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U.S. National Identity Cards All But Law
CompSci101 writes "News.com is running a story about the RealID Card legislation that's been attached to emergency military spending bills to ensure its passage. How soon does everyone think this system will be abused either by the government or by thieves ? The worst part is the completely machine-readable/automatic nature of the thing -- you might not even know you're giving your information away." From the article: "Starting three years from now, if you live or work in the United States, you'll need a federally approved ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account, collect Social Security payments, or take advantage of nearly any government service. Practically speaking, your driver's license likely will have to be reissued to meet federal standards."
So how possible would it be to get by without one? Regarding
I expect that would cross the line of States Rights. Perhaps they could enforce it for interstate transportation, but within my state I think there would be a fight against such a thing.Might as well start writing the check out now to help fund the fight against this thing.
Geez, you'd need to have spent half your life on drugs and alcohol to think this is a good idea and sign it into law.
"Aus Passe!"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It will do little to stop criminals, because criminals have never cared about the rules, but decent American citizens will have to jump through hoops and come to accept presenting papers to travel in-country just like those Soviets we looked down on.
We never had real freedom here in this part of europe. People used to dream of travelling to the USA, the land of the free.
Americans had freedom and are willingly throwing it away. All it takes for evil to triumph is for a few good men to do nothing. WAKE UP!
Wow, is anyone else surprised CNET put this in here:
> Why did these ID requirements get attached to an "emergency" military
> spending bill??
> Because it's difficult for politicians to vote against money that will go to the troops
> in Iraq and tsunami relief. The funds cover ammunition, weapons, tracked combat
> vehicles, aircraft, troop housing, death benefits, and so on.
The Republicans control congress and the executive branch now, and they wanted to have this National ID bill. By attaching this to a wholly unrelated military spending bill, the so-called advocates of small government will get their national ID card wish.
As an interesting aside it's funny that they chose to stick this into a military spending bill for Iraq. Anyone recall that the Bush Administration told us told this war was going to cost? I thought this was was supposed to cost between $10 and $100 billion? We're already more than three times the high end figure, with no end in sight. This is the fourth emergency allocation of money Bush has asked for for his war "on the cheap".
Anyway, make no mistake about it. The Republicans are now using their complete control to railroad this bill through, by sticking this thing in a military spending bill. It's a perfect catch-22. If the Democrats voted against it, they would have been accused of being against our troops (John Kerry, please take some time to describe how that feels). If they voted for it, it miraculously becomes a bipartisan bill so the Republicans can pass the blame around to evade responsibility. Even after this, the Democrats can be accused of "flip-flopping" since they voted against the national ID before, and now they're voting for it when it's buried in a military spending bill (Senator Kerry, your turn again). Wow, it's a win-win-win situation for the Republicans.
Of course, for the Democrats and the public in general, it's a nice lose-lose-lose situation though. Maybe a brave Democrat can filibuster this bill so it doesn't get railroaded through. Oh, wait, the Republicans want to get rid of the filibuster, too.
I call upon all the Democratic senators and representatives who read Slashdot to stop this as soon as possible! There. I've done my part.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
Soc. Sec. Cards have been used for years as a form of National ID, I welcome this, just wish it was more secure and private.
If what you are reading sounds funny, or sarcastic, lame, or stupid
it is because it is supposed to be. just laugh
- The House *already approved* a standalone version of the Real ID bill, so the fact this is attached to military spending is irrelevant
Wrong.
1) Rules for a federally approved ID don't belong with a supplemental military spending bill.
2) It means nothing that it was passed by the house. If you follow the article a bit more (part 2):
It was expected to run into some trouble in the Senate. Now that it's part of an Iraq spending bill, senators won't want to vote against it.
The real tragedy here is not the use of a national ID. There are legitimate merits to both sides of that discussion, and I will not address them here. The real tragedy is that this is an "Emergency military spending bill" which a HUGE rider on it.
This is why the line item veto was popular, despite being blatently unconstitutional. A few congress persons sitting on a committee can completely disrupt the validity of a bill. Nobody is going to veto a bill that gives money to the military and be responsible for leaving them high and dry. And the bill also gives tsunami aid. Nobody will veto that either.
It should be unconstitutional to place this type of stuff on a bill. It is also highly irresponsible of our congress people to not flame anyone who tries to do this stuff. I don't know how to word the ammendment, but it would probably do a LOT to clean up some of the obnoxious laws that sneak into place.
Yes.
Government officials almost never go to jail.
I agree with you completely, with the exception of the 'shocking' part.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Those who give up a little freedom for putative security neither deserve, nor shall receive either.
