May 11, 2005

• It's not a national ID as much as it is standardization of the state drivers licenses. There is no separate ID, you'll still get the drivers license from your states DMV. The bad part is John Poindexter will be jerking off over your personal information.
• And this is different from currently having to show your driver's license and/or passport to fly, exactly how? While I haven't personally read the act, I don't consider interstate consistency requirements to be troubling, and I'm generally see many things as "thin-end-of-the-wedge" issues. The REAL-ID act doesn't establish a "National ID card" as you say, but establishes rules for state IDs/Driver's Licenses. Perhaps that's a fine distinction, but I consider it fairly important to make. So, I consider the positive outcomes to be these: 1. People who are not in the country legally will be much less able to get the de facto definitive form of ID. Though forgery and fraud will always be a problem 2. It is required that, for those in the country temporarily and legally, their IDs expire at the same time as their visa. I can also see some downsides: basically, the DHS is given what I consider too much leeway in defining the "machine readable" information on the cards, now whether this means RFID or magnetic strips have a definite effect on the situation. But both RFID chips and magnetic strips can be easily defeated without bringing about suspicion: RFID chips must respond to a radio signal that they receive, and a simple Faraday cage, that is a metal mesh encasing the card defeats these for reading without intentional use. Magnetic strips can be scrambled with any household magnet. To sum up: I don't think it's perfect, but I do think it solves more problems than it creates, and in the current political world, that's (unfortunately) practically a resounding victory.
• Let's think outside the box for a moment in e-Space... how about embedding a chip underneath your skin? Most of my friends were opposed to this idea, but why? I have nothing to hide. It's like out of a movie, right? I heard that the clubs in Italy embed the chips into VIP members- an interesting niche where people would be lining up for it, I suppose. I didn't read the article, but I am not against the proposal to standardize ID's, it'll make it a bit more difficult to fake.
• And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. It's wrong because a book says so. See. Run and hide. Poindexter wants your soul.
• I don't know much about the real-id but it would seem that tacking it on as a rider on a tsunami-related bill can't be good. /completely useless comment
• Number of the Beast related -- the first widely popular credit card in Oz was called Bankcard, and the trademark was three 'b's, one inside the other.
• heh,heh,, senators voted for it, 100-0, as they sang "Your ass is mine"
• I'm with Tracicle on this. It makes me think that they are hiding something--not that that is any big surprise. Getting bad ideas passed in their underhanded way, it's just how things are done these days. Didn't you know? BTW, I'll just take your word on this as I am waaaaaaaaaay too tired to bother reading up on any of those links. I'll just assume it's the usual suspects doing the usual things. Thanks, though.
• http://linkfilter.net/?id=83019 Obviously, if this passes, it'll set a precedent. First, some obscure border region outside of San Diego, and then on to bigger and better things? As the present bill stands, if DHS built a road through an endangered wetland and committed four murders in the process, nobody could take the government to court over it. Is this the kind of unchecked power that we want Congress to have? The sky's the limit, once the A3S2 can of worms is opened tomorrow. If this provision, the waiver of all laws necessary for quote improvements of barriers at the border was to become law, the Secretary of Homeland Security could give a contract to his political cronies that had no safety standards, using 12-year-old illegal immigrants to do the labor, run it through the site of a Native American burial ground, kill bald eagles in the process, and pollute the drinking water of neighboring communities. And under the provisions of this act, no member of Congress, no citizen could do anything about it because you waive all judicial review. --Rep. Earl Blumenauer, Oregon
• Bu$hCo is the AntiChrist™!
• The entire thing about allowing riders on bills is ridiculous. You shouldn't be allowed to force through unpopular things by tacking them on necessary legislation. Now, I know next to nothing about U.S. lawmaking (except what I saw on that episode of family ties), but isn't there some committee who can look at a rider like this and say "That's so dumb-ass, don't you go tacking on that bill on this completely unrelated one, you have to put it forth as its own bill". (This is my "that's so dumbass" approach to politics. I'm thinking of trademarking it.)
• Hey, we warned ya.
• Everything I know about riders I learned from The Simpsons. Sad but true.
• Don't worry- all your sensitive data will be kept secure and confidential by the good people in Government, who are supremely capable and care deeply about your privacy. Billions of dollars won't be pointlessly funneled to big, private companies to implement this mess and manage the data. Naturally, none of your info will be harvested by the corporate sector. Sure, the cards may well end up containing an RFID tag- which can be read at a distance without the knowledge of the card-carrier- but there's almost nothing Orwellian about that. Besides- experts agree that these cards will *stop terrorism*. I don't see what you guys are getting all excited about.
