U.S. National Identity Cards All But Law 1083
CompSci101 writes "News.com is running a story about the RealID Card legislation that's been attached to emergency military spending bills to ensure its passage. How soon does everyone think this system will be abused either by the government or by thieves ? The worst part is the completely machine-readable/automatic nature of the thing -- you might not even know you're giving your information away." From the article: "Starting three years from now, if you live or work in the United States, you'll need a federally approved ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account, collect Social Security payments, or take advantage of nearly any government service. Practically speaking, your driver's license likely will have to be reissued to meet federal standards."
RFID chips in IDs: (Score:5, Informative)
From TFA:
Looks like devices like these [eweek.com] are going to become very popular very soon...
Also, devices like these [rense.com] could be used to really complicate the lives of people you dislike...
At least TFA isn't beating around the bush (Score:5, Informative)
Q: Why did these ID requirements get attached to an "emergency" military spending bill?
Because it's difficult for politicians to vote against money that will go to the troops in Iraq and tsunami relief.
As I have already said in a different discussion, this rider crap needs to stop now.
The real problem (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Blank Reg (Score:3, Informative)
This wasn't designed to fight terrorism. (Score:1, Informative)
The government has been wanting even more control of our liberty for a long time, but us individualistic, stubborn Americans just weren't having any of it. 9/11 and terrorism are the excuse, not the reason, for these new intrusions on our liberty.
It's going to get worse before it gets any better. And what's even sadder is that terrorists can still get us. It seems that the small-government Republicans have their priorities in order: destroy liberty first, then maybe do something about terrorism (after pracising some heavy borrow-and-spend).
And people wonder why I vote Libertarian!
Additional Information (Score:3, Informative)
Feel free to make your own del.icio.us account and add to the collection.
Re:*Please* RTFA (Score:3, Informative)
I bef of you.
How dare you bef of me!!!
Heh heh...Ok, seriously,
With the exception of RFID, how in the living hell would you not know you're "giving your information away"?
The Department of Homeland Security is already pushing RFID. FTA:
The House *already approved* a standalone version of the Real ID bill, so the fact this is attached to military spending is irrelevant
I think you missed the point there...the point isn't that the House passed the bill, but that the Senate wasn't expected to. Thus, the attachment of this bill to military spending is entirely relevant, since its chances on its own were poor.
And section 102 IS STILL THERE??? (Score:4, Informative)
"SEC. 102. WAIVER OF LAWS NECESSARY FOR IMPROVEMENT OF BARRIERS AT BORDERS.
Section 102(c) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (8 U.S.C. 1103 note) is amended to read as follows:
`(c) Waiver-
`(1) IN GENERAL- Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall have the authority to waive, and shall waive, all laws such Secretary, in such Secretary's sole discretion, determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads under this section.
`(2) NO JUDICIAL REVIEW- Notwithstanding any other provision of law (statutory or nonstatutory), no court, administrative agency, or other entity shall have jurisdiction--
`(A) to hear any cause or claim arising from any action undertaken, or any decision made, by the Secretary of Homeland Security pursuant to paragraph (1); or
`(B) to order compensatory, declaratory, injunctive, equitable, or any other relief for damage alleged to arise from any such action or decision.'"
As a foreigner living in the USA (Score:3, Informative)
When most people here think that it is OK to discriminate against foreigners living here legally by passing crap like this [tennessean.com] then you should not be surprised when the power to abuse this is kicked a few notches higher.
I am also constantly amazed when I speak to most Americans around me about the Patriot Act. They seem to live in this dream world thinking that it will only be used against "terrorists". Yeah. Right.
Re:As a non-US citizen... (Score:4, Informative)
Essentially what happens is that representatives (bills originate in the House of Representatives, the lower house) can add their own provisions, make edits, whatnot, of draft bills submitted for review. It's basically a way of saying "change this-and-that or I won't vote for it"--if you have a lot of influence, for example through which committees you chair, you can exercise substantial control over things like budgets, membership in committees (and thus peoples' political careers, etc.)
Committees also have varying degrees of influence of new bills as they can "go to committee" for review, editing, whatnot--for example, the senate foreign relations committee, select committee on intelligence, and others have pretty inordinate amounts of power. The chair of these can engage in what is essentially blackmail to get his way, or to help a colleague/ally/whatever.
No, nothing prevents you from attaching pork projects. And yes, it's shit.
Also bans torture and "extraordinary rendition" (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not sure which is worse - allowing the government to continue to kidnap potentially innocent people and send them to other countries to be tortured, or a national ID that's little more than the existing drivers' licenses.
