DHS Official Suggests REAL ID Mission Creep 277
The Register noticed that a senior US Department of Homeland Security official has floated the idea of requiring citizens to produce federally compliant identification before purchasing some over-the-counter medicines — specifically, pseudophedrine. The federal ID standard spelled out by the REAL ID act has been sold as applying only to air travel and entry to federal buildings and nuclear facilities. A blogger on the Center for Democracy and Technology site said, "[The] suggested mission creep pushes the REAL ID program farther down the slippery slope toward a true national ID card." Speaking of federal buildings, CNet has a state-by-state enumeration of what will happen on May 11, when REAL ID comes into effect, to citizens who attempt to enter, say, the Washington DC visitors bureau.
Dear God (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Dear God (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole pseudoephedrine thing is not about the meth addicts. Sure, that's the excuse they used, but the real reason for the provision for requiring ID on pseudoephedrine and limiting the quantity for purchase of these drugs in the so-called 'Stop Meth Act' is to prevent people from using them as a sort of 'speed lite'. Teenagers were found to be using them as 'pep' pills and 'smart' pills (because pseudoephedrine is a stimulate that's quite a bit stronger than caffeine) and so the purpose was really to keep people from buying them and using them for that purpose.
You can either buy the party line or examine the evidence yourself: the truth is that purchasing pseudoephedrine-containing drugs in certain combinations, such as with guafenesin, does not require ID and does not have any purchase limit. Making meth from psuedoephededrine+guafenesin is not much more difficult than making it from any other pseudoephedrine-containing drug. However, the pseudoephedrine+guafenesin combination cannot be used as a 'pep' or a 'smart' drug, because the guafenesin will make you sick if you take it in too high of a dose.
This can all be verified with a simple Google search.
Think for yourselves, people. Please. For all that is good in this world, please starting thinking for yourselves.
Re:Dear God (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dear God (Score:5, Funny)
That's one of the problems with pseudoephedrine. Can't slow down. Bouncy bouncy. Can't take a joke. No fun at all.
Really kids, just go for the caffeine. Despite years of attempted vilification, modern medical science hasn't found too much wrong with it.
Works for me anyway. The perfect life. Sitting in front of the computer screen, drinking coffee, posting on Slashdot.
Oh, wait...
Re:Dear God (Score:4, Informative)
Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005 (CMEA) [wikipedia.org]
Re:Dear God (Score:3, Funny)
Next thing, you'll tell us you bought your Rolex from a guy on the street... And it was a really good deal.
Might as well buy your drugs from Puerto Rico [slashdot.org]
Re: Buying Rolexes on the Street (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Dear God (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Dear God (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Dear God (Score:2, Insightful)
You can't trust the government.
Re:Dear God (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Dear God (Score:2)
It should be pretty clear to most any US citizen that the govt here (and I'm sure it is about the same in most any western country), that there has pretty much never been been a law passed that hasn't had its interpretation bastardized at some point to stretch the law and use it in multiple ways it was never intended.
They seem to use RICO laws to go after people now that have never been involved with the 'mob'.
What we need to try to get our lawmakers to do, is make each law VERY precise in how it can be applied. If you pass a law or regulation to 'save the children', ok...but, it can only be used in that type application, nothing else. Unfortunately, it seems they want to go out of their way to write these damned things to be a broad as possible.
Re:Dear God (Score:4, Interesting)
Thats all good and dandy, but why is DHS involved in whether or not teens get high with OTC drugs? Shouldn't that be something the DEA or FDA handles?
I mean... Does Homeland Security think that kids popping pills will somehow turn them into into Fundamentalist Terrorists?
Even if there no evil intentions by DHS, this is at least very poor use of their resources.
Re:Dear God (Score:5, Interesting)
Apparently they are. And just as apparently, the US government considers drug use to be terrorism. [slashdot.org] It's the war on [next thing to extend the grasp of government power and take away your consitituional rights].
Would someone please point to the section of the US Constitution that gives the government the power to tell me what I can put in my body? And don't give me that "interstate commerce" bunk.
I voted for Ron Paul yesterday. I smoke pot, you would have to be a damned fool would vote for someone who would condone laws that would put you in prison for something you enjoy. When this country was founded, a man had the right to screw his life up any way he pleased. No more.
Sadly, I won't be able to vote for him in the general election. If the Libertarians aren't on the ballot I'm not sure who I'll vote for, but it won't be a Republicrat*.
-mcgrew
*A "Republicrat" is the US' single political party. It has two wings, the Republicans and the Democrats. The Republicrat Party wants the things I love outlawed. I'd like to see neckties outlawed, or mandated that anyone who wears one hangs himself with it.!