• jb: The Presidential line item veto was supposed to allow the Prez to cut this sort of pork-barrel legislation out, to stop people from passing unpopular laws via riders. Sort of like "I like this law, this is great, and - hey, what's this crap? Oh yeah, this is going away. Deleted! The rest is good though." Of course, no political party wants an opposing party president to have this sort of power over congress, so line-item went away. Not that it would do much good with one party running the legislative and executive branches anyway, but it was a good idea.
• Throw your license in the microwave for 15 seconds. RFID be gone.
• link to actual bill please. Please also to point to relevant sections. And a coffee to go. No that's it. Thanks.
• 9-11 commission report: "At many entry points to vulnerable facilities, including gates for boarding aircraft, sources of identification are the last opportunity to ensure that people are who they say they are and to check whether they are terrorists." So apparently it'll say on the ID whether or not you're a terrorist. I can see how that could be useful. I'm for it.
• I am always amazed at how initiatives like this are the "solution" to the "terrorist" problem. The 9/11 hijackers all came here legally and the several opportunities to intervene in their presence here were overlooked by an already swamped bureaucracy. At the present size of the bureaucracy, we do not have enough hands/eyes to "keep terrorists out"--how in the hell will new, burdensome, anit-4th amendment regulations solve this, given that no one wants to pay new taxes for anything? And that is all beside the fact that thousands of citizens will be harassed as they try to obtain original copies of birth certificates to "prove" they are citizens. Sieg Heil!
• I think everyone in the U.S. should be declared illegal aliens and deported to Antarctica. Then this great country could start from scratch!
• >Throw your license in the microwave for 15 seconds. RFID be gone. Uh-huh. Any bets on what happens the next time you try to board a plane after that? They'll probably have a special room at the airport for clever fellas like you, where you can explain all about how healthy societies embrace the right of the individual to dissent while they're adjusting the thumb handcuffs and putting that thing over your head. Aw, you're probably right- stuff like that only happens in countries where they let The Bad People be in charge...
• Mood: Oppressed
• Outrage fatigue in 5..4..3..2..1...
• I tell ya, I've got outrage fatigue. I think REAL-ID is a tempest in a teacup compared to the USA-PATRIOT Act. Again, to deal with the objections: 1) The possibility of centralized data, or the slippery-slope "Admiral Poindexter slobbering all over my private personal data!!!" objection. - There is no provision in this act which says that the federal government will be keeping a centralized database. Furthermore, if you have a social security card and a driver's license: what other info do you think they'll have? Admiral Poindexter can drool over your data anytime he wants, probably, and standardizing requirements for Driver's Licenses doesn't make it any easier OR harder for him to do that. 2) Exempting DHS from judicial review, or the slippery-slope "DHS will strip-mine Yellowstone and KILL CHILDREN to build that mine, and you won't be able to say "boo" about it in the courts!!!" objection. - This act specifically exempts the San Diego wall project from certain environmental regulations to expedite the completion of the wall. Judicial review can still take place, but the court will know that in this case a special exemption has been made with respect to certain environmental clauses. I know, slippery-slope and all that, but I fail to see how this sets a real precedent for "the Secretary of Homeland Security could give a contract to his political cronies that had no safety standards, using 12-year-old illegal immigrants to do the labor, run it through the site of a Native American burial ground, kill bald eagles in the process, and pollute the drinking water of neighboring communities," according to Rep. Blumenauer. I smell a straw man. 3) It won't do any good anyway, or the straw-man "Terrorists won't put stickers on their Drivers Licenses that say 'Organ Donor Facilitator' so we know who the bad guys are" objection. - This bill causes IDs to expire along with visas. If someone is overstaying their visa (such as many of the 9/11 group), why should their ID continue to be valid? I think this closes one important loophole in the ID process in the US. Also, this act, as I said before, prevents people in the US illegally from getting the de facto identification card. -------- As for putting "riders" onto bills, I agree that they're pretty stupid: but there are committees in the House and Senate, the Rules Committees, that say whether a rider is appropriate to the legislation at hand. Obviously like everything else in Congress, it's a political game and stupid inappropriate riders are attached to a plethora of legislation. I think the Rules committee should be a group of rotating life-term Judges that REALLY make sure that amendments and riders are directly appropriate to the bill.
• Throw your license in the microwave for 15 seconds. RFID be gone. RFID -- you mean a radio frequency ID? As to "this will stop terrorism", remember Timothy McVeigh? The US-born US-citizen US Army combat veteran? How would this have stopped HIM? And chimaera, any given "Reichsführer SS" could have jerked off all over your various data before the PATRIOT ACT, that just "spread the pink" a little bit wider. The difference you've tried to make between REAL-ID and that won't hold water.
