Creeping towards a national ID card?
The Department of Homeland Security proposed guidelines yesterday for its REAL ID program (pdf) towards the standardization of state identification cards.
States have to begin issuing the so-called domestic "internal
passports" by May 2008, otherwise people may not be able to board
airplanes or enter federal courthouses. The regulations deal with all
sorts of complex matters, like how databases from different states will
interact and what the required elements will be on the face of an ID
card.
These regulations aren't enforceable yet. There's a
clause allowing for states to apply for an extension to 2010. And
Congress could pass bills in the meantime that would make the
regulations moot. But if they indeed are implemented, it could cost
states and individuals $23 billion over 10 years. And it means that if
your driver's license expires, you won't be able to renew it by mail.
You'll probably have to go to the DMV in person (and, naturally, wait
in line for hours), and bring lots of supporting documentation with you
to prove that you are really who you say you are.
Civil liberty
activists believe that this is just the first step towards a national
identification card, and are concerned about invasion of privacy. I get
that concern, I really do. But put me in the camp of people who believe
that we more or less have a national ID system in place anyway, with
social security numbers and passports and whatnot. And having lived
abroad in countries where there is a national ID card, I
can't say that people in those countries feel that their liberties are
infringed upon. But whatever your thoughts on a national ID card, one
thing's for sure. This is just further proof of the paradoxical beliefs
of the American people: no one's more simultaneously patriotic yet
distrustful of their own government.
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