a better question is, which country maintains the highest levels of personal freedom?
If they force us to be registered nationally we should get something in return, how about our ID working as a U.S. passport. That would eliminate a lot of extra paperwork and it would allow U.S. citizens to travel to other countries easier.
While I agree with you (or rather, with some of the aspects you mentioned), I think you're missing my point. I have no interest in a Card that I will have to swipe and say "I hate Arabs!" to buy some bread. My opinions are my own (the above is not, by the way), and the Government should not interact with them. What I wouldn't mind is a card that I swipe (at certain places whose practices are heavily regulated) that says I am who I say I am. This is one of the few instances where hardcore Governmental regualtion would be agood thing.
You may not have concidered it, but National ID Cards exist already in the US: they're called Passports. Granted, you don't actually need one (if you plan on staying within the borders of the States for all your life), but they exist, and nine percent of the Citizens of your country have them (at my last check). What is it? It's a glorified card that you swipe when you wanna fly internationally, that pulls up your picture, if you're a legal Citizen, and if you have any deportable offenses (as far as I know that's what's on your record). This is a perfect model: you show your ID in return for somthing you hold scared (for me, the right to International Travel), and in return, they let you on the plane. You don't show your passport to buy bread. You don't show it to use your bank (well, you can if you wanna open an account). And what's in your INS record isn't shared by to everyone else - and if it is, it shouldn't be. I urge you to read this post by a French person, further explaining (and providing an example) of a well-regulated National ID Scheme. It's lightweight, it's only accessible by people with good reason, and it's not shared.
I may not totally beleive in the Government, but I trust them to this small degree. I'm (at least culturally) European, and while the merits of our political systems and layouts are another debate, maybe this explains why I'm not as wary of this as you are. I've seen them and experianced them, and they're not all that bad. Put a little faith in your Government (if you don't trust it, stage a revolution, get a new one, and write a new Constitution that fits with modern situations) and you'd be surprised at the returns. Eternal Vigilance may be the Price of Freedom, but there's a difference between Vigilance and Paranoia. If you never trust the Govenment, then how can they do anything to prove that they're not evil? Be Vigilant, get a new leader that's not a raving lunatic, and give them a chance.
As an aside, I wonder what you mean when you say that I shoud "work for long enough to get a solid feel for all the available information" and "get down to doing some critical research." I have, my conclusions are just different from yours; it's a free counrty,our difference of opinion is one of the greatest things about modern democracies. However, I would also suggest you do the same things you suggested I do above, but go broader. The US isn't the only source of credible information. Go see what's been done in other parts of the world, and how they all turned out. And just because your current Government isn't great (my opinion), don't let that make you beleive that all government is the same.
Cue The Sun...
This actually does beat a national ID card. They (i.e. the feds) already have Social Security Numbers on almost all of us so if they had any sense at all they'd just figure out a way to usurp and expand that database. Drivers Licenses are much better from a privacy stand point because you have to make a decision to go get one as a opposed to someone else (parents) getting one for you. It is however the lesser of two evils.
Remember, wrong or right, there isn't a driving rights ammendment to the constitution. It is a privelege provided by the state to drive on public property. This is very different from a legal stand point because our rights are considered absolute (in theory if not always in practice).
The only point of constitutional contention that might exist is the concept of states/peoples rights as covered under the 9th and 10th ammendments. Do the feds have a right to get at this local information? My guess is that whether they do or don't the fact that they can cut off funding to the states in a number of ways makes it likely that the states would welcome it even if it is against the interest of it's citizens and that is why high federal taxes are such a cancer. The more money that finds it's way into Washington the more power and leverage the fedral government has over the states.
I believe that most people would be horrified if they understood the context of history and had read the constitution comparing it to the actions of our leaders in the last 50-100 years. We have basically put all sorts of things regarding needs of society and what we're scared of at the moment above the constitution and the premises contained therein. We are the "Brave New World" of Huxley...just without all the free sex...what a shame that that's what they chose not to implement.
You can add North Carolina to the list. They require a SSN, and won't issue a license without it. It is justified as being for catching "dead-beat dads", but I note, they tried to sell the information to telemarketers, unless you "opted-out".
The scary part of those tests isn't how simple they are... it's that people still fail them.
The last time I took one of those (for a motorcycle permit), the only other person doing a test failed very badly. And the poor clerk could not convince her that: (a) no, you may not drive until you pass (b) no, you may not take the test again today (c) no, you do not get your money back for the test and (d) yes, you will have to pay again the next time.
Oh no mom didn't, they told us he either had to go through with this, or he'd go straight to jail. Still no trial, and he is being tried as an adult at age 15.
best part is, even though he is innocwent until oproven guilty *laughs* he doesn't stand a chance, the plaintiff is a straight A student, my little brother struggles, and is a constant behavior problem. He's as good as gone. AT this point, he is just trying to get out of going to Juvvi hall until he is 18, which would pretty much ruin his life in one way or another.
