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.
personal identity number (Score:4, Interesting)
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:
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: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: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!"
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.
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: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: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: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: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: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: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'.
Re:I wonder... (Score:1, Interesting)
be a good strategy for anyone -- autocrat or otherwise -- to follow.
For every slight diminution of civil liberty, there will be predictable rumblings
and mild protests but these will quickly fade. Then a period of utter
acceptance will ensue as the initial infraction becomes imperceptible to
the masses. Through a repetition of this process any level of authoritarianism
can be easily invoked and maintained.
I am cynical. I have lost all faith.
But I have excellent and indisputable reasons.
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.
What about state reps to the capital? (Score:2, Interesting)
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: Buying Rolexes on the Street (Score:3, Interesting)