Feanor

Trains are such reliable trans-oceanic forms of travel. Across that huge bridge that goes from New York to London. And a great view of the ocean on the way too

texasjohn

All pictures of "de-classified" weapons only!!

Debbie

Mapquest suggests swimming across the Atlantic Ocean.....

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RustyBattleship

Didn't Jack Lemmon, Peter Falk, Tony Curtis and (deep sigh) Natalie Wood drive across somehow?

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Capt Bluesman

Well, if you are traveling trans-oceanic, I'm assuming you have a passport, which is a perfectly acceptable form of ID.

Bluesman

Well, yeah, but THEN, see, the Men in Black will be able to

Okay, forget it. I'm not really very good at getting conspiracy rumors started.

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Feanor

Good point. Well, time will show how far they will take this ID thing.....

texasjohn

It's really all about the Drivers LIcence databases and integrating them with Federal and State databases - something that is half-ass right now. It is way overdue.

Correct me anyone...

gunnut

Was that "The Great Race?"

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TopHatter

I AM PROFESSOR FATE!

gunnut

Strange how ACLU is now all of a sudden concerned about the same thing that we gun owners have said for years.

http://www.aclu.org/pizza/images/screen.swf

Trooth

If you want to travel you have to accept that you need to present something to the destination that they recognise. If in the US you have (let us say) 50 types of driving license, you provide not just an administrative overhead, but you also provide 50 opportunities for forgery. As much as anything it takes experience to spot a fake, this experience is diluted 50 (or however many) times. How often does someone in Texas see an Alaskan driver's license and so on?

Whilst i agree that one standard document does not mean it is harder to fake, it makes it easier to learn and to spot fakes. Also, as technology improves it is easier to roll out updated ID cards / passports etc if they are standardised. Because you are going from only one old type, to one new type and the timescales are shorter too.

Also, having centralised databases reduces the need for people to ship data extracts to each other and thus reduces the opportunity for data to go missing in the post (i.e. like the HMRC fiasco). Data security becomes permissions for thousands of people to access one database rather than for thousands of people to access hundreds of databases.

If you ship data it also loses its security because by the very nature of the shipping process you are letting the data go out of a controlled area. Sure it might be encrypted etc, but at some point it will be decrypted for use, and probably printed out and left for the cleaner to dispose of in some small contract IT company. Something that would never actually happen in a data owner's premesis.

I work in financial IT and one of the pains in the arse of the world of finance is ID - because there is no real standard you have to offer new customers options as to the ID they can use. All of the choices are rubbish apart from a passport (proof of ID only, not address). Yet one of the things customers are most concerned about is ID theft - so which do you want?

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Expat Canuck

When they make it illegal to not carry ID then you need to start to worry. In the Netherlands you can be arrested if you do not have ID if they feel that they need to confirm your identity but most often it's just a fine. I think a lot of European countries are like that.

TopHatter

To have their cake and eat it too, naturally.

Ryan Bailey

Friends, as freedom loving citizens, we have been distressed by the trends of totalitarianism exercised over the last centuries in the States. Under the seperate war presidencies of Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman & others, to include those more recent, we have seen the exercise of a uniform wartime socialist statism.

We have grown accustomed to sacrificing liberties for the duration of the emergency.

This requires only that modern tyrants discover the perfect formula for the permanent emergency. It could be argued that this was discovered on 11 September 2001. Or, on the other hand, it could be argued that we are once again loaning our liberties out.

Rep. Ron Paul:

"I do not support any Real ID program, and I would seek the repeal of all federal laws mandating a Real ID program. The Real ID Act imposes tremendous costs on state governments, yet any state that opts out will automatically make nonpersons out of its citizens.
The citizens of that state will be unable to have any dealings with the federal government because their ID will not be accepted. They will not be able to fly or to take a train. In essence, in the eyes of the federal government, they will cease to exist.

However, the most objectionable feature of the Real ID Act is that it turns state driver's licenses into de facto national ID cards, thus facilitating the massive invasion of an American's privacy, facilitating the growth of the surveillance state, and turning America into the type of country where citizens must always have their 'papers in order.'"

-- News.com Technology Voters Guide, January 2, 2008.

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