The Washington Times
Published 10/5/2002

Big Brother's national ID card
House Editorial

http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20021005-695758.htm

    A national Identification card — complete with biometic identifiers, such as fingerprints or retinal scans — is coming. Only it's not being called that. House Resolution 4633 — the Driver's License Modernization Act of 2002 — would effectively create a national ID if it's passed. The bill would require each state to adopt a uniform standard for driver's licenses and link their motor vehicle databases to a central computer registry. H.R. 4633 would "amend title 23, United States Code, to establish standards for state programs for the issuance of drivers' licenses and identification cards, and for other purposes." It would make use of "encoded biometric data matching the holder of the license or card." In other words, American citizens who have never committed any crime would be subject to fingerprinting (or something similar, such as a retinal scan) and compelled to carry a card with an embedded computer chip containing reams of personal information.
    What the legislation calls for is, in fact, a national ID card that every adult American would effectively be forced to carry. The only way to opt out would be to give up one's driver's license — something that is not practical in an era when, outside of major cities, being able to drive is a necessity without which one cannot secure or maintain employment. And like the now-ubiquitous Social Security number — which, recall, was "never to be used for identification purposes," but which is now almost impossible to conduct any business without — the coming national ID/driver's license will almost certainly become an item without which one cannot open a bank account, obtain a credit card, purchase a car or home, and so on.
    As Eric Skrum of the National Motorists Association put it recently: "Ultimately, anybody in any state with a card reader would be able to look up your personal driving record, credit rating, Social Security number, health information, personal address, and anything else the government would force you to divulge in order to 'voluntarily' obtain a driver's license."
    They can call it whatever they want, but the end result will be the same. This bill should be rejected as being incompatible with a free society.

They've got a digital picture of me on file for my WI drivers license. From what I've read about these face scanning programs that they have now, that is pretty much a biometric ID anyway. OH well. 666


I can't wait till the shooting starts.

we already have one its called a System Serial Number

err i mean  SSN

There is no way to adequately control immigration and to determine who is an illegal alien until there is a way to determine who is a citizen. I have as many concerns as anyone about a citizen id, but I also can not see anyway that we can get by today without it.

What is it about a national ID that you don't like?  Do you think the info can be used against you somehow?  How so?  Do you want to remain anonymous?  Too late for that if you have a credit card, bank account, driver's license, or have given you info to anyone in your life.

I'm not saying I'm for it.  I'm just curious what others think.

USPC40


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Right now lots of different agencies/co's have information about you, but for the most part it's only specific to what that agency/company "needs to know".

With a national system all these pieces of unrelated information get put together into a big single point of contact database (maybe not now, but soon).  It's just major step toward Big Brother being able to key in your name/SSN and finding out EVERYTHING there is to know about you (taxes, purchasing habits, medical records, bank accounts).  Right now someone has to work at putting all the pieces together, with this it makes it WAY too easy for anyone with access to know EVERYTHING about you.

i always think about a draft situation.  would it be a truely random draft?  or would they just take people with certain biometric characteristics?  

national ID is not a good thing now or ever.

Cards can be lost or stolen, it will be a implanted chip.

There is no system that is perfect and when you get the system computerized, then things can really get messed up.  For example, at our library they use a computer to record books that are checked out.  When you return the books, the librarian must properly check-in the books or you get late notices several weeks after the books were returned.
Crooks at stores will find ways around needing your id-card.  When this happens, it will be your responsibility to prove that you did not make the purchase.  I have heard that it takes years to correct your credit when someone steals your card.  I can just image the problems if you cannot purchase food just because your card does not match the database, for instance if you just moved and your card address does not match your database address.

Sounds like a problem easily solved by a tape head demagnetizer or similar evil device.

BTW, I was at my dealer last week and he was testing out his new CA-DOJ provided computer for running NICS checks, DROS and all that BS. It was a nice HP system (glad to see where our taxes go.)

Anyway, it comes with a card reader for scanning CA driver's licenses. All it does is make it so the dealer doesn't have to type in your license number, address, DOB, etc. There is no evil information stored on the maganetic strip.

Anyway, it failed to read the driver's license of every person he tested it with.

I get the feeling if we ever got this kind of technology, the govt. would somehow screw it up. They really can't do anything right.

Yeah, and the DOT after claiming it was doing that to "help" LEA's, forgot to mention that their computer isn't attached to anything but the DOT. A bigger fight was trying to get the DOT to stop putting PO boxes on DL's, and put actual addresses on the DL's. Of course DOT takes no interest in whether or not the addresses are real adddresses or not.

SSN is like taxes, info goes in but doesn't come out.

Mattja, 2 words, LOW BID.

There are a couple of States that don't allow access to their States DL files online. So if you have a PA DL, and it seems suspicious their is NO WAY of verifying if the DL is real, and valid. Unless you want to wait 4-6 weeks for PA to snail mail the DL info.

Kinda nice if you want to make a phoney DL, since by the time it's discovered there is no Abdul Blow-em-up from PA...............

We already have one.  It's called the Social Security number/card.