Fortunately we still have the Second Amendment. For now.
Re:At least TFA isn't beating around the bush (Score:3, Informative)
Seriously, line-item veto's are a great Constitutional discussion. It would probably require an Ammendment to the Constitution in order to change from the method Congress uses now to something that resembled line-item veto's or riderless legislation.
Re:Blank Reg (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Blank Reg (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry to break it to you, but this was kicked off in 1996 by Bill Clinton. link here [worldnetdaily.com]
From the article: For those who point to the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, Poole explains that President Bill Clinton recently signed Executive Order 13083 entitled "Federalism." That document effectively gives authority to the federal government to force anything it wants on states. No effort was made by anyone in Congress to overturn the Executive Order. Conservatives went to their legislators in 1995 to protest an effort by Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt to establish a Conference of the States to address the issue of states rights and federalism.
Little notice was given to the issue in 1996 when Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. One section of the act requires all states to make their driver's licenses comply with certain guidelines found in Section 656 (b) of the act. Federal agencies will be required to prohibit the use of state driver's licenses beginning Oct. 1, 2000, unless they comply with the federal standards.
"These new National ID regulations violate every notion of federalism, because they force states to comply with regulations issued by the federal government without any constitutional authority to do so," says Patrick Poole of the Free Congress Foundation. "Nor are federal agencies empowered to force state to gather detailed information on every person in order to comply with federal mandates. The net result of the DOT's regulations is to establish a national ID system, which has been opposed by almost every non-governmental sector for the past five decades." Shortly after the passage of the act by congress, Utah state Rep. Gerry A. Adair introduced a bill to comply with the federal requirements.
Without the new card it may become impossible to purchase firearms, get a job, board a plane, vote, cash a check, open a bank or investment account, purchase insurance, receive federal benefits, obtain a student loan, receive Medicare or Medicaid benefits, and many more basic services presently taken for granted according to Poole. Once the card is in use, Poole suggests that privacy will be a thing of the past.
All of this said, this is one of the reasons I can't stand it when ppl blame everything on Bush without even doing any research.
Re:And section 102 IS STILL THERE??? (Score:2, Informative)
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c109:5:./te
Re:Blank Reg (Score:3, Informative)
Presumably, the right to own slaves?
The right to own slaves wasn't the core issue. The civil right of a person in the USA to choose not to be a slave was what was won in the civil war.
After the war ended, many former slaves still chose to stay - working the fields in exchange for food and shelter - but the difference was it was their choice, and those who chose not to do this were allowed to leave.
Just rereading the Constitution... May I help? (Score:2, Informative)
Section 10. No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility.
No state shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection laws: and the net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any state on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the Congress.
No state shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another state, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.
Article IV
Section 1. Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state. And the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.
Section 2. The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.
A person charged in any state with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another state, shall on demand of the executive authority of the state from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the state having jurisdiction of the crime.
No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.
Section 3. New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress.
The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular state.
Section 4. The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.
Re:Blank Reg (Score:5, Informative)
This is simply not true. Most Northerners were not abolitionists. Most northerners did not care about slavery in the South, so long as it stayed in the South and didn't wander into their back yards. Northerners were keenly interested in limiting the spread of slavery into the federal territories, which in 1860 was most of the country west of the Mississippi. This was more for economic than moral reasons. Slavery and capitalism simply can't function in the same place. Slavery sucks the life out of capitalism.
It's true that by 1860 abolitionist sentiment was growing in the North, thanks partly to the popularity of Uncle Tom's Cabin, but Northerners generally were not so enflamed about how awful slavery was in the South that they wanted to go to war over it.
At the same time, the plantation class in the South came to believe that they had to expand slavery into the territories in order to protect the institution itself. They were keenly interested in being sure new states entering the Union would be slave states. Otherwise, at some point in the future there might be a big enough majority of "free" states to amend the Constitution and ban slavery.
Also, cotton depletes nutrients in the soil, and if the same fields are used for growing cotton year after year, eventually there will be a reduced yield. Apparently crop rotation didn't occur to anyone back then. So, the plantation class wanted to move slavery into new territories (and not just U.S. territories) in order to keep production up with demand.
Most of the wealth of the antebellum South was concentrated in the hands of the plantation owners. Most southern whites were dirt poor, illiterate farmers, but the plantation class lived in lordly splendor. And the antebellum South was, in effect, a plutocracy controlled by the plantation class.