Re:Dear God (Score:4, Insightful)
Erroneous comparison. He was talking about sitting at home, and getting a bit stoned on pot. Nothing more 'dangerous' to you or society than anything else that is currently legal like alcohol. In fact, it could be argued that pot users are less dangerous that boozers...they rarely get violent which is often a problem with many with alcohol usage.
You are mentioning acts which by definition harm others (molester, rapist), the comparison is not even in the same ball park. Hate crime? When did we get that in the US?? Crime is crime...if you kill someone, they are dead, no matter the reason. You think it is worse if it is due to racial or sexual reasons? No, murder is a crime...period. It isn't made any worse due to the reason. And it is already against the law, we don't need more laws against murder....
Re:Dear God (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know about that, but whoever moderated this, very obvious, joke as "insightful" is definitely smoking something.
Re:Dear God (Score:2)
Yeah, how dare those people think they have the right to choose not to see funny posts? I'll tell them what they should and shouldn't read.
Personally, I mod all offtopic comments as "Insightful" so people who have "Offtopic" at -5 can still read them.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Or just show your passport (Score:5, Insightful)
As a side benefit my personal data in databases within the US is extremely inconsistent. As I'll use any convenient address or data when I fill out whatever form I'm using. I do the same thing with the bank accounts I maintain within the US.
Having said all of that in my opinion the majority of US government is grossly incompetent and they have no business having access to my personal data. Just because I haven't figured out some cataclysmically stupid and devastating thing to do with my own personal data does not mean that some ass in government can't come with something (which would invariably be worse).
If they spent all this time & money understanding what about American society creates many addicts we'd be done already. Limiting purchases of cold medicine is just drug war theater
Re:Or just show your passport (Score:3, Insightful)
I think they have already screwed it up. According to the current head of DHS, as quoted on CNN, http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9771953-7.html [news.com]
Great, that means you now have to pick someone living to impersonate by use of a birth certificate. But if I can present the birth certificate of someone roughly my age who is still alive according the database (presumably still a state function), how does that verify anything? Or am I going to have to take of my shoes so that they can compare my footprint with the one they took in the hospital many years ago?
Re:Or just show your passport (Score:3, Interesting)
On a slightly related note, I've been going through a ton of crap recently trying to find out if my passport is valid. I accidentally washed it and I don't know if the RFID chip inside is still functional. Externally it looks brand new. I didn't want to be traveling and have that be a problem, but a new passport would be more money than I want to spend right now - and I just paid for this one.
It's a catch-22 thing. The readers to check if the chip is functional are at my local airport. The airport customs people wont let me in unless I'm traveling. I went round and round with people on the phone about this, and was finally told by a customs official - "We see tons of passports where the chip is not functional, don't worry about it."
When I go to Mexico next month I guess I'll find out for sure. But it is funny - all the extra cost of this chip - the extra security concerns and apparently it is irrelevant anyway.
Re:Or just show your passport (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Or just show your passport (Score:2)
Re:Or just show your passport (Score:5, Insightful)
Because you fall into an EXTREME minority of people using a passport for such purposes - All the passport-tracking infrastructure currently in place exists to track entry and exit from the country at its borders (and various major points-of-entry, ie, airports).
If you want an example of the sort of abuses RealID will lead to, you need look no further than EZPass (or TransPass or whatever they call it) in New Jersey (and several other states). "No, no, we'll never give out your travel details!" - Then bam, ten years later, the states want to use those record to retroactively impose speeding fines, divorce cases regularly subpoena their records, and in at least one case, police used an EZPass dump to "justify" randomly harassing hundreds of innocent people who happened to use the wrong highway at the wrong time.
We tinfoil-types don't (only) fear what could happen, we fear what already happens when you hand similar tools to those in power.
I wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I wonder... (Score:2)
Re:I wonder... (Score:3, Interesting)
And yes, I am a political scientist.
I did not say that everything from DHS is bad. I said that this is from DHS, and that this is bad. I actually did not mean to imply that all DHS work is bad. The point is that if there is a charge for getting a RealID, which there will be, and if the RealID is required to get a job, for instance, then people who are poor will suffer even more than they do now.
Re:I wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
To place this in context, once there is a national ID card it will be easier to add more and more functions over time. However, would you accept it if you were told that you will need to show this card to conduct any financial transactions, own a gun, travel beyond 30km from your house, or exercise your right to free speech? to name just some possibilities...
The slippery slope is not that these things are somehow implied to the introduction of national ID, but they are clearly made easier by it, and some people may already be planning the introduction of further measures along the lines I have suggested.