And just so the world knows, girl slaps him on the ass.... so the next day, he does it back, except beforehand, he said something that offended a friend of hers, so she screamed sexual harrassment.
The lesson is, don't flirt with women, even if they flirt with you first, cause they can always scream "rape." or osme other utter bullshit, and completely destroy a small life.
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
If you go to the DMV with another persons certificate of birth you are committing a felony. If you create a fake ID it's a misdemeanor. I would choose to make my own first. Now people wonder why fanatics like the Unibomber/Tim McVeigh are so angry. This is why.
The USA has never cared about its citizens. Since the time Pearl Harbour was attacked, it seems like the USA has been continually become more and more corrupt every year. They have a naval base in Cuba, why? If it's such a free country, why are there all those classified documents about you and almost everyone alive in the FBI and NSAs files? Why don't you get to read your own file? (Actually I believe you can talk to the FBI about reading parts of your file) The USA has been known to be harvesting opium and protecting heroin manufacturing plants in Western Afghanistan since the early 80s. The CIA wasn't just supplying the small Rebel faction with Stingers, they were supplying them with the ideas that would topple the USAs best defence (which was "unusually late") by hitting the Pentagon. A feat not even Russia could do, was done by people in a third world country that fought against one of the cold war powers for over 10 years. The people of Afghanistan, they didn't ask for the opium fields, nor did they start building manufacturing plants for heroin, but they are now fighting back and they're "terrorists". Let me tell you something else, once Columbia gets sick of the coca leaves and cocaine manufactuing don't be surprised if they are also "terrorists". The USA is run on drug money, you don't think they could stop the war on drugs? But they are putting out national ids, searching every person on every airplane flight, but they cant put some dogs on some boats? Or have them have beacons put on them so they can be tracked? They do it with planes, they do it with trains, they probably will eventually do it with automobiles. (Subtle movie name) But seriously, the war isn't on drugs, it's on citizens. Ask anyone suffering in the ghetto (government housing projects) why the crack always comes through their neighbourhoods first? Cause thats where the largest density of poor people are and thats how the government can control society. Feed them shit they don't need and don't offer them anything better. Perfect peasant class of workers to pump your gas and make your burgers. Some get out, but overall its a scheme to entrap the common individual. We'll all be living in ghettos one day. Fighting our 'Terrorists'. Gallix
"The sum of the angles of that rectangle is too monstrous to contemplate." --Commissioner Gordon
You've missed my point - there is no reliable way for you, as a person, to prove that you are who you say you are. This is a disadvantage to you when you required to do so, or when people impersonate you for various illegal purposes (particularly where it comes to taking your money). It is a disadvantage to others, when they NEED to know who you are for whatever reason. And when you're going somewhere that makes a tempting target, or doing something that could cause great harm to many people, they NEED to know whether you'd do such a thing.
My second point is that you already have a number. What is the difference between being forced to show your driver's license (or social-security-number, or credit card) at every traffic stop or stadium event you frequent or for every purchase you make (as if you actually have had to do that) and presenting a National ID? Do you think "They" are incapable of cross-referencing some data? Guess what? They can but they probably don't, because unless you or someone you're associated with has committed a crime worth prosecuting you for (which is expensive), in all likelyhood they don't care about you. They have only so much time and money and resources. The only reason you have any privacy is because your boring life isn't worth the effort to investigate it.
You don't have to go to (or live in) places and events that require ID if you don't want to, and traffic stops are a rarity reserved to catch dangerous criminals or prevent some drunk moron from driving into something or somebody. In both cases the decision to check ID is a matter of expense. As for shopping, there's this thing called "cash" which doesn't require you to present an ID at a store. The only trouble with it is that it's a pain to carry around.
And guess what - unless you happen to live alone in the middle of nowhere, people are watching you. Some of them even work for the government. It may be a few, or it may be thousands, but they all have got their own agendas - some of which may even involve you. People like your mom, or your boss, or the guy next door whose yard your dog keeps crapping in. Did you know that police officer in the 7-11 gets coffee for FREE?! And that in the very same store the guy behind the register wants to take your money?!
Some people are sure that only they are wise enough to see the insidious machinations of nerfarious agencies while the rest of the world remains ignorant. Ironically enough, these measures are becoming necessary mainly because of people who are sure that only they are wise enough to see the insidious machinations of nerfarious agencies while the rest of the world remains ignorant, and that the appropriate course of action is killing a bunch of people.
