Posted on 05/04/2002 6:43:59 AM PDT by It'salmosttolate
White House Interested in National Driver's Licenses
NewsMax.com Wires
Saturday, May 4, 2002
WASHINGTON – Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge for the first time has disclosed that the Bush administration is studying ways to set national standards for driver's licenses that would assist in preventing fraudulent identification and expose aliens who overstayed their visas.
In a briefing Thursday for senators and the public arranged by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Ridge said the Office of Homeland Security was studying proposals by the National Governor's Association and other state groups to establish national standards for operator's permits. Ridge said the White House would consider legislation that would do that. "It may be helpful and appropriate at some time," Ridge said.
He said expirations of drivers' licenses should be linked to visa expirations.
National ID Opposed, but ...
Gordon Johndroe, Ridge's spokesman, told United Press International the Bush administration opposed a national identification card, but was working with national associations including the governors and American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators on ideas to make vehicle operators permits more standardized.
One idea, he said, would be to issue resident aliens driver's permits linked to their visas. If an alien had a visa to visit the United States for six months, he would not be able to obtain a driver's permit that exceeded six months, Johndroe said. This would require, he said, a way for state departments of motor vehicles to be linked with the Immigration and Naturalization Service or for states to call up INS records. He said Homeland Security was studying proposals to help state motor vehicle agencies link up.
Computer Chip and Fingerprint on Your License
On Wednesday, two Virginia congressmen, Democrat Jim Moran and Republican Tom Davis, submitted legislation to standardize state-issued driver's licenses across the United States. The plan would mandate the licenses carry a computer chip and incorporate some kind of unique identifier such as a fingerprint. The bill would also mandate that state bases be linked.
Moran told reporters Wednesday that the bill he introduced was crafted so the new driver's license databases would not be the basis of a national ID card.
"The main concern was a national identity card," Moran said. "This puts in protections against this becoming that sort of a database. It's confined within the state. It's not one single database that you would check against.
'Not a National Database'
"These are state motor vehicle departments that will have these databases. This is not a national database," he said.
Moran said that the database would not be centralized.
"You would have the capability, now that this is digitized, to check every state database. But you have to check individually. This is not a national data file," said Moran.
"We're deliberately preventing that from occurring. What'd you want to do is to check every state where the person says they have a driver's license, where the person says they used to live. So those are the ones you check. I don't know that you really need to check all 50 states."
Linking Databases Through 'Patriot Act'
The Patriot Act, passed late last year after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, appears to open a way for federal, state and local databases to be linked. The bill authorized $150 million for the "expansion of the Regional Information Sharing System" to "facilitate federal-state-local law enforcement response related to terrorist acts."
There appears to be growing support in Congress for such an expansion of access. On Tuesday at a Brookings Institution discussion of counterterrorism, Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., said the United States needed "smart card technology."
"I think we need increased use of biometrics so that we're sure a person using some form of identification is in fact the person on the identification. Obviously to get there and to rely on it, you need to know the person who is applying for the piece of identification is in fact who she says she is."
Harman, a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence and an acknowledged expert on counterterrorism, said the identification needed to be connected to national databases to check on the background of applicants for a driver's permit.
'Don't Automatically Have to Call It a National ID'
"I think this issue must be looked at. We don't automatically have to call it a national ID card. That's a radioactive term. But we can certainly think about smart cards for essential functions. But we need the database to support that."
Asked by a member of the audience if she thought there were political support for this technology, Harman said, "I think most people are really there.
Those Who Object 'Will Probably Lose Totally'
"Keep in mind that if we have a second wave of attacks, the folks who are raising objections will probably lose totally. The better idea is to do right now what I call rebalance."
Harman suggested meeting increased security needs but with "very justifiable civil liberties and privacy guarantees."
"Congress did a pretty good job on the Patriot Act," she said. "... We disallowed some of the things [Attorney General John] Ashcroft wanted because they were excessive. There still is a balancing mechanism which is the courts."
Later in discussing proposals for national information sharing, Harman said: "We already have in a sense a private-sector-based information sharing system. Credit card companies run it. And the good news is, they're capable of collecting a lot of information and popping out things using state-of-the art technology.''
She used the example that the credit card companies come to know a pattern of a customer's charges so well that they can identify when the card is being used fraudulently and query the customers.