Not a fallacy (Score:5, Insightful)
What I infer from what you say is that the slippery-slope argument is not fallacious, but insufficient. And on that, I agree. Simply invoking the slippery-slope is not good enough. You'll have to back it up.
In this case of the Real ID, we've already seen the "slippery-slope" happening. It's not only logical that it will slide down that slope, but inevitable. The question is not "if," it's "when." With the DHS grasping for more power, that time seems now.
Re:I wonder... (Score:2)
Is it ? After all, if you make the Real ID card required for buying peas - indeed, any transaction - then it will become a lot harder to live in the US as an illegal immigrant. It would also be harder to commit crime and not get caught because increasing your spending would show in the database and draw suspicion, and not increasing it would make the crime rather pointless in the first place - indeed, it would become easy to spot any case where your reported spending is greater than earnings. Joe Average would love it, since it would make taxation easy to automate. All this means that there is a conceivable reason why the Government would want to pass such regulation, even without assuming any nefarious motives (which is assuming a lot).
Besides, if one accepts the claim "politicians in general are in politics because they want power", then almost any slippery slope in regards to increasing regulation becomes a justifiable argument. After all, more regulation means more power for the politicians.
It's ALWAYS been "papers please" in the U.S. (Score:2)
The federal ID debate is simply a matter of how much we want to centralize it.
Re:I wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that people are calling the slippery slope argument a logical fallacy based on its context as a mathematical/scientific proof.
But it is a common practice (for good or ill) to try and reach a goal through incremental steps. Many see medical marijuana as a step to reaching the full legalization of the drug. When slavery was banned in the UK, it didn't happen overnight, it took a lot of little steps and pressures (like attacking the profits of the slave traders rather than the slave trade).
But it also works in the other direction. Maybe not a slippery slope, but a stepladder to tyrrany. Just because the term is associated with a mathematical logical fallacy, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. The behaviour of human beings doesn't mean they will recognize that they are 'falling' for a logical fallacy.
Re:I wonder... (Score:2)
HOWEVER, we have a mountain of evidence based on direct observation of the past behavior of our government, and other governments around the world, indicating that the "slippery slope" is very real. We also have an increasing amount of evidence to suggest that anything coming out of the DHS is a BAD idea. If they come out with 10 bad ideas in a row, am I to assume that it's a coin toss as to whether their next policy proposal will be good or bad?
It's called inductive reasoning. Is that a fallacy as well?
We're not writing code or playing around with probability theory and the philosophy of logic. Welcome to the reality of Big Government (Brother?)
Re:I wonder... (Score:2)
Hey - the government doesn't like competition!
Re:I wonder... (Score:3, Insightful)
You're attempting to apply logic to an organization (the U.S. government) that applies fallacy at least as often as logic to legislation.
This leads to a sort of meta-logic where one must not only consider the reasonability of the proposal under discussion but also the effects down the road. A great many freedom abusing proposals are ALREADY waiting for the real-id to happen (TFA demonstrates that DHS can't even manage to wait that long). Thus, I may reasonably argue that real-id opens the door to a legislative crapflood and that the probable risk of some portion of that crapflood being passed in yet another "children should be allowed to laugh, everyone should have food and (PS) the TSA should anally probe everyone up to their tonsils" bill outweighs any potential benefit.
Slippery slope is a conditional fallacy. That is, arguments in it's form are frequently fallacies but not necessarily. Sometimes the slope really is slippery and if that can be demonstrated then the argument is not fallacious. In this case, TFA demonstrates that the slope around real ID is indeed slippery. When the law was passed, there was discussion of the slippery slope and those claiming it would be carefully confined to a few uses won the day. Now, with the law not even in effect yet, the proposals to expand its use are already in play.
Likewise, an ad hominem attack is also a logical fallacy. Just because it comes from DHS does mot mean it's a bad idea.
It does not PROVE that it's a bad idea. It does SUGGEST additional caution.
Re:The "Slippery Slope" (Score:2)
IGNORING THE CONTEXT OF ITS USE. We are talking about a very specific
context here that is SPECIFICALLY built upon the idea of "one thing
leading to another". It's a feature of how the given system works
rather than just being a random bit of paranoia.
First they abuse kids (spray paint), then they move on to adults
(decongestants).
Re:I wonder... (Score:3, Insightful)
personal identity number (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:personal identity number (Score:5, Insightful)
Just about everyone in the US has at least two government issued IDs: A driver's license (state issued) and a social security card (federally issued). Social security cards do not have a photo. For those that do not have a driver's license, a passport is also acceptable (as someone already mentioned) as photo ID.
