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Congress Debating National Driver's License Rules
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?"
When I first heard of this, it was only in its premature stages and only was going to be implemented for airports and other means of traveling so that passengers could go in the "express" lane because they were cleared to go.
Some people might exclaim that it is a genuine attempt by the government to shed and protect the US public from terrorists and if everyone followed the rules, sure it would. Terrorists follow the rules? No chance in hell, documents are easy to duplicate and this will only make the terrorists spend a couple more bucks at their local document "manufacturer". Which is no problem at all for them considering they have thousands in their bank accounts.
I seriously think the government underestimates the terrorists and well maybe they dont, they just take the US public for fools and yes the majority of the public are fools.
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.
Decades ago we Americans would decry the authoritarian governments around the world, such as the former Soviet Union for the specific practice of requiring citizens to show papers for travel internal to their country.
If fear of terrorism and a mode of law enforcement that takes the "what's easiest for us?" mentality makes America into a police state, then the terrorist win and we'll be proven to both weak and stupid.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
From the story: "How is this functionally different from a national ID card?"
It isn't different. The driver's license name is the kind of lying with which many things are sold to U.S. citizens. Other examples are: 1) The "Patriot" Missile, as though you are not patriotic unless you are in favor of a particular weapon of mass destruction. 2) The "Patriot" Act, as though you are not patriotic unless you are in favor of laws that most congress people passed without reading. And, 3) The "Peacekeeper" Missile, which tries to give people the idea that a nuclear weapon keeps the peace.
This kind of lying takes advantage of the fact that most U.S. citizens have to trust their government because they simply don't have time to understand what their government is doing.
Most media exists to make money. Advertisers are understandably careful not to alienate anyone. It is not possible to develop an accurate opinion of government activities only by listening to the carefully crafted phrases from media employees who would lose their jobs if they seemed to indicate a preference for one policy over another.
Books are the major media that are not ad-supported. Have a quick look at the reviews of 3 movies and 35 books that try to tell you a little about U.S. goverment corruption: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government. If you don't read about the subjects mentioned, you are not informed. If you don't like the books listed, pick your own.
Even though most people simply don't have time to understand their government, it is still amazing how much distrust U.S. citizens have of their government, and yet they don't take control.
There is good reason not to trust a more efficient national driver's license, because it would be used by the government to suppress political dissent. For example, see the New York Times article, F.B.I. Scrutinizes Antiwar Rallies. Here's a quote: "Critics of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, for instance, have sued the government to learn how their names ended up on a "no fly" list used to stop suspected terrorists from boarding planes." There are many people whose jobs depend on their ability to fly. They may be forced to stop any analysis of government activity if they are harassed when they try to fly.
That article discusses a few of the other abuses. If you didn't like the Vietnam War, and demonstrated against it, the FBI would go to your neighbors and friends and "investigate" you. Merely the investigation caused enough fear to discourage most people; they could not afford to lose friends and the support of neighbors. People would think, "If someone is being investigated, that person must have done something wrong."
(Note that you can read that article at the New York Times web site, but only under extremely adversarial conditions. You can pay more than the entire cost of the newspaper in which the article was originally printed. Or, you can get a discount under plans which cause you to lose your money in a short time if you don't use the plans quickly enough. No one should underestimate the self-destructive rapacity of managers of ad-supported media.)
Driver's licenses are already a national ID card. The U.S. government is only trying to make the data gathering more efficient. The fundamental problem is not whether or not a national ID card is a good idea, the problem is that, although the U.S. government functions well in many ways, the government is corrupt in many other ways.
If you truly love your country, you will not just enjoy the advantages, you will be there for your country when there are problems.
A fine point but you don't have to go to college to get on an airplane. The great thing about this country once was that any man could travel and live a life free of government sponsored scrutiny.
If you want to travel anywhere, you have to show a ticket to prove that you paid for it. Ditto for movies, concerts, sports events... if you want to get a refund, you have to show the receipt.
Also true but again any one should be allowed to travel freely provided they've payed their fare without further scrutiny. If they can't prove I'm going to bomb the plane after I've walked through the metal dector and they've swabbed my back pack down and put the swab on a chemical sniffer then I deserve to get on the plane regardless of who I am.
I'm not american, and we do have national ID cards, we've had them forever and no one ever gave a damn about it, since we aren't into conspiracy theories and the whole fearing the government thing...
That's nice for you and your country but clearly you haven't been paying attention to all the other freedoms that are being grabbed up by the US government. What if your name is suspicously close to that of a terrorist? You can't expect the guy at the airport to understand you're not the terrorist. Afterall, if they airport screeners don't recognize a name like Kennedy (Still a bigger political dynasty then the Bush family) then you have no hope of travelling freely on your own.
What if a fly lands on the teletype as your name wizzes by? What will you do when they cut a hole in your roof and suck you out of your home?
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
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.
Not every train and airplane trip is interstate. The federal government has no jusrisdiction over intrastate transportation.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
Science doesn't seek to prove, it seeks to disprove.
Most things aren't exactly provable, they just have quite a bit of evidence in their favor. Proofs themselves are just taking conclusions and tracing them back to either errors in logic or raw premises. For all the data that exists in the universe, most things "proven" hit an error somewhere before they hit all of the premises from which they are founded.
I'm not american, and we do have national ID cards, we've had them forever and no one ever gave a damn about it, since we aren't into conspiracy theories and the whole fearing the government thing...
No offense, but we Americans have more of a government to be afraid of. We cherish anonymity, because in our country, the government is the servant of the people. Bush isn't our elected leader, he's our elected servant. We don't want our servants to gain power over us that could easily be used against us.
If you look at things like the War on Drugs, Waco, Alien and Sedition Acts, we are very concerned with maintaining self-rule. As we enter a more and more modern age, that self-rule is ironally reverting to more of a parliamentary monarchy, like Britain had after the Magna Carta.
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