This ID card will NOT make you any safer in any way whatsoever.
Let's use the old NRA argument here. One of the main reasons the NRA is opposed to gun registration (excluding their interpretation of the 2nd Amendment) is that criminals will not register their guns, thus only legitimate gun owners will be registered and potentially tracked.
This national ID is exactly the same. Do you really think that the Terrorists will go to the DMV and say, "Hi, I'm Osama Bin Laden, I'd like my Driver's license today. Thank you?" Do you really think they won't be able to get fake credentials that are as good as these IDs or can be used to get a legitimate ID?
And finally, do you really think that the government won't abuse this new power (i.e. knowleged of your every purchase, move, travel, etc.)? Who do you think will hold and compile these data? My guess is an Oracle based system. Do you really think that our corporatocracy will keep this information away from corporations?
Can you imagine how much corporations would pay to know your every move, flight, purchase, hotel reservation, rental, etc. etc. etc? These data are worth billions upon billions and they won't be sitting idly in some database in DC doing nothing.
We were starting to get to a point where using social security numbers as identification was actually prohibited, and this prohibition was actually being enforced. For example, note how many colleges had previously used soc#s as student IDs but who have been phasing that out in the last five years.
Well, so much for that.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Funny thing when you give them the benefit of the doubt. You usually can't take it back. Once the floodgates are open, they can't generally be closed.
You fail to realize the reason of the dichotimy(sp?) between the two slashdot viewpoints: Technology is an enabler, but it is a much more efficient oppressor. Slashdotters want technology that enables, and don't want technology that oppresses, or can oppress. It's quite simple really.
Considering that Texas is considering RFID tags on all license places, and yes, police would scan them automatically for criminals in the like, I'd say the "trcaking system" infrastructure is already being put in place. (Only if the license gets an RFID tag, now they'll know if someone's borrowing your car or not.) And as more and more things are RFID-mandated, more and more government buildings will have readers, then like red-light cameras they'll be red-light RFID readers (to help catch people who run red lights, of course)... The end result will indeed be tracking of everyone's movements. Technology as an oppressor. NO ONE has to have that idea in mind now for that to be what happens; it's simply where the current trend will end up.
You also seem to think that just because there are not men in dark suits in a dimly-lit board room conspiring against us, that there is no conspiracy. There is a conspiracy, but it is more a de-facto conspiracy of ideas and moral forces that mesh together to create things bigger than any single human being (corporations, government entities, grassroot movements). That the conspiracy doesn't have a specific face does not mean that it is not something that should be fought against.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
So, any /. folks old enough, like me, to remember how we would react with derision and scorn at the horrifying stories of people in the USSR being required to have "internal passports" for travel and always carry identity papers? Well, just for giggles, how would you define "internal passport" and how is that different from this?
"What no one seemed to notice was the ever widening gap between the government and the people...And it became always wider... ...or, rather, provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway... ... by the machinations of the 'national enemies' without and within) and the government's 'responses' to them, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us... ...
"The whole process of this disconnect coming into being was built around diversion...
"Nazism gave us some other dreadful, fundamental things to think about
"Nazism kept us so busy with continuous changes, accusations and 'crises' and so fascinated
"Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, 'regretted', that unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these 'little measures' must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing...
"Each act curtailing freedom... is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join you in resisting somehow...
"You don't want to act, or even talk, alone... you don't want to 'go out of your way to make trouble' or be 'unpatriotic'...But the one great shocking
occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes...
"That's the difficulty. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring: the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit (which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms) is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed.
"You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things your father... could never have imagined."
Source: They Thought They Were Free, The Germans, 1938-45 (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1955)
__________________________________
"We will not wait as our enemies gather strength against us. In the world we have entered, the only path to safety is the path of action, and this nation will act." G.W.Bush, West Point, June 2002
"In this new world, declarations of war serve no purpose. Our enemies must be defeated before they can harm us. I will never declare war, but will take action!" Adolph Hitler, June 1940
"Not too many people will be crying in their beer if there are more detentions, more stops and more profiling. There will be a groundswell of public opinion to banish civil rights," Peter Kirsanow, Bush's controversial appointee the U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights
"I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people, and the West in general, into an unbearable hell and a choking life."
Osama bin Laden, October, 2001
I get emails from this organization: www.downsizedc.org. They've been working against this for a while, and they have tons of information about *exactly* why a national ID card is a bad idea.
They have a very easy form to contact your senator on this issue.