There are two reasons why no rational person likes the Real ID Act. First, a minor point, is that we already have the above ID options and they work just fine. Second, and more important, there is currently no massive federally-controlled database containing ALL of the information in one spot. Given the government's track record of ineptitude and maleficence - especially in the past eight years - the last thing a sane person wants is to put all of the nation's personal information into the exclusive hands of a single government entity.
In short, it's both redundant and dangerous for our liberty. Of course all the chicken-littles will cry that we need it for security but even they know deep inside that's a load of shit.
=Smidge=
Re:personal identity number (Score:3, Funny)
Their brains might be able to figure out that it is a load of shit, but thinking is so 20th century. Now, we know with our guts. And their guts know that they need to track every movement of your and your money, to protect you from yourself.
Re:personal identity number (Score:2)
Gee whiz. Sounds like the Democratic and Democrat Light(Republican) parties right there. Everyone is talking about Nationalized Heath Care now, and guess what that is? Protecting you from yourself. Actually, it applies to just about everything our government is involved with now.
What gets me, is that the same people that want National Health Care have no idea that it also means more government intrusion into one's life that they so despise. I wonder if they'll accept the National ID if and when its attached to Universal Health Care.
Re:personal identity number (Score:2)
A Social Security card is not an ID. I don't know of any place that will accept a Social Security card as an ID. Legally, no place is allowed to request a Social Security card as an ID. It says *right on the friggin' card* that it can't be used as an ID. They may want your Social Security *Number*, but that's different.
Re:personal identity number (Score:5, Interesting)
My Social Security card says, in bold capital letters just under the signature, "for social security and tax purposes - not for identification".
But it was issued in 1968 when I was 16, back when the only thing you needed an ID for was driving a car and buying liquor.
I've watched my freedom disappear little by little all my life. Compared to my youth, I now live in a police state [slashdot.org].
-mcgrew
(oblig "child's garden of grass (album)":)
"Your paperss pleasse!"
"Uh, I only have a pipe, man."
"Zen you vill haff to come vith me!"
Re:personal identity number (Score:5, Interesting)
Go get a new one. They don't say that anymore.
I was forced to produce a SS card when I tried to get my license in NY. A fucking blue piece of cardboard printed up by a typewriter. And I shit you not, when I asked why, the ditz at the desk told me "9/11".
Here is the ID that I did have on me at the time, all not-expired:
Drivers License "PA"
Military ID
Birth Certificate
US Passport
Bank ID
Work ID
Tax return
Home insurance
and a freaking Concealed Weapons Permit.
No, those were not sufficient. They needed that little blue piece of paper that previously said 'not to be used as identification'.
Old school SSN cards (Score:2)
I can't imagine why people think a SS card is any sort of sensible way to authenticate identity. Of all the important documents I have that one would probably be the easiest to forge.
Funny story - when my wife voted in the last presidential election she was asked for some sort of ID. So she presented her passport which should satisfy anyone right? The idiot holding the voter registration books said "no, no, you need a government issued ID." !!?!?! Thankfully the person sitting next to her wasn't such a retard and explained what a passport was. Really inspired confidence in the the election process.
Re:personal identity number (Score:2)
Re:personal identity number (Score:2)
Given the track record of many governments it won't stay "exclusive" for very long. It's only a matter of time before the entire database is on many laptops "stored" in plain view in many fools' cars. Or just left somewhere said fool probably shouldn't have been in the first place.
Re:personal identity number (Score:5, Interesting)
Now there are some mullahs in a cave halfway around the world who'd like to blow up a few buildings, and the g-men talk about how the sky is falling. We need to take drastic action to protect ourselves, they say. They're either cowards or up to something more sinister and cynical. Lately, I don't care which. I just want it to stop.
Re:personal identity number (Score:2, Interesting)
1) While there may be some Mullahs in caves halfway around the world, it has also been shown beyond doubt that there are people living among us that DO wish to cause us harm. (No, I'm not going to do the legwork for you on that one, feel free to Google it.) So the concern for the safety of ordinary Americans from Islamofascists is quite real, and trying to minimize it by painting it as a far-away issue is , I think, intellectually dishonest.
HOWEVER
2) I DO NOT think that the REALID is the way to fix it. As many conservatives will remind you, ALL of the 9/11 hijackers had valid and legal identification, including state driver's licenses. So simply adding another layer of bureaucracy is no way to protect us from crazy people that want to kill us. I (along with many, many conservatives) see this like the libertarians do, as just another rights-grab by a bloated Federal Government.
Re:personal identity number (Score:3, Interesting)
Big f*cking deal. During the cold war we had the
entire security service for a world superpower to
worry about. We lived through 50 years of the KGB
without any of this nonsense.
