National ID's - Big Brother Likes To Know Who He Is Watching.

Knight Of The Mind ^ | Tuesday, September 28, 2004 | .cnI redruM

[.cnI redruM]

Congress has come under manifold political pressure to impliment all of the recommendations of the recently completed 9/11 Commission. In response, they've written a bill that enacts these recommendations into law. Perhaps, a more nuanced approach should have been taken. Not all of these 9/11 Commission ideas necessarily make America a better place to live.

One measure bans federal agencies from accepting Driver's Licenses as ID's unless the license shows a facial portrait and a Social Security Number. In effect, the State Driver's Licenses become a National ID. A simple database query now allows the governement to track individual citizens wherever they may choose to go.

The actual legal requirements for accepting the Driver's License as a form of ID follow below.

b) MINIMUM DOCUMENT REQUIREMENTS.—To meet the requirements of this section, a State shall include, at a minimum, the following information and features on each driver’s license and identification card issued to a person by the State:

The person’s full legal name. The person’s date of birth. The person’s gender. The person’s driver license or identification card number. A photograph of the person. The person’s address of principal residence. The person’s signature. Physical security features designed to prevent tampering, counterfeiting, or duplication of the document forfraudulent purposes. A common machine-readable technology, with defined minimum data elements.

This, of course, does nothing to stop a terrorist who drives someone else's car illegally or who just catches to the next hijacking. What it does do is give the government the ability to track and observe almost every aspect of our official and financial lives. Every time we run a license through a scanner, we now pop up on Big Brother's grid.

Freedom of Movement and Freedom of Association fall under potential threat from this legislation. Strongly urge your Congressmember and Senators to rescind this piece from the 9/11 Commission legislation.

[.cnI redruM]

We should take care before taking everything the 9/11 Commission reccommended as sacred gospel. We could end up sorry.

[Congressman Billybob]

My friend, please allow me to take a contrarian view to yours on the subject of drivers' licenses.

Almost two years ago, I was invited to speak before a group of state legislators from many states, tasked with considering what steps the individual states should take concerning national security. The main thing I stressed was drivers' licenses. As I pointed out, the national system was -- for the 9/11 hijackers -- and will remain as weak as the weakest state DMV. That's because the 50 states and D.C. routinely issue a new local license to anyone who comes in and plunks down a valid license from somewhere else.

Neither terrorists nor illegal aliens are bone stupid. They go to where the pickings are easiest. Both in bribes for fraud at the DMV, or simply the sloppiest state in accepting false information, that's where the people who want to develop a pocket of false ID and credit cards, go first.

I told those legislators then that they either would develop among themselves a minimum level of ID and information for a drivers license, or the federal government would do it for them. Some of the states have acted, some have not. But the key item is enforcement. None of the states have conditioned the acceptance of a license swap from another state on the adoption of minimum ID standards in such other states.

If the states cannot and do not act, it then becomes the business of the federal government to force the issue, using the availability of federal transportation funds to assure that the states line up and say yes, sir. (It worked like a champ on the issue of 55 MPH speed limits.)

Lastly, I don't think the destruction of a building or a mall, filed with 10,000 Americans, by subhumans operating with false ID easily achieved, is a fair price to pay for federal inaction based on state inaction. It is long since time for the feds to force this issue.

Congressman Billybob

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[.cnI redruM]

To me, the national ID is sinister in much the same way a national firearms registry would also be. It encourages too much government snoopervision of our daily lives.

[Congressman Billybob]

As I said to the state legislators two years ago, either clean this up at the state level, or the feds will clean it up nationally. So, if you don't want a national ID, you'd better put pressure on your state legislators to clean up their own DMV laws.

Billybob