Your Papers Please! National ID Cards Coming

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What Price Freedom?





Your Papers Please! National ID Cards Coming
By LANCE GAY
Apr 27, 2005, 05:18
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The federal government is moving ahead with a blizzard of new identification card proposals affecting military personnel, government workers and even ordinary Americans renewing their driver's licenses.

Privacy advocates say the identification cards reflect Washington's embrace of fancy new "smart-card" technologies allowing pictures or fingerprints to be read by computers. But critics argue the cards give a false sense of security because they can be either forged, faked, bought - or just ignored by terrorists with a determination to kill Americans.

On Tuesday, President Bush endorsed moves in Congress to tack federal regulations for state-issued driver's licenses onto the bill authorizing $81 billion in additional spending for the war in Iraq.

In a letter to the House-Senate conference committee now considering the legislation, the administration said the so-called Real ID Act would strengthen procedures under which states issue driver's licenses.

The Real ID Act requires all new driver's licenses to include digital photographs, anti-counterfeiting features and "machine-readable" information verifying a person's identity.

The cards, which would be issued as current licenses expire, would be required for Americans using airplanes, trains, parks, federal courthouses and other places under federal control. The legislation also requires county courthouses to take new steps to safeguard birth records and other personal data used to verify identity and citizenship status, information that will be needed to get driver's licenses.

The Pentagon already has begun issuing "smart" ID cards to military personnel with a chip embedded in the card giving information on the person's security clearances and identification.

Starting in October, U.S. agencies are expected to begin issuing new counterfeit-proof identification cards to federal employees. New security cards are also required for civilian employees in airports and port facilities.

Civil liberties groups and conservative organizations are fighting to stop the Real ID Act from becoming law.

"If they want to make a federally issued ID, then take the states out of it and have the federal government issue it. This is just going to make it darn difficult to get a driver's license," said Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington.

He predicted citizens who lose their licenses will face formidable bureaucratic difficulties trying to prove their identity.

Leaders of the National Conference on State Legislatures say Congress doesn't realize that many county courthouses, particularly in rural America, don't have the manpower or the facilities to secure birth certificate data.

Nevertheless, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada predicted the Real ID Act will become law. "They are going to stick it on the supplemental and it will stay there," he said.

Reid said the measure's real intent is to prevent illegal aliens from getting driver's licenses, making it more difficult for undocumented workers to move around the United States "You can't do immigration piecemeal, but they're going to do it," he said.

The AFL-CIO says the legislation is being pushed through Congress without any hearings to expose its flaws.

"This is a draconian, mean-spirited law that will not benefit any worker, American or immigrant,'' said Ana Avendano, head of the AFL-CIO's immigrant worker project.

Avendano said the intention of the legislation is to crack down on illegal immigrants, even though all of the 9/11 hijackers were admitted to the United States on legal visas.

"This has not had a thorough hearing,'' she said.

Ari Schwartz, associate director of the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington, said the government is pushing for card identification systems without developing policies on how to use the new technologies and on what privacy protections to provide.

"There's a push to use more technology in cards without an idea of what we are using it for," he said.

He said tests have found some identification cards cannot always be read by machines.

In a recent report, the Center for Democracy and Technology found some technologies like facial recognition are expensive to run and have error rates of up to 45 percent. On the other hand, iris recognition, which uses data collected from 266 distinctive characteristics in a person's eye, has better accuracy rates.

The United Arab Emirates used iris recognition technology to store information on 355,000 people and subsequently expelled 6,220 people trying to enter the country improperly.

Federal labor unions are concerned the new identification cards to be given federal employees this year could be used as worker-control mechanisms. For instance, workers may be required to use the cards to open doors as they move through a building.

ID cards currently given federal employees can be easily forged and lack security features. Federal agencies will conduct background checks on their employees before issuing the new cards to ensure they are properly on the payroll.

(Contact Lance Gay at GayL(at)SHNS.com)

sounds fine to me??even that idiot reid is down?

you should not smoke or do drugs pisshead,you are WAY,WAY,WAY to paranoid

if you haven't figured it out by now, i really don't give a shit what you think.

you're a model citizen.

dont be mad that you got called out.you post bs and thats why no one takes the time to read that long drawn out garbage.take a hint.

everytime you post that shit i am gonna nail it.

oh,i guess that is because i am a nazi,or a fundamentalist christian,or whatever other catchphrase you can repeat.LOL

no, you're an idiot who wouldn't know history if you were reading it in a book.