9/11 is a big fat red herring.
These people WERE ON WATCH LISTS. If the government
had been any good at doing it's job with the
information it already had and the means that it
already had then then there would have been no attacks.
New methods to annoy the general population are not the answer.
Wish to cause harm (Score:2)
There are more people killed by gun-toting relatives in the US than by Islamofascists. Before 9/11, there were more people killed in the US by Christiofascists than by Islamofascists. I think the concern about terrorist attacks is so overblown, it's reached the state of self-parody.
(No, I don't support gun control. I'd just like to point out that you're *at least* 30 times more likely to be murdered with a gun than by a terrorist attack in the US, and over 120 times more likely to die in a car accident. That assumes one 9/11-sized event every ten years.)
Re:personal identity number (Score:2)
The terrorists don't need to worry about us lobbing nukes at the Kremlin. They don't even need to worry about us lobbing nukes at Mecca. Whatever level of threat they do or do not pose, it is an entirely different sort of threat than the one posed by the USSR.
Re:personal identity number (Score:2)
Why Americans and Brits object to ID Numbers (Score:3, Insightful)
Here in the US, people believe that we're free and the government works for us - we're not owned by some government. Britain's a bit different, having a tradition of feudalism (we has a revolution against ours, while they mostly outgrew theirs), but they still also believe in individual freedom as a fundamental value. We both know it doesn't really work that way any more, and don't like it, and that really annoys us. Our countries also both have a history of slavery, and we know how owners treat property, though we didn't use ID cards for slaves back then.
South African friends of mine also had ID cards, but they could travel freely around their country because they were obviously white, while blacks and coloreds had to show their passes prove that they were going somewhere the white people wanted them. If you need a pass to travel around your country, you're obviously not one of the white owners, and if you want other people to have passes to travel around, you're saying you *are* one of the white owners.
Organizations assign you numbers and ID cards because they want to keep track of you and make you ask their permission to do things, and because they don't trust you. I don't mind if my bank does that - they're keeping my money, and I don't want them to let other people take it. But when a government says I need to get their permission to go somewhere, that's morally unacceptable - freedom to travel is a fundamental human right - and they're able to enforce it because they've got a bunch of guns and can shoot anybody who doesn't obey. I don't mind if the government uses numbers as database indexes to keep track of appropriate things; I'm not the only person in my town with my name. But if they're keeping track of things that are none of their business, that's wrong. And ID cards mean that they can keep all those records together, which is dangerous and inappropriate.
I've been really surprised that Europeans are tolerant of ID cards, not only given the recent unpleasantness that had just happened when you Swedes got yours, but also given the history of the 1700s-1800s, with monarchies, czars, secret police, and that sort of abuse from traditional governments and their replacements.
Re:personal identity number (Score:2)
Sweden is one country. As designed by the Constitution the USA is 50 nations working together under one oversight government.
The other part is this. Do you really want the current USA government to have that kind of power? they are bad enough as it is.
Re:personal identity number (Score:2)
Re:personal identity number (Score:2)
Federalism (Score:2)
There are benefits of harmonizing laws between states, increased efficiency among them, but harmonizing ALL laws is a mistake, because it doesn't allow individual states to act as experiments, and if the federal government screws up you are trapped.
And also, to the extent that some policies are only good or bad based on people's personal preference, differing state laws give you more choice on how you want to live while still remaining in the U.S.
Re:Unity? (Score:5, Informative)
I realize you're being absurdly funny, but still...
A Federal "Real ID" stomps all over the Constitutionally protected rights of States _and_ citizens. It's been a while since the feds have done such a bangup job stomping on _that_ much liberty.
Remember, the SS# was "never to be used as a means of personal identification..." And now look where we are. The Real ID is nothing more than a power grab and a consolidation of yet more Federal power... that the Congress complied with happily. Time to take the DHS to court... and let the Supremes decide if they can usurp authority that is _NOT_ enumerated to the Federal government.
I didn't think I would see such a reading comprehension problem with our government when it comes to the Constitution. Seems clear to me what it says... they may not like it, but I don't care. It's not their position to like it... it's their position to uphold it and keep it from becoming... well... Orwell's nightmare.
Re:personal identity number (Score:2)
1) Passport. To leave the country. That's its use.
2) National ID card. For identification purposes inside the US. It must only contain data that does not compromise your identity, just name, age, a picture and a number. With this number and a national database, all your data is there.
How can you use the driver's licence as ID, what if I don't drive? I'm not entitled to have a photo ID then? Driver's licence should be used just for that: to prove that you can drive.