• >Furthermore, if you have a social security card and a driver's license: what other info do you think they'll have? Your name, home address, and social security number, along with various other vital stats, will be on a single card which (if the Homeland Security guys get their way) it will be possible to machine-read from a distance without your knowledge. Does that sound like more or less the same thing as having a social security number? To me it does not. The boundary between government and industry is getting sketchier all the time. Banks and other big institutions are already collecting and buying and selling information about you without your consent. I don't think it's unreasonable to be very, very suspicious of this, to ask who is really going to benefit from it, to ask whether the reasons given for doing it are the real reasons for doing it.
• I don't know if you were directing the middle part of your comment toward me, but I'd like to address it anyway: As to "this will stop terrorism", remember Timothy McVeigh? The US-born US-citizen US Army combat veteran? How would this have stopped HIM? It wouldn't have stopped Timothy McVeigh. And the real ID act won't "stop terrorism." Anyone who thinks it will is whistling in the dark. But what it will do is close one more loophole that was taken advantage of by the terrorists on 9/11. All other portions of the act aside, Big Davey, you surely can't say that having ID cards expire at the same time as visas a bad thing? I think it's a good thing. Also, I do think that there is an IMMENSE difference between REAL-ID and the USA-PATRIOT Acts. An incredible difference. First and foremost, the difference in the scope of law is almost immeasurable. Unless I'm misunderstanding you, you seem to treat REAL-ID and the USA-PATRIOT act as equivalent. REAL-ID doesn't authorize government agencies to track what library books you read, or allow them to tap your phones, sometimes without a warrant. The PATRIOT act does. All REAL-ID does is require that the same data appear on all individual state's ID cards, that in order to get an ID you have to be a legal resident, and that that ID expires for temporary residents when their residency expires. How is this equivalent to the PATRIOT Act? If REAL-ID were included as part and parcel of the PATRIOT Act, I'm fairly certain that there would have been practically no discussion of it, aside from certain groups who feel that illegal immigrants should not be prevented from getting valid IDs in the US.
• You make good points, Stan the Bat, but I will quibble with one detail: the act does not require that the IDs be machine readable from a distance, or without your knowledge. Machine readable means multiple things, from which one or more will be picked: bar codes, magnetic strips, or RFID. The only one that can be read by someone who isn't personally handling the card (and thus could not be read without your knowledge) is the RFID chip. Now, destroying the RFID chip is probably a bad idea, because it would probably invalidate the card, but there are easy methods for preventing it from being read "at a distance without your knowledge." RFID has a limited operational radius, can be easily shielded, and can be easily confused by the presence of other chips on cards in your wallet. Remember that the SCOTUS has upheld that without probable cause, or specific need for use (such as getting on an airplane), authorities are not allowed to ask for your ID, and blanket RFID readers in the streets, tracking where everyone is walking pretty much violates that decision. A Faraday cage can solve the RFID problem without destroying the chip.
• >the act does not require that the IDs be machine readable from a distance No- it does require that they be machine-readable, but a bar code *could* satisfy that requirement. However, the act stipulates that the department of Homeland Security gets to decide how, exactly, the machine-readableness should be implemented; and I've read that those guys would prefer an RFID tag. Now I can't find where I read it, or I'd link it. I don't think it's necessarily likely that this will seriously damage our privacy, any more than it will very much impede terrorists. What it will definitely do is cost a lot of money, which will come from taxpayers, and will go to various private companies that have already been picked out by Our Smiling Leaders, in back-door deals that we're not privy to- kinda like the way the whole thing was passed into law. At the risk of becoming cantankerous at an early age- nosir, I don't like it.
• Stan, you're my new hero: Banks and other big institutions are already collecting and buying and selling information about you without your consent. Great point there. My objections to this are 1: data security. We can't even keep the best browser out there secure; how long will it take to hack this thing? And 2: we're not ready for this. There's too much going on in this country right now without freaking people out about a national ID that got sneakily put on as a rider on a bill that doesn't relate at all. Besides, from the terrorism angle, if people had just followed the rules & laws we have in place, they would have never gotten in the country, or would have gotten kicked out before 9/11, or would have at least been stopped at the fuckin airport.