"That's a private-based system that works well. There's also a private-based system that's abused," she said.
She did not elaborate on the abuses.
Copyright © 2002 United Press International
On the one hand, they claim with righteous indignation that they are opposed to a national ID. On the other, they are trying to lay the groundwork to create one that is federal in all but name. They are playing a game with us.
I can understand why they take the public position that they are opposed to it. There are many on the 'right' that are naturally opposed to it for religious and other reasons. The 'left' oppose it for their own reasons (similar to my own I imagine), while the middle is too brain addled by television to care.
It may be an unpopular position to take here on this forum, but it's my firm opinion that Bush is lying through his teeth when he says he's opposed to the national ID. It's going to happen folx, if not in name, in practice.(as it already is for all practical purposes already, though somewhat less standardized than the statists in control of this country (on both sides of the aisle) would like.
BTW: your handle is slightly innacurate IMO, it is already too damned late.
This crap the Republicans are pulling has got to stop.
Mourn the Republic
1776-2001
At least I was born free.
Sir,
We do not need a national ID Card, what we need is the resurrection of our right to defend ourselves. The right to bear arms. A repeal of all gun laws enacted since 1938. For you see, had their been men on board those planes on 9-11-2001, there would have been nothing but dead muslim extremists terrorist.
No national drivers license will prevent anything, only a well armed nation can defend itself.
But if you are so intent on confiscating our rights, then why not just announce a giant sized Waco siege against the entire population and be done with it?
Alas
Yep. I won't say what recent president this kind of doublespeak brings to mind.
SECURITY IN LOBBYING (Daschle's wife to work for Intelli-Check. A tie-in to a National ID?)
The company makes devices which verify the authenticity of Driver's Licenses and other IDs.
As freepers know, Linda was a top honcho at the FAA and now lobbies for the airline industry .
Want to bet congress mandates the use of Intelli-Check machines at airports?
For starters.
YES! Excellent. All the same arguments support a national concealed carry law.
Alas
Of course they want this. Bubba-2 has his good buddy "Heinrich" Ridge already teaching his troops in the "Office of Reich Security" how to say,"Your papers,plese!" with a German accent.
Keep it up. I'm sure they can find something on your compound that might get you a one way ticket to the federal pen. People need to learn to respect our government. With your poor and unpatriotic attitude, you would be a good person to start with.
They will explain that this is simply another Masterful move on the part of Der Furh... ah I mean, Dubya, to rout out those "Evil Doers"...
Geez
Like when? Not in a nation of liberty and freedom.
I will stop there before I say anything about how I really feel about this.
Oh, I see, it's only unpatriotic if it's disagreeing with Dubya. BTW, When did Dubya and Crew become the United States of America? I love my Country, I on the other hand don't like Dubya. Sorry, A Spoiled, Rich, Party Boy with a Tangled Tongue doesn't replace the Founding Fathers, IMHO. Regardless of the Scripted Rhetoric of Dubya's you fling back...
BTW, Have we gotten Bin Laden, Dead or Alive, Yet? Maybe 'Toon was telling the Truth when he said he WAS trying to get the guy. Face it Dubya and Company had alot more resources in the area when Bin Laden is, and they still can't find him.
In other words,a national ID.
'Don't Automatically Have to Call It a National ID'
Of course not. We don't automatically need to call a rattlesnake a rattlesnake,either. We could call it a "butterfly",for instance.
"I think this issue must be looked at. We don't automatically have to call it a national ID card. That's a radioactive term.
So,we need to take the radiation away from atomic bombs,so why not start calling them "Iron Bird Dropppings"? Everybody loves birds,right? Or to connect it with the previous paragraph AND to bring in the crowd that mostly supports the Dims,we could call them "Iron Butterfly Droppings!" and make nukes a "good thing,man!" "Inda gadda davida,baby" (in the garden of Eden,Baby).
Hey,while we are at it,why don't we go ahead and call Bubba Bush a "conservative"? Some people are already confused enough they actually think he is a Republican,so that wouldn't be that big a leap.
But we can certainly think about smart cards for essential functions. But we need the database to support that."
I know! Let's have a contest to pick the best new name for these "NOT a National ID Cards"! I'll open the bidding with "Patriot's Card",and "Really Reich Registration". Wadda ya think?
See there, now I've gone and started saying how I felt about this...
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