Being almost european (spanish, which is almost as being from north africa), I can't understand how a country as the USA is not able to manage some things right. Even in Europe, speaking different languages and having different legal systems, we manage to use the national ID all across the EU, without a problem.
Re:personal identity number (Score:2)
You can get a non-drivers license ID. It looks almost the same as the drivers license, and serves no other purpose than to be an ID. It is much more common in cities where you don't always have to drive. But in the US, since it is almost a necessity to be able to drive to survive here, most of us just have driver's licenses.
The objectiion is part an American cultural thing (Score:2)
But also with the nature of the social contract between government and the people.
In Sweden, you have government intrusion to a point many Americans would find unacceptable, but you also have a welfare state that truly cares for the people - world class medical care, housing, education, etc. You trade off privacy for some real benefits.
In the US we do not have that social contract.
We are losing our privacy to government intrusion, but we are not gaining any real benefits from it. It is a strictly one-sided transaction, that benefits the government entirely and the people not at all.
This Sucks (Score:5, Informative)
But speaking as an asthmatic allergy sufferer, and someone who gets some really crappy colds every year making good old sudafed a bitch to find/get/procure. That new Sudafed crap elevates my heart rate by over 20 bpm and doesn't clear my head. You feel like you're ordering donkey porn when you go in and try to buy something that has it, and most vendors don't.
For the record, Aleve has a 12 hour decongestant that is the evil good old sudafed in it. After suffering for three days with every other stupid cold pill on the shelf took one of those, and was fine for 12 hours.
Of course, it was too late and I got a sinus infection so I had that joy to go through.
But this is just stupid. I'm ok with you putting it behind a counter so a meth head doesn't come in and clear the shelf, stealing it all. but the limits on the amount make it rought if you have a >3 day long cold sometimes.
Re:This Sucks (Score:2)
As a graying 29 year old I don't feel the need to show proof of anything when I buy a two or less boxes of medication that's supposed to be over the counter medication.
I realize I live in a nanny state that attempts to dictate everything we do while appearing to be liberal (yay for Minnesota) but stopping me from buying beer and liquor on Sundays and keeping that dangerous single box of Sudafed behind the counter is just dumb. If someone wants to make meth, they're going to get the stuff they need to do it and putting it behind the counter isn't going to stop anyone except those that really want to use the medication for what it's intended for.
Re:This Sucks (Score:2)
Re:This Sucks (Score:2)
Re:This Sucks (Score:2)
Re:This Sucks (Score:2)
Re:This Sucks (Score:2)
Here we have to show ID, can't buy more than 12 pills worth at a time, and are limited to a certain number of grams. i did the math trying to figure out and with the aleve I found that worked it was 3 boxes. That is if my cold medicated sinus infected brain did the math right.
We used to buy sudafed in bulk. For my nasal cavities that stuff is mana from heaven, works every time. It was amazing when we got the 'improved' formula one. I didn't notice the box because my wife picked them up for me, but I took one, and within 30 min I was feeling worse. checking the pulse I went from my average of 72 to 95 and stayed there for about six hours. Head never cleared.
Bulk Sudafed is still available? (Score:2)
After a few years, I ran out and bought another one. When I tried to buy a third several years after that, I was told that it was no longer sold in bulk.
Now you tell me that it *is* still sold in bulk in some places? I'm going to have to go look again. Thanks for the headsup.
Entry to Federal Buildings (Score:5, Interesting)
What happens if I'm summoned to a Federal Court appearance and don't have the required ID? Do I:
Re:Entry to Federal Buildings (Score:2, Informative)
Go to jail. You are required to comply with the court order or summons. The court does not provide transportation nor lodging. I think it would take an unsympathetic view to your not providing your own identification, proper identification of course...
Re:Entry to Federal Buildings (Score:4, Insightful)
There's an important distinction, however, between not having (or forgetting to bring) a driver's license or other photo ID to the courthouse, and having a perfectly valid state ID from a state that has decided not to comply with REAL ID. The individual citizen should not be penalized because he or she doesn't have access to the appropriate identification.
And, no, getting a federally-issued passport is not a solution for everyone. Only 30% of Americans have a passport (according to the Wired article in the summary). A passport's sole purpose is to allow someone to travel outside of the country - it shouldn't be a requirement to do anything within the country. It costs $100 and takes 6 weeks to get one. There should be no minimum barrier for someone to be able to petition to government in court, and certainly not a minimum barrier for someone to defend themselves in court. It's right up there with a poll tax, which has time and again been ruled unconstitutional.
Re:Entry to Federal Buildings (Score:2)
This was a big issue during Vietnam. This changes the long-standing principle that American citizens aren't, in general, required to have ID. You might want to read some of the precedents to the Hiibel case.
