While all of this is filled with good intentions (the read to hell being paved...) it won't help that much and causes MUCH grief for anyone involved. For example...

A couple of years ago the state of California decided to match drivers licenses with names on social security numbers. Good idea? Think again! My father (turned 91 a couple of weeks ago) in applying for a RENEWAL of a drivers license (he doesn't drive now, please bear with me) showed up at the local DMV ready to take a driving test (which he passed that year). Everything was fine UNTIL they ran a name check. It seems that the name his social security number didn't match the name on his drivers license. He has used his middle name for so long (except on his drivers license) that even his social security card had it. So off we go to the local social security office to explain to them how to change a name after being on the card for over 60 years. Oh, do you have anything with your "real name"? No, just this drivers license. Oh, that will do! Go figure. Medicare doesn't care what name you use, and the tax man doesn't care, WHY should the DMV care? Even the social security act says that this number can't be used for identification (go ahead look up the 1935 law!). The whole thing is just plain STUPID.

Of course, will it prevent anything like 9/11/01 from happening? To quote a song: "I may be wrong here, but I don't think so! (its a jungle out there)".

Which, of course, translates to an additional $20 actually *paid* paid by the citizen.

Now, multiply that by an estimated 250 million drivers* and we get an additional $5,000,000,000 (thats 5 billion dollars) in citizen costs paid to keep Michael Goerring, er, Chertoff in a job for one more year.

How many terrorist attacks would it take to cost us $5 billion?

* - Anyone who lives in New York City or Los Angeles will testify that there are more drives than that currently stuck in traffic, but never mind.

of its citizens. Everyone is a perpetrator, or a potential perpetrator. Why do you think we now have armed security police in all federal office buildings?

This is without doubt the thin end of the wedge towards Federal identification papers for every citizen, and I suspect we're only a generation away from armed checkpoints at every state border highway crossing where citizens will be required to present their papers.

All of this from the people who cannot (or will not) make corrections to the "Do Not Fly" list.

Gray

(Email your elected Congress critter -- they need a good laugh today.)

The National I.D. card will not help to make the country more secure. The country needs to secure its borders FIRST.

This mandate is obviously aimed toward something other than national security.

Verification checks when obtaining ID are OK, as long as you trust the data you're verifying against. Which you can never manage as there isn't anything that can ever really prove you are who you say you are.

You may manage to prove you are who you said you were last time, at best all that a data check might manage would be to prove you *aren't* who you say you are. And even that can be difficult.

The dangerous part of course is that without the right ID you may lose some rights. Or you may be flagged arbitrarily as a person 'of interest'. All at the whim of a low paid data entry clerk - 'Buttle, Tuttle - what's the difference?'. (Of course, this can already happen - see no-fly lists for example).

I can see the benefit in checking various things tie up, and centralising data verification. But the risk is mission creep - bureaucracies always move to extend their power.

I guess the 2nd Amendment may eventually prove to have some value.

ah, hahahaha, this has nothing to do with security and everything to do with the further enslavement of the wealth producing sheeple. No way in hell that I would ever consider starting a family in the USSA these days.

My kids will never be assigned a government number, attend government indoctrination camps ("public" aka socialist schools), and probably not even have a birth certificate if I can help it.

That's where the whole taxpayer slave-system starts, it's with these damn govt ID cards and slave numbers. And those of course are derived from the govt issued birth certificate, certifying that you are real live, athentic slave, er ahem I mean "person".

Oh yeha I forgot Barb Wire was an accurate picture of the future and the world will switch to Canadian Money as the new World Currency

old age or bad film because I have trouble remembering any thing about this movie apart from the 'tat' on the arm and 'don't call be babe'.

I don't see why people get so worked up about the idea of a national ID, since we *already* *have* *one* in the SSN. When a company (or government agency, more likely) loses personal data, it's not a big deal unless it includes SSNs, in which case it's time to panic and worry about identity theft. Might as well put that on a hard-to-forge card with a picture and make things a bit harder for the thieves. And yes, this will make a big, centralized database of everyone, but don't forget that the SSA and IRS already have such databases.

Please be aware that, outside of the US, the word socialist is not interchangeable with "baby-eating commie". Using it as a perjorative shows that you have already been "indoctrinated" to believe that anything socialised is automatically bad.

Do you really want a private police force that only investigates crimes against those rich enough to foot the bill? Or have the fire service run a credit check on you before they'll pull your kids out of a burning building?

Shouldn't that be "approved" "suspect" or "guilty"

I guess suspect is the new guilty and it means "not-approved"

I guess they can sack all the the judges now, not just the supreme court, and leave it to the private security guards - which means they can sack the police too.

"rights," said Melissa Ngo, director of the Identification and Surveillance Project at the Electronic Privacy Information Center."

And I guess "Electronic Privacy Information Center" is a NGO? Further proof that "nomen est omen", as the Romans said...

I've often wondered how it would play out when a citizen from a non-compliant state was summoned to federal court or a congressional hearing. If you can't get into a federal building....

Fortunately, the chances of the various state and federal information systems ever being able to communicate even given a common is nill.

Hey what about the people who don't have a drivers license or even drive an automobile.? Are we going to have to sign up for a FAKE license or what.???

I like the term USSA. Does match the mindset of the pople south of us.

I overheard a group talking about infiltrating the License/Passport bureaus and start issuing bogus id documents. They thought it would be very easy to do. And profitable.! HOMELAND SECURITY go figure.!

KW

In California the DMV will issue non-drivers with an ID license -- essentially a driver's license that doesn't entitle you to drive.

Its important to remember that REAL ID is that it mandates standards for "government issued IDs" -- it covers more than drivers' licenses. You need this type of ID for many different purposes even today -- to enter Federal buildings, to fly and so on.

Armed checkpoints between states. Why do you need checkpoints when you have armed men roving about the highways in cars with little blinking lights, high powered tasers and assault weapons? They will do what they want with us because the rest are indifferent.

American apathy at its finest. As long as your warm, dry, and fed, don't ask in f*cking questions. Ignore your countries past, the true golden years of revolution. The only good times in the United States was the 30 or so after we violently left our mothers embrace.

Given the state of affairs in the U.S. right now, with jingoistic socialists and absolute rule despots (read as democrats and republicans) driving the United Welfare Police States of America, I can't think of any other place in the world I'd rather be sh*t on by the upper one percent.

The RealID Act is a bad idea, not only does it make us more liable for Identity Theft, it takes away our privacy.

What scares me about chip implants is if someone wanted to seal or break into your home, they could Cut Your finger off :O to get your rfid.

so I guess it's time to cut peoples fingers, eyeballs out of their sockets, and other stuff.

Why on Earth does the freaken government wanna do that, stop proposing dangerous registration.

All the terrorists have to do is have someone working on the inside of ReadID Card makers, like on The Longest Journey where that hacker made a fake ID, then look ok according to American documents, then blow up a building.

also how hard can it be to terrorize.

These protections do NOTHING to stop terrorism, they do nothing but us slaves to society where if you don't obey, or don't believe society you get arrested.

also terrorists could just launch a foreign airplane,goto new york, blow up army lets, then there we go another loophole to terrorists.

I could think of a zillion loopholes which the realid would never cover.

The ReadID is a joke :)) lol.