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Congress Debating National Driver's License Rules

Posted by Hemos on from the the-changing-of-the-times dept.

hamelis writes "The NYT [FRR: bugmenot]reporting on Congress' attempt to set national standards for issuing driver's licenses. The Secretary of Homeland Security could require licenses to contain fingerprints or retinal scans, and while states are not required to cooperate, if your license doesn't conform to federal standards, you can be denied "access to planes, trains and other modes of transportation." Additionally, the House version would require states to keep all license data in a linked database for quick access, and calls for "an integrated network of screening points that includes the nation's border security system, transportation system and critical infrastructure facilities." How is this functionally different from a national ID card?"

2 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. passports by tsrimovsky · · Score: 4, Interesting

    why can't we just use passports for this? Some sort of ID/tracking is a cost of travel any more. I just don't see why the feds need to get involved with state issues, since this doesn't really have anything to do with driving.

  2. A foreign perspective. by Elamaton · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The "slippery slope" arguments associated with national ID's for the US always amuse me to some extent. I live in Finland, where everyone has some sort of "national ID" (or a multinational ID, even, for those of us with the new style EU driver's licenses), not biometric or RFID equipped, though. The same goes, I believe, with all of Scandinavia and at least most of Europe.

    Sure, our country, its associated government, and the life and people here in general are in many respects very different from the USA, but no one here ever even thinks to protest the existence of national ID's. It simply doesn't cause any problems here in anyone's daily life (and no, it's not intellectual laziness or submission to the Big Brother, either - people here like complaining about the tiniest "issues" and are very keen on bashing the government when necessary). Quite the contrary, it's considered a good thing to be able to verify who you are when you want to, as well as to be able to know with reasonable (not perfect) certainty that the person you are in contact is in fact who you think he is.

    I mean, sure you have to present the ID from time to time, like when opening bank accounts, or when buying alcohol and looking like you're underage, or making purchases over 50 euros in value with a credit card or a creditless "bank card" (I don't know an equivalent English term for that one, that's a direct translation), or somesuch. There simply is no tracking or snooping into our lives through ID cards. You can walk the streets and interact with people with near-total anonymity, pay in cash, etc. The driver's licenses in our pocket don't change that.

    A much worse form of espionage are the regular customer membership cards for various large retail chains - now there's efficient tracking for ya. And they're by no means alien to the USA, but I haven't seen much hubbub about those, even though they are solely a tool for consumer behavior analyzation.

    The fact that everyone has a nationally standardized means of identifying themselves doesn't automatically lead to all these worst-case scenarios presented in this thread and who knows how many others in past threads on the subject.

    Then again, maybe even average US citizens have some valid reasons to actually fear the emergence of national IDs, dunno. I suppose this thread will bring them out.