Re:Entry to Federal Buildings (Score:2)
you go directly to gitmo, with jumper cables attached to your testicles while they read to you how to survive a waterboarding.
What about NON-citizens? (Score:5, Interesting)
That would give non-citizens more rights than citizens, since they can hardly make it illegal for resident aliens to buy medicine. Or will they be forced to show green cards or the like? What nonsense.
Re:What about NON-citizens? (Score:4, Interesting)
So - how do they handle me as a Canadian citizen and a visitor? There is no way I will have REAL ID, and I would prefer not to have to carry my passport everywhere I go (for obvious reasons). My guess is that the ID requirement could not really be applied to non citizens, which raises the interesting spectre of a non citizen having more rights than an American citizen from any of several states. Or perhaps the ID requirement WILL be enforced against non citizens, in which case just watch as your tourism industry evaporates almost overnight. Visitors HATE people in authority demanding "PAPERS!"
Already have to show ID... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Already have to show ID... (Score:2)
Of course now, people running meth labs are using even more dangerous materials, so it really wasn't that effective.
Homeland security? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Homeland security? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's because meth is produced by the people, for the people, unlike marijuana, smack and coke which we mostly import. The gov't can't get its share of the profits on meth the way it does on other stuff, so they are coming down harder on it. The 'War on Drugs' was never about saving us from the evils of substance abuse, you know.
Course, that's just MHO. (And I don't know about other states, but here in Virginia you have to also sign a piece of paper in order to buy said medicine. It's ridiculous. Makes me try all that much harder not to get sick!)
Re:Homeland security? (Score:2)
First, you make it sound like meth is some kind nice harmless recreational drug. "By the people for the people", my ass. Meth is a nasty piece of work, and it is produced by criminals that don't care about anyone or anything other than making money. Maybe meth is not quite as destructive as heroin, but it still very effective at ruining people's lifes. I've observed people in my city getting hooked on this stuff, and after a few months you wouldn't recognize them.
Second, "THE GOVENRMENT" stands to make more money on meth than on other drugs, precisely because meth's precursors are produced by legal drug companies in the US. It's called taxes. Compare that to cocain, where "THE GOVENRMENT" has no real way of making money from it. Sure, there are probably a few corrupt cops here and there who do make money, but how exactly is that helping "THE GOVERNMENT"? Or maybe you are referring to confiscated property, but surely you are aware that the value of confiscated properties pales in comparison to the cost of the "war on drugs"? Now, I am not a big fan of the war on drugs myself, but to say that the government benefits from imported drugs is plain nonsense.
Re:Homeland security? (Score:2)
And I've gotten many compliments on my tinfoil hat, thankyouverymuch, it brings out the silver in the tracking devices the gov't put in my teeth...
A test case for conservatism (Score:5, Interesting)
Here we see a flip side of this argument: we'd all like to be perfectly safe, but at some point you buy the next increment of safety at the cost of something else. Are we really safer if we have a government functionary peering into all kinds of aspects of our private lives? Is Republican Party conservatism just the choice of an alternative form of government paternalism?
This kind of thing is what conservatives (and liberals) ought to be on the lookout for.
Conservatives for years have railed against the idea of a government ID ("papers, please"). Personally, I don't have a problem with a standard government issued ID, but I do understand what they're getting at. It's about the indignity of some unaccountable government flunky exerting control over your private affairs. If the growing conservative discomfort over ID standards is any measure, many conservatives have begun to realize that the government issued ID is really symbolic; it's not the ID per se, but what can be done with it.
All things being equal, an ID that is standardized, either by being issued by a single authority or whose issuance and features are controlled by a single authority, is better than an unreliable ID. The problem is that a better ID is also convenient for illegitimate purposes. Why mandate such an ID for purchasing medicine, if other than to put medicine purchases in a federal database?
And that's the rub. Conservatives are way behind on recognizing the coercive power of databases in government hands as they are ahead in recognizing the dangers of a national ID.
Re:A test case for conservatism (Score:2)
Also, please do not confuse "conservatives" with "republicans". Bush Republicanism is the unholy alliance between conservatives and evangelicals.
Re:A test case for conservatism (Score:3, Insightful)
Notice I used the term "Republican Conservatism"; I am quite aware that traditional conservatives have major issues with the party.
Personally, I don't think states are inherently more trustworthy than any other level of government. In some cases, such as California, they are large enough to be their own countries. In other cases (I won't name names for professional reasons but I've seen it with my own eyes) they are thoroughly corrupt. "States Rights" only makes sense if somehow you identify yourself with the government of the state you live in. I prefer individual rights, asserted against any level of government, or even private agents.