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home. -James Madison

i almost majored in it before i changed to marketing.

does it make you feel like a bigger man to insult people?your just mad cause you got called out.thats it.but hey,be mad if you want,you are only affecting yourself.

the only thing you've accomplished is to show me that you're a mindless government worshipping slave.

i wouldn't call you a nazi. you're a tyranny lover and boot licker. you just happen to like the tyranny more when it comes from someone with an R next to their name, as opposed to a D. i happen to not like either.

do you know what tyranny is?do live in a country like that?NO.stop comparing this great country to something you have never ever seen.according to your daily reading i am sure sweden has tyranny?people in the bushes,red team go,red team go.lol

i've read all about the history of the US and the tyranny they endured before and during the revolution.

i can read the declaration of independence and also see it. i see the same things happening today.

it's rather naive to think in this day and age of technology, after thousands of years of empires and despotism and corruption and slavery and feudalism and mercantilism and fascism and socialism and governments perfecting propaganda, that everything is fine and decisions are willy nilly.

but then again, if bill o'reilly doesn't say it, it's not true.

bill o'reilly is a registered independent?

i dont think everything is fine and dandy but you seem like a very sad and angry guy?

things have always been chaotic,forever,it will ALWAYS be that way.so sit back,relax,smoke a bowl and enjoy the show,i know i am.

i'm angry that my country is being turned into a dictatorship, and that the constitution and bill of rights no longer matter, and that people take form over substance time and time again when they vote for left and right stooges.

i have a job that i enjoy and have moved up the ranks rather quickly, friends that i like, a family i love and a new nephew that i adore.

amsterdam, just don't talk or even post. I read pissheads posts and articles. You're proving nothing other than you're extremely immature. Even though I don't agree with somethings he says, that doesn't mean I should bash his posts, you retard.

plus...let me mention this...

even if we do have the most loving, angelic government in the world...why on earth are we giving them so much power? there's talk of microchipping people and having an internal passporty system, more federal unconstitutional power grabs that we've never needed before...we have a world bank, world court, world trade org., world health org. yet there is no global government, you're a kook to mention it. people who think they're pro american when they vote against american sovereignty and unconstitutional treaties while fighting a so called war to restore another country's sovereignty...it goes on and on...talk of martial law after another attack by top government 'officials'...publicly...dozens of dozens of unanswered questions about 911, city police being militarized all around the country, more taxes and more corporate and foreign welfare, several trillion dollar budgets (how much longer can a country survive with as much debt as we do, it's the equivalent of everyone in the country being over $20K in debt, every man woman and child)...and this is what we call conservatism?

if this is freedom...then i really don't want it. so even if we do have the most kind government in the world that cares about all of us...why give them these tools of tyranny if the wrong people were to get into office?

it makes what anne frank did impossible. if she had a chip in her arm and could be monitored by computers...it's a tyrant's wet dream. she would have instantly be rounded up and disposed of. even if that sounds far fetched now, who's to say some evil despot won't get into power and start doing this?

it makes me sick to watch people brush this stuff off...like nothing bad will ever happen. it can't happen here are some pretty famous last words. using superficial strawmen to debunk anything and everything, while supporting equally silly theories about the world.

so i'm angry at people like amsterdam who don't really care about their country, but will be the first to say someone else doesn't.

[QUOTE=A Foo Says]amsterdam, just don't talk or even post. I read pissheads posts and articles. You're proving nothing other than you're extremely immature. Even though I don't agree with somethings he says, that doesn't mean I should bash his posts, you retard.[/QUOT

i just post what we all think but wont say.

really? a foo says he doesn't agree with you and thinks you're immature.

so you don't speak for everyone.

never thought i did?people like you dont get mad when someone lies,you get mad when someone tells the truth.it hurts.im sure you had been posting that crap for awhile so these 16 year old can read it.i think your mad cause i am not a sucker and wont let you post that silly childish shit without saying anything.you should get used to it.

and what would be the point in wasting my time in debunking your crazy conspiracy(and mostly not true ) dribble.

my friends and i have way to much fun getting stoned and laughing at the shit you post.its great.keep up the GOOD work pissy,it is noble work you are doing.

That's fucked up, the government are planning a similar system here.

Couldn't you have left your first post as just "sounds fine to me" amsterdam? No need to insult everyone constantly.

yeah, the new freedom is internal passports and microchips and forced psychological testing for all, this is conservative. you might need to be on mind altering drugs if you're one of those kooks who doesn't want a national id or microchip.

how do i insult you?i have a different view than you.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by amsterdam

how do i insult you?i have a different view than you.

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I mean rather then simply take the piss, just give your views in a constructive manner. If your an intelligent guy, respond like one.

i have tried that with pisshead already,it gets old.