The southern plantation class believed slavery to be necessary to maintaining their wealth. The U.S. South was the chief supplier of high-quality cotton to Europe at the time. Plantation owners believed that their futures depended on the expansion of slavery into the territories, which Lincoln opposed and pledged to stop. Hence, as soon as Lincoln was elected the Southern states began to secede.
The secession conventions of Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Texas wrote "declaration of causes" documents that explained their reasons for secession. The reasons were slavery, slavery, slavery, and also slavery. What caused secession is what caused the war. You can find links to these here [yale.edu]. This is what Mississippi had to say:
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.
And that's why there was a Civil War..
Re:Blank Reg (Score:2, Informative)
Lincoln only came up with emancipation as a threat: those southern states which stopped rebelling and rejoined the union would have been allowed to keep their slaves.
The US Civil War wasn't about slavery. Several northern states were allowed to keep slaves for many years after the war ended.
Re:But why? (Score:2, Informative)
>Um, no, you are most certainly NOT required to carry ID or a driver's license. You are required to carry a driver's license when you are driving, but that's it. If I'm a passenger in a car, or walking down the street, there is no requirement for me to have identification.
Really? In the UK you're not required to have your driving license when driving. If you're in an accident, pulled over or whatever and you don't have it on you you're given a week to take it to a specified local police station.
Re:But why? (Score:5, Informative)
Amendment IV: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Security of my papers includes the right to not have to show ID to an agent of the state.
Amendment IX: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Anonymity and privacy are not specifically mentioned in the Bill of Rights; that doesn't mean we don't have 'em. Remember that the BoR is a backup to the idea expressed in Amendment X...
Amendment X: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
...that everything not expressly granted to the federal government is forbidden it. There's nothing in the U.S. Constitution that grants the federal government the power to infringe on anonymity. (Only much later did it become apparent that the individual states were far from excellent guardians of liberty, and Amendment XIV was passed.)
Re:But why? (Score:3, Informative)
I've actually been issued an infraction before, as a passenger in a vehicle in the state of Connecticut (my home state), for not carrying "proper identification" with me. The officer insisted that I was being evasive for "not showing" my driver's license to him. I literally didn't have it on me, and even if I did, he had no right to require it.
I couldn't get out of the ticket in court, and had to pay it. It appears to vary state to state.
Re:And section 102 IS STILL THERE??? (Score:2, Informative)
The vote was recorded, in case you want to see what your state rep has done to you.
Hopefully, our Senators will be a more thoughtful on this issue.
Re:Blank Reg (Score:1, Informative)
But then Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. The profits came rolling in, and slavery became a staple lablor source.
I'm sort of glad he died penniless.
Teh CwarD
Re:But why? (Score:3, Informative)
You may want to check with your state, but most states require everyone over the age of 18 to carry a state ID/DL/Passport/etc. If you do not and a cop stops you, he can cite you (possibly arrest you) for not carrying ID. Yes not many people know this, and probably not many cops would do this - but they can.
As for the ID's being a gold mine for marketers - no more or less so then state issued ID's like DL or gov't issued ID's like Passport. So far I have not gotten any spam cause of my DL or my passport.
The first reason is that having to present this ID to board an airplane is a hindrance to both interstate commerce and freedom of assembly
I do not know what planes you board, but ever since I was four years old I have had to have some kind of ID to board a plane. Be it a passport for international flights or a state id/dl for national flights (obviously being under 16 I would need to use my passport for national flights). All this does is consolidate the passport to the DL.
clarification (Score:5, Informative)
In upholding his conviction and the mandatory identity-disclosure law, the majority justices also said the law only requires that a suspect disclose his or her name, rather than requiring production of a driver's license or other document.
I take that to mean that even if a state does require you to identify yourself, that does not mean you must produce a document to do so. I was unable to find anything suggesting a pedestrian must produce an ID card.
Re:But why? (Score:2, Informative)
The "shoe bomber" was not stopped by airport security -- he was restrained by passengers on the plane who realised he was a threat and were not going to sit idle and, as you put it, "do nothing during a hijack and die."
At the same time, airport security turns away people in possession of dangerous materials. Notice I didn't say dangerous people or terrorists, merely people in possession of dangerous materials. They keep the stupid people who call themselves "terrorists" from getting on the plane in the first place. An idiot who brings fireworks and a Zippo on a plane may have no intentions of doing anything with it, but if someone else on board takes it for malicious purposes...well, you can see where I'm going, and that's a whole can of worms.
Is airport security taking away liberty and frightening people? Not quite -- it keeps stupid people from doing stupid things, but at the same time it's useless against a smart, determined individual.
Re:Blank Reg (Score:3, Informative)