More jobs @ DHS (Score:2)
As for you who pay for it .....
*blink* *blink* NOW they grok "mission creep" (Score:2)
I blame the cubicle blinders^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H walls.
That and a hyper-hypocritical admin mindset that wants to evince their anti-big gummint creed by adding a master layer with unprecedented access.
But that's just me.
DHS Has Outlived Its Usefullness (Score:5, Insightful)
And in record time for a federal agency. I think its creation was a mistake and its continued existence a money-sucking waste of resources. Instead of focusing on terrorism they've started to put their greasy fingers into all kinds of areas not related to what's supposed to be their core mission.
Unless someone can relate cold medicine and terrorism. If we've got this terrorism thing whipped that DHS has so much time on their hands, then scale back their budget.
We have the FBI for domestic terrorism, the CIA for overseas operations...they were getting the job done before 9-11. Just as a reminder, the problem wasn't that we didn't know about the terrorists before 9-11, the problem was we didn't act on what we knew. And we knew without massive, illegal wiretapping of Americans, without the Patriot Act, without waterboarding, secret prisons, GITMO and all the other retarded things we've done out of fear since then.
Re:DHS Has Outlived Its Usefullness (Score:2)
Re:DHS Has Outlived Its Usefullness (Score:2)
If it does not waste money, then it is not a government.
See? That was not so difficult.
Twisting facts and linking two unrelated pieces of statistics to form a new Truth is not new for government. Bush has been doing that for 8 years.
Re:DHS Has Outlived Its Usefullness (Score:2)
I think its creation in certain sectors was seen as a corporate merger...in other words, a way to lay people off without getting in trouble for it (in this case politically.)
Give it a few more years and we'll break it apart again....for the same reasons as above.....its all about the reorg.
If they fix something by doing it...well accidents happen...
Yup (Score:2)
Which of the Presidential candidates . . . (Score:2)
Gee, I wonder?
The real mission-creep issue: Immigration (Score:2)
The thing that's going to turn REAL ID from just another card that you may carry if you want to into a mandatory document, required to be presented on demand to any government official (and probably lots of non-officials), is illegal immigration.
There's a large portion of this country that's willing to give up all sorts of rights if it'll let us keep those damned illegals out. Right now they're largely fixated on border protection, the 700-mile fence and all that. At some point, though, they're going to realize that a tiny percentage of illegals get in by sneaking across the border, and the fence and the guards aren't going to stop much of that small group anyway. At that point, they'll realize that the only way to get rid of the illegals is by having lots of internal controls and checkpoints verifying the citizenship or legal resident status of everyone.
Buses, airplanes and trains will be key checkpoints, but the roads will have to be covered as well, in an attempt to make all movement by illegal aliens impossible [1]. Employers will also have to check, and may even have to request a real-time ID check to a national database of legal residents (this is a proposal that is on the table even without REAL ID). Hospitals are another good target, because most seriously injured people will choose to get medical help even if it means being deported. Schools will be required to check the identity and status of children who enroll.
All of this together will make it nearly impossible for illegal aliens to live and work in the US, but at the expense of turning us into a society that expects to show electronically-verified ID on a daily basis, making it a simple matter to collect all of the verifications into a central database. The result will be that the government will have a detailed record of our movements and actions, ready to be cross-referenced with private sector databases (credit cards, etc.) to provide an intimate view of our lives.
Oh, and expect the ACLU to ensure that you can't be passed over at the checkpoints just because you're white and have an American accent, either. The far right will make sure the checkpoints are installed and manned, and the far left will make sure that they apply equally to everyone.
The coming War on Illegal Immigration is going to make the civil rights impacts of the War on Drugs and the War on Terror look like nothing, unless we start fighting back.
[1] This, by the way, is how Mexico manages their problem with illegal immigrants from Nicaragua, Honduras, etc. I spent a couple of years in southern Mexico and got stopped to have my papers checked several times. Even got detained for a few hours once because I didn't happen to have my visa with me.
What about state reps to the capital? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I find it ironic (Score:2)
You might want to try actually listening to the event [heritage.org] cited in the Register. The issue in question is addressed roughly 18 minutes in.
Re:Ron Paul... (Score:2)
Easy solution (Score:2)
Then get your state to legislate that your ID is just the first digit.
Re:What is the real problem? (Score:2)
There will still be 50+ variations of ID card she has to
sort through. Some funky looking ID from across the country
could still end up looking like something that can't be
real. Although it doesn't matter because it's still a lot
of variations and variable details you could get wrong.
Another federal power grab and pointless feel good security
measure won't help Suzie one bit.