Quit worrying about whether people want to know what you're doing, and get on with your life. Society is a messy business of competing interests - that's why we have laws. Your real concern should be whether the laws of our society are good and their execution fair, and if not you should try to change that by voting your conscience and convincing others to your case.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
In Mass., and apparantly in many other states, the ID no. on the license is ones SS no. In Mass., at least, one has the opportunity to not have their SS no as their drivers licnese no. and instead have a random, state assigned number.
e
If your a Mass resident go here for more info:
http://www.state.ma.us/rmv/faq/index.htm#licens
They have to look at it to make sure that the picture looks like you, and not some guy who lent you his ID to buy liquor.
get a lawyer. You can't go to jail for sex harassment.
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
Who have been insightful enough to question all of this. I am currently looking through the passenger list connundrum. Many of the questions you have asked have come to my mind - but I haven't researched them near as deep. I wish you luck in your quest for the truth.
Nope -- he was using the "Hey, kid, the first hit's free" business model:
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
~~~
A national i.d. card is only of value if it manages to benefit me in some fashion. So far as I can see, it doesn't. In fact, it only seems to benefit those who might use collected information against me, or who might alter my records simply to make my life difficult.
Why should I approve of a national i.d. card? Just because a few control-freak fuckwits here on Slashdot get off on the idea of forcing something people don't care for down their throats? Or because there are always a few college pricks ready to jump on the bandwagon and yammer on about how "it's too late, you don't have any rights, get over it"? (Stupid twits need a good bitch-slapping, knock some manners into their tiny little brains.)
No one here as presenting a single point of compelling evidence that justifies the creation of a national i.d. card. It won't stop terrorists; it won't reduce crime in any significant fashion; it won't do much of anything other than give my government (and large corporations) better tools to track me and my habits, and possibly use these things against me if they disapprove of my activities. (Note: if you're actually stupid enough to think that the government won't do this given the opportunity, I hope to god you never breed.)
What good is a national i.d. card to me? It isn't. Therefore it should be opposed as a matter of course.
Unless you're one of the aforementioned fuckwits or lobotomized college dicks, that is.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
My PA Drivers license only has 8 digits
xx-xxx-xxx
no big sig
Not quite. You do need to proof legal residency (ie. H1/H4/L1 etc). Instead of SSN you can also use ITN (the tax id number people not 'qualified' for SSN, like spouses on H4 need and can apply for). Whether even ITN is required I don't know; I do know that ITN is just fine (interestingly, ability to drive a car seems to be such a sacred "right" that even us lowly foreigners can get to do that reasonably easily... :-) ).
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
The religion teaches that all non-Jews are no better than animals, and can be treated as such. Under their religious law the only persons with any rights are Jews, and only they are considered to be fully human.
While I could argue every single thing you've said, you were very careful to make it unassailable. You messed up this time. "Fully human" in the sense that you mean it, is hard to apply to jewish law, since the subtlies of the words don't translate well. Jews that commit murder, whether the victim is jewish or not, are guilty of a grave sin, according to Judaism (then again, so are muslims, who do such, technically). I believe both sides though, are guilty of using twisted logic to excuse their actions as "self-defense" or some such.
"And if somehow they weren't that way, then I'm sure they'd be busy trying to bribe them into converting to Islam, like they do us atheists and christians. "
Nobody's ever offered me so much as a dime, nor have I so much as heard of a rumor of the practice untill now.
A good friend of mine lived in Saudi Arabia for close to 6 years, as some sort of contractor (He's explained to me several times just what he did, but I guess I'm too dense to figure it out). He was offered sums of money, even in US cash, to convert to Islam. The goverment of SA would actually pay some of it, and some of the others (I take it he got to meet important people from time to time) would offer money in addition to that. Apparently this practice is not only commonplace, but completely within the bounds of being a good muslim.
Well, on the money item ya gotta admit that it's a better incentive than "join us or you'll go to hell".
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Yeh, it sure is. To have some stinky arab insult you by suggesting that your faith, whatever flavor it happens to be, is for sale, and as cheaply as a few hundred or thousand bucks. But in a country where the price of a goat is twice that of a "wife", anything goes, I suppose.
Here in Missouri, one can also request to have a random state assigned number on their drivers license instead of their social security numbers. It really means very little, though, as that state assigned number is linked to your social security number in their database. Anyone know how to get a new social security number? Could use one myself...Hehe...Gotta stop getting those tickets...
well, they are trying to label it as a mild sexual assault charge. they say if the therapist believes that he is in need of therepy to calm his sexual urges, that he will have to serve his sentence in a state mental hospital.
Even if it ends up being a nasty fine, his reputation is ruined, he has to transfer high schools, and I still fail to see how any of what the state is doing is legal at all.
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
How can you criminalize something that can happen accidentally?
Hate to say it, but that's probably because the goat is better looking. They don't make those women wear veils for nothing.
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Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
...as far as I understand these things, anyway.