They are also working on a law proposal that would force lawmakers to read the laws before they get to vote on them. A good idea and well presented.
You are a terrified, easily manipulated idiot. There is no nice way to put it.
How wil this stop a hijacking? None of the previous group used false ID. And neither will the next group.
You obviously have no idea of how they were able to crash those planes and why it won't happen again. The reason they succeeded was because in the entire histiory of domestic hijacking the best way ti survive was to sit down and shut up. The hijackers wanted money, travel out of the country, the freedom of a comrade, or some other goal that only power outside of the plane could grant them. The passangers were hostages and the plane was a convenient container to keep them in. The 9/11 hijackers played a completelt new set of rules. The passangers meant nothing to them. They wanted the aircraft.
Do you get that? The rules changed and only the hijackers knew it. But now everyone knows. The next time someone tries to hijack a plane they are going to get the shit kicked out of them by people who don't want to die. Just look at what happened to the "shoe bomber".
But this begs the question: "how much of your privacy are you willing tio give away?" What will you give away when terrorists find a different way to attack us? And what about the attacks after that? At what point do you declare that you've had enough?
The brutal truth is that there is no way to stop terrorists completely. If they really want to hurt us they will. They will find ways to attack us that we haven't thought to defend against.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Come now... you can't be serious?!
/.ers will champion technology that created convenience as long as it doesn't have to do with privacy? I almost feel ignorant answering that question, but I will anyhow. The fact of the matter is, if RFID chips make it more convenient for a grocery store to track items, therefore saving money due to less shoplifting, better restock times, no lost items, et cetera, I will(should) in turn save as well. If RFID chips are used in retail for inventory purposes, then those companies will see more profit. More profit for American companies = good.
Federal Identification
This is blatently anti-American, or at a bare minimum anti-Checks and Balances. Primary identification has always been a function of the state. In fact, I can rarely use my military ID in place of a state ID at banks and the like. Places that do accept it often require additional identification, where if I had used my state driver's license, that one piece would suffice.
RFID as a Convenient Technology
Why, you ask, is it that most
Now, if those same RFID chips make it more convenient for a would-be thief to steal my identity, or for government agents in a terrorist-stricken world to pilfer my whereabouts, then I am against it. Stolen identity != good. You following?
Uniformity in Identification
Currently, the most common and uniform form of identity in the United States is the Social Security Card / SSN. This common and uniform (and important) piece of information is also the root cause of the majority of identity theft in the US. Uniformity is not always a good thing. Each state creates it's own forms of ID, and those agents that are required to request that ID understand where/what/how data is stored on those cards. Nobody else needs to know. *shrug*
Final Comments
Now DNA/Fingerprints I don't see as much of a problem. Of course, being in the Army, they already have that for me. Frankly, the only thing I can see that being used for is matching criminal investigations. The amount of effort spent tracking a person down for whatever reason solely on DNA and/or fingerprints is outrageous. However, RFID, GPS, tracking devices, cameras... Anything that allows a person to be tracked by the government (even for potentially legitimate reasons) allows a person to be tracked by malevolent persons as well. That is never an option IMHO.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Hell, I'm bored. Lets have a go.
The House already had overwhelming support for the standalone bill, and there is no reason to believe it would not have passed in the Senate as well.
There is also no reason to believe it would have passed the senate.
"Running into trouble" != not passing
Similarly, "Running into trouble" != passing. So the best either of us can do is to say that we can't know how the stand-alone bill would have done in the senate.
I think you're smart enough to know the point of my arguement. That is, that it is wrong to tack an unrelated rider that may have touble passing onto a bill that is guaranteed to pass. Any laws passed in this way are patently wrong, no matter what they legislate for or against.
I entirely agree. First of all, it is worth remembering that almost all of the 9/11 terrorists had valid, DMV-issued IDs. There is nothing that I can see in this bill that is going to fix that. It will also screw up the effort in some states to give limited driver's licenses to (possibly) illegal immigrants, in the interest of seeing that they actually know how to drive, have insurance, and so on. Since, statistically, your chances of dying in an auto accident are much higher than in a terrorist incident, I don't think this is a trivial concern.
Second, the whole concept of checking IDs against a list in order to fly is stupid. If we know who the suspects are, it would be much more efficient to spend the resources investigating what they're doing. Does anyone actually believe that potential terrorists are so dumb that they'll not try flying before they do the real thing? Or that they might not consider just blowing up a shopping center or a sports stadium?
These data are worth billions upon billions and they won't be sitting idly in some database in DC doing nothing.
