Obama adminstration seeks to ease ID restrictions

Houston Chronicle ^ | July 14, 2009 | Stewart Powell

[NorwegianViking]

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wants Congress to roll back the stringent and “needlessly expensive” post 9/11 driver license requirements designed to keep licenses and state issued identification out of the hands of terrorists.

More than two dozen states already have rebelled against implementing the Real ID Act of 2005, either by rejecting participation or passing resolutions opposing the mandate to tighten security and identity verification by 2017.

“States agree that Real ID is too rigid and needlessly expensive in mandating how states meet security goals,” Napolitano said in testimony prepared for the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. (cut)The Obama-backed plan would still require states to issue driver's licenses with digital photographs and machine-readable identity verification information such as bar codes. States also would be required to validate applicants' identities and legal immigration status.

But the plan would drop requirements that states maintain databases linked through a national hub, and states also would be relieved of a requirement to independently verify birth certificates used to get driver's licenses.

The National Governors' Association backs easing the restrictions

[elkfersupper]

No offense, but what does this have to do with providing a birth certificate to get a driver's license? (Which is also used for ID to prove who you are in order to vote)

One has a right to peaceably travel in this country without any kind of "license".

Wars were fought over this.

[ravingnutter]

Ohhhh...tough guy. Good luck trying to “deal with it at gunpoint” at a post office or bank, you won’t be hunting elk ever again after you lose your right to carry a gun due to a felony. I would think, as a conservative, that you would understand that proper ID is important to prevent illegal alien activity and voter fraud.

[ravingnutter]

Driving is a priviledge, not a right.

[elkfersupper]

There is a right to peaceably travel from place to place in or on any contemporary conveyance in this country without being accosted by armed highwaymen.

Wars and civil disturbances occurred in this country over this.

[elkfersupper]

I would think, as a conservative, that you would understand that proper ID is important to prevent illegal alien activity and voter fraud.

If that was what it was used for, I would agree.

I pick my potential felonies carefully.