RustyBattleship

Just watched the news tonight. And my wife screamed that she may as well be back in communist Hungary.

We will be FORCED to acquire a new identity card (starting in May even though some States are against it) in addition to our driver's license, social security card, passport, work badge, whatever.

I called our local newspaper to print a question I have about the new card.

Will it be emblazoned with a Swastika or a Sickle and Hammer?

All this from the new director of Homeland Security. Hmmm, wasn't that the basic function of Himmler's job?

Oh yes. And the cost of this program is around 9 BILLION dollars.

__________________
Able to leap tall tales in a single groan.

Blademaster

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." - Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dec. 8th, 1941.

Truer words could not be spoken. It seems that the people at DHS has forgotten those words and have now succumbed to their own fears, subverting the very foundation of freedom and liberty.

Feanor

American democracy fails again. So now does my idea of assault rifles as political tools seem a bit more appealing? I mean really. You're at the point where there is no powerful opposition party with the support to take to the streets and protest in any meaningful way.

Silent Hunter

Can someone provide me with a link to this story, please?

Desdemona

The Associated Press: New ID Rules May Complicate Air Travel

Try this link for a recent AP report on issuing new Id's in the USA.

Personally, I had a fake id when I was 16, but that's only because the drinking age was 18.

I mostly disagree with the ACLU's principles including their recent propaganda to close Guantanamo but I do hear what the ACLU is saying in that creating a national data base of registrants information could be leaked or used in a manner not consistent with he laws of the USA.

Then again, is the sacrifice worth preventing another 911? I read somewhere that the terrorist pilot had 4 driver's licenses that, had the govt been able to cross reference, may have alerted us to his activities.

__________________
"We are the people our parents warned us about." Jimmy Buffet

Silent Hunter

So, what we're having here is a national standard for driving licences and a national database. Not a compulsory ID card.

Capt Bluesman

Perhaps your wife could take a deep breath, calm down a little bit, and look at the facts of the situation before she declared the US a totalitarian dictatorship.

First, it's not a new identity card. It's a driver's license, just like the driver's license you currently have, only with standardized security features, some of which your current license may already have. It will replace your current one, not be held in addition.

Second, states don't have to start issuing these until 2011, not May, and third, you're not being forced to get one at all, ever, if you don't want one. You do know that there are plenty of people that don't possess a license in this country, and manage fine, right?

And fourth, all of the information you provided when you got a license is already fully searchable public information. The level of privacy is affected not one whit.

texasjohn

Gotta agree with Capt.Blues here. Just go to PublicData.com. You would be amazed how much is already public domain!! It has been that way for years. It just happens to be on line now. I can get the number of your car tags and tell you quite a bit about yourself, and about the people that live in your house. No biggie. My Texas licence that got renewed this year appears to have quite a few "features".

dalem

Bzzzzzzt!

Sorry, but that's not really accurate.

-dale

RustyBattleship

[quote=Capt Bluesman;447677]
First, it's not a new identity card. It's a driver's license, just like the driver's license you currently have, only with standardized security features, some of which your current license may already have. It will replace your current one, not be held in addition.

Second, states don't have to start issuing these until 2011, not May, and third, you're not being forced to get one at all, ever, if you don't want one.
QUOTE]

However, the newscast said that if you did not have one, you would not be allowed to board an airplane.

As for another poster saying that one of the 9/11 pilots had 4 driver's licenses is true. That's not hard to do. All his "country" has to do is "issue" him several different passports/visas with different names so cross-checking licenses is null and void.

On one trip I had to Europe, I had two passports. One the red jacketed government official passport for the job I was to do for the Navy and one blue jacketed private passport for vacationing afterwards in countries that would not accept the government passport. And they were both legal.

It's a waste of time, a waste of money and an invasion of privacy that won't do whit on stopping international terrorists/spies, etc. from getting any kind of ID card they want.

Silent Hunter

Then don't go on an airplane, Rusty Battleship. Take a train instead.

Capt Bluesman

[quote=RustyBattleship;447778]Okay, again, nothing different from the state of affairs now. You already need a government issued picture ID of some sort to board an airplane. When we read for comprehension, we see that you will NOT need this particular ID to board an airplane, only that if you choose to use a driver's license for identification, this will the be the one you must use. You can still use another form of ID, such as a passport, to board a plane. And, as Silent Hunter notes, if you are so incensed by the whole thing, you could always take the train, or the bus.

The whole 4 licenses thing? This is what this program is attempting to prevent, partly by archiving photos. Would you prefer the goverment take the attitude that you have, that "Oh well, nothing can be done, no sense trying."

I'm not sure what the fact that you had two passports has to do with anything. I'm assuming they were both in your name. I have two myself, and they both have my correct information on them.

And no, it's not any more an invasion of privacy than the system that exists now. Not that I think it will do any good, but I'll repeat myself. ALL the information you currently submit to obtain a driver's license is PUBLIC, and can be obtained without much effort by anyone who chooses to.

gunnut

Hopefully those are not "sensitive" information like how many guns I have and the type I own.

I consider that "classified" and I do not reveal that information. You will never see me pose with my weapons and you will never see pictures of my weapons except the ones that I like to show people.

__________________
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

RustyBattleship

Unlike my wife, I don't fly anymore. Not after going through weather that dropped a 747 so fast we all went weightless. And not since I was on a Huron that blew two tires on landing. The very last flight I took I was bumped to a later plane. That was fortunate because the plane I was supposed to take crashed on top of another plane while landing.

I like trains and I collect them in HO scale. But I prefer to leave the driving to me from now on.

The point I'm trying to make is that the HS is trying another trick of Nationalizing individual ID's and trying to maintain job security. Consolodation of intelligence gathered information from the FBI, CIA, NIA, NIS, AI, CONTROL, UNCLE, KAOS and THRUSH is what is needed.

The government has already done this with Social Security cards. We had to take out a SS card for our daughter when she was born. That was so if any bank account was to be set up in her name for college or marriage, the IRS could tax the interest.

The military already did away with individual serial numbers and use only the Social Security number instead. Another way of helping the IRS earn its keep.

But why spend BILLIONS of dollars nationalizing a so-called Driver's License when all you have to do is take the existing formats and put them in the same kind of computer search data base being proposed.

Is that rotten Tuna I smell?

gunnut

I loved that show. A new movie is due next summer with Steve Carrel as Maxwell Smart.