Senate approves electronic ID card bill (Bush to sign in May)

[ibid]

Senate approves electronic ID card bill (Bush to sign in May)

By Declan McCullagh
URL: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5702505.html

<snip>The so-called Real ID Act now heads to President Bush, who is expected to sign the bill into law this month. Its backers, including the Bush administration, say it's needed to stop illegal immigrants from obtaining drivers' licenses.

If the act's mandates take effect in May 2008, as expected, Americans will be required to obtain federally approved ID cards with "machine readable technology" that abides by Department of Homeland Security specifications. Anyone without such an ID card will be effectively prohibited from traveling by air or Amtrak, opening a bank account, or entering federal buildings. <snip>

The Electronic Frontier Foundation hastily created a "Stop The Real ID Act!" campaign last week, and the ACLU denounced the bill as a measure that would create "a system ripe for identity theft." Security guru Bruce Schneier offered his own negative critique.
<snip>

The House approved it in February by a relatively narrow vote of 261-161, and some senators had condemned it. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., warned last month that the Real ID Act creates "de facto national ID cards" and the National Immigration Law Center said it will make it harder even for legal immigrants and citizens to get drivers' licenses.
<snip>

[kliljedahl]

1. They're so good about managing IDs

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/10/fake.badges/index.html


Keith’s Barbeque Central

[Catch22Dem]

2. What if your state already issues a machine readable drivers...

license?

[ibid]

3. Department of Homeland Security specifications???

waivers ?????

interesting bit of work ahead is they are to be in effect in 3 years!

[serryjw]

4. When did this damn thing become elec tronic with

a mag strip in the back? I was outraged by the need for 4 pieces of ID. Now they will really know everything about us. BIG Daddy is here.

[Baker]

5. What's the big deal?

The state I live in has had those requirements in place for years now. Nothing is going to change here or in many other states. From what I understand this is just federal rules the states must use in order to issue a state drivers license or id. It is not a federal identification card.

[ibid]

6. current info is not enough - 4 ids to get this id - plus Bill of Rights

was suspended to get a fence built, plus immmigration solution is ass-backwards and will screw folks here 30 years with a green card,

plus it is in fact a national id bill because the compromise that removed the "national id" - by not mandating a national data base - put in mandatory "linking" between state databases!

Like it is so hard to do a query of 50 databases - and now they are linked!!

But you are correct that the single data base national id database is not in this bill!

:thumbsup:

:-)

[Baker]

7. 4 id's is a bit much

I've been inconvenienced by the law in my state that requires all of that id to get a license. It's really not that bad though.

With those 30 year immigrants we should be asking why have they not attempted to become citizens. I think the INS should push and assist people like that and others to actually become citizens of the US instead of just allowing them to be here what has become indefinately because of INS and government inaction on immigration issues.

[ibid]

8. problem resolution procedures will be key - currently Soc Sec deals

with the lack of a Birth Certificate every day - but it takes months.

Bibles are presented by the birth at home crowd, and state records go lost or destroyed over 66 years in a large percentage of the cases.

This can be made to work - at least as to the id being not too much a hassle, and the drivers license being a great id that is near impossible to fake.

But the National Data Base (or now - the national linking of state databases) is a bit scary after only a few years since "papers please" meant jail as those papers were examined in much of the world. Sort of the 2nd Amendment folks seeing any gun control law as the slippery slope to removal of citizens guns.

Passing Real ID is not the end of the world, IMHO, but the idea of the Bill of Rights being lifted for fence building project is sick, and the way it was passed - attached to a must pass military bill - was not the way things should be done. Getting the imigration "solution" ass-backwards was the result of the lack of debate, in my opinion.

[davelyoung1]

9. Town Hall Meetings

Maybe soon all government buildings will be like Republican town hall meetings, with these ID required for admittance, so they can deny the American to right to speak in a government building. With the public not allowed to fly to Washington to protest Bush he will have no visible sign of how much he is screwing up American diversity.

[dzugashvili]

10. help patriot II with mis rep staff

I have been batting zilch with my mis reptile's staff on patriot act reauthorization..
sap voted for it in the first place.

Are there any documented cases I can refer his staff to try and pry him off this one way rail.

the staffer didn't seem to equate Fibby misconduct wrt Civil Rights era screwup/agiprop issues and said call me when you have real stuff from here and now.

any idea where to start.

They did listen and get some stuff moving that last time I sent specific cases their way (us v Glover etc.)