• Chimaera:I know, slippery-slope and all that, but I fail to see how this sets a real precedent for "the Secretary of Homeland Security could give a contract to his political cronies that had no safety standards...<snip other badness>..." according to Rep. Blumenauer. I smell a straw man. Perhaps you might find this ars technica article interesting. Specifically, some parts of an analysis by the EFF of this bill: H.R. 418 would require the Secretary of Homeland Security to waive any and all laws that he determines necessary, in his sole discretion, to ensure the expeditious construction of barriers and roads in the area of San Diego mentioned, and: Additionally, it would prohibit judicial review of a waiver decision or action by the Secretary and bar judicially ordered compensation or injunction or other remedy for damages alleged to result from any such decision or action. So, judicial review can not take place and it's not "some environmental clauses" that are excepted but whatever law the SHS deems fit. This doesn't set "a precedent for" the situation Blumenauer describes: it explicitly allows it.
• chimaera, the SCOTUS ruled in the Hiibel case to endorse law enforcement's ability to ask for ID without cause. Granted, it merely upheld the constitutionality of the Nevada statute which criminalizes the refusal to identify oneself when under suspicion.
• They're going to make a(nother) mint off us orrible immigrants - my visa has expired and been renewed four times in the last seven years, and my husband's work permit has expired annually for 15 or so years. And I'm not at all comfortable with turning airline clerks and bank managers (models of politeness and efficiency they) into immigration experts, willing and able to deal with the subtleties of particular visa cases (which are never black and white, otherwise we'd have green cards). I mean, most INS employees have trouble with the many and varied statuses it's possible for us to be in, I can only imagine the pain-in-the-arse explaining to some traffic cop why your drivers licence says expired but your visa has been renewed because the DMV is running late or your change of status is provisionally approved but the visa isn't issued yet and . . . . . (NYC resident, incidentally, and my drivers licence has TEMPORARY VISITOR UNTIL OCTOBER 2006 scrawled on it in huge red letters).
• They start these things out small and then creep up on you before the pounce. Like the seatbelt law. They said they were going to make it mandatory to wear your seatbelt, but that it would`nt be used to pull you over if you were`nt wearing it. Now suddenly, it has become a traffic offense that you can be pulled over for. Eventually they will have access to data on these cards or implants from a distance, then they will know who is in your house, car etc. It`s just a slow train coming to the wreck of the future.
• fractalid, I stand corrected with regards to the environmental issues. However, while there are many in congress who want to explicitly disallow the courts to rule on certain laws, the SCOTUS since the 1790s has upheld that its jurisdiction extends to all laws in the US, and only a major standoff between the judicial and legislative branches is liable to ever change that.
• A great FindLaw article about the now-passed RealID act please forgive if this has been posted further upthread; I don't have time for an in-depth review right now
• When I said outrage fatigue, I didn't mean to encourage chimaera to tell us all that this is ok, because it's not. I just meant that I'm kind of pissed off at a lot of stuff right now, and can I please take a break and be pissed off at this later? There are so many problems with this- privacy issues, anti-immigration issues, states rights issues, implementation issues. And where the fuck are we going to get the money to pay for this?
• Mexico Says It Will Protest New U.S. Laws (It appears my href tags have`nt been recognised(on previous links I`ve posted) by monkeyfilter because the html editor i`ve been using was using higher case lettering for "a href")hmm?
• Unreal ID
• From the Unreal ID link above: The suspicious Nazi officer demanding to see your papers has been an American caricature for 70 years. We could laugh at him because the idea that an open society in America would ever empower a petty fascist like that seemed so implausible. It turns out, though, that it only took five years of Bush-era fearmongering to bring us to the point where Americans would not only accept, but embrace, government agents demanding to see our papers.
• National ID to Be Privatized, Activist Says He Has Docs
• National ID Card Regulations Issued
• While some expected Homeland Security to require the licenses to have smart cards or RFID chips, DHS instead proposes a 2D bar code (magnetic stripe) similiar to those used on many licenses. That information will not be encrypted. This worries me more than any governmental conspiracy theories. Is my SSN supposed to be encoded in this? If so, fuck you.
• From the REAL ID regulations: Information on driver’s licenses and identification cards. The following information would be required to appear on State-issued driver’s licenses and identification cards: full legal name, date of birth, gender, a unique driver’s license or identification card number (not the SSN), a full facial digital photograph, address of principal residence (with certain exceptions), issue and expiration dates, signature, physical security features and a common machine-readable technology (MRT). Still, doesn't make me feel much more comfortable.
• Comments are due by 5pm EST on May 8, 2007.
• Yay! . . . D'oh!
• Senate takes step away from Real ID
• Americans may need passports to board domestic flights or to picnic in a national park next year if they live in one of the states defying the federal Real ID Act.
• "...travel documents are like weapons." Come on, you can play too: Families are like formalwear. Fingernails are like automobiles. Party hats are like vaginas.
• Chairs are like music. Politicians are like asshats. Homeland Security is like a shitty rhinoceros. You're right! That is fun.
• This thread is, like, so old.