Even assuming I trusted the government 100% not to misuse this data, one class of people to whom it would be very valuable are identity thieves. I suppose the argument will be that the database is so secure it can't be hacked.
Right.
you must at least concede that this standardization is based on consistency, functionality, and ease of use, not a desire to build a nationwide network of centrally administered RFID detectors for the purposes of tracking every citizen
Even if the reason is not to track citizens, it will eventually be used for it if allowed. Speed pass records have been confiscated in investigations ever since the speed pass was introduced. Do you think that the government won't subpoena records of where you've been if they deem you a threat? It's already done with credit card records, cell phone usage records, etc etc. Except in this case the ID card scanner will probably have to phone home to a central server to verify the card. Now the government won't have to go through the hassle of collecting all this data, when it's already in their hands. Allows for a lot more shuffling of locational data to make a case appear to fit (even if the data is only circumstantial.)
Granted, this data mining will probably be used MOSTLY on investigations where there is already a suspect, and this information could also be subpoenad by a defendant to prove his innocence. Basically if you feel that your government is generally benevolant, there should not be a problem with using this tech. However if you have fears that your government is moving towards more totalitarianisticor even fascist state, then you might actually has a valid reason to fear this.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
But it likely would have passed the House and Senate and been signed by the president regardless.
Well, whoop-ti-doo, we just found a wonderful way to avoid all that messy discussion and debate. Declare it "likely to do stuff" and just toss it on the pile of "must be voted for" items.
Look, you admit it shouldn't have been on a spending bill, so why bother people with all the logic when what you really are saying is "the fact it won't get debated doesn't bother me because I'm for the whole thing". The people who are annoyed are annoyed because of the bypass of the whole open discussion and debate part of our lawmaking process. Obviously those opposed to it would be more annoyed than those who see it as manifest destiny. Even if it passed after discussion, it likely would be modified in some way if the normal processes took place. Ever notice the phrase "reconciling house and senate versions of the bills" bouncing around? That is because both houses have different makeup and therefor different viewpoints and often make different choices. Now the alternative viewpoint is squelched. Sure, the end result might be the same. In fact, it is probable... but why be all happy and supportive of short curcuits to the law making process?
Sig under construction since 1998.
Um, no, you are most certainly NOT required to carry ID or a driver's license. You are required to carry a driver's license when you are driving, but that's it. If I'm a passenger in a car, or walking down the street, there is no requirement for me to have identification.
Also, Declan's article was misleading on this point:
Steinhardt predicts the federalized IDs will be a gold mine for government agencies and marketers. Also, he notes that the Supreme Court ruled last year that police can demand to see ID from law-abiding U.S. citizens.
Police can demand all they want, but you have no obligation to show them ID. The case was about a man's refusal to identify himself, not refusal to show ID. You are required to identify yourself, but that can be as simple as saying "my name is [insert name here]." If a police officer wants to take you down to the station because you won't present an ID card, that's false arrest.
But to answer your question, why do I care? The first reason is that having to present this ID to board an airplane is a hindrance to both interstate commerce and freedom of assembly (note the environmental activists who were prevented from flying due to the secret watch list). But John Gilmore does a much better job explaining this point.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
And may I add my my 2 cents on "airport security". The whole thing is a sham. I understand that they don't ever want to let terrorists turn an airplane into a bomb again. I don't want that either.
But even without all the added security, it can never happen again. EVER! You see, back before 9/11 the thought was that if a terrorist was to hijack a plane, they wanted to go somewhere, maybe land and hold hostages for a while, negotiate, and eventually, if you were quiet and did what they said, you would go back to your family after a frightening ordeal.
Now that whole paradigm has changed. If a terrorist takes a plane, every man woman and child aboard will know that they WILL DIE if they do nothing. See the difference?
Before 9/11 - do nothing during a hijack and live
After 9/11 - do nothing during a hijack and die
The terrorists used a one-time window of opportunity to do what they did that day. But now, were it to happen, the terrorists themselves would die before they ever took the plane down. Every able bodied passenger will fight for their lives if facing death. How can a terrorist take a plane if there are 30 people willing to die fighting to re-gain control of the plane?
Using a plane full of passengers as a missile will never happen again. So all the airport security in the world, searching for box knives and zippo lighters, is only to make frightened people feel like they should be frightened, and more importantly, to take away more liberty.
The people of this country have got to figure out that the only way to loose the war on terror is to let your life be changed out of fear of terrorism. That's the whole goal of terrorists, and our government is simply letting them win.
Ok, more like ten cents than two...
By the current standards, the founding fathers WERE terrorists.
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