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?"

Comments

Re:Sad news

[GreyWolf3000]

If you can't prove something, then it is reasonable to assume that its not true.

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.