National ID

Excerpt Taken from BlogPulse. Now that national ID cards are a thing of the future (thanks to an undebated provision tacked onto the Iraqi spending bill), will they make the nation more secure? Or less? Some folks argue the latter. Today's No. 2 blog link, Schneier on Security, spells out one security expert's concerns, including increased vulnerability to identity theft, unsupervised security breaches and more. The Ars Technica blog spells out even more concerns. And some governors are hinting at court action to rein it in. The "Real ID" bill passed, by the way, 100 to zip. Today's No. 7 top link is the UnReal ID.

When the Senate approved a Bill calling for $82 billion in funds for Iraq and tsunami relief, it also approved the Real ID Act which in effect will see the introduction of a hi-tech national identity card system, possibly within months. Opposition to the Act, which many say was unfairly introduced under the cover of the war fund request, is considerable, with about 600 different organizations opposing the plan, not least because there was no public debate prior to its approval. Tim Sparapani, a legislative council for privacy rights with the ACLU, said that no politician would have voted down the Real ID proposition for fear of upsetting the main priority of the bill which was the Iraq war and tsunami relief funds. Taken from ShortNews, 5.12.05.

Taken from May 7, 2005 Tyndall: If the House of Representatives has its way, whenever we apply for a driver's license we will have to prove we live here legally. CBS' Jim Acosta explained the anti-terrorist logic: potential foreign hijackers, in this country illegally, have used valid licenses to make airline flights. However, in the year's second-heaviest Race-&-Immigration (news reporting) week, NBC's Pete Williams pointed out that the new rule would target immigrants more than terrorists, since a license allows an illegal immigrant to join society—open a bank account, get a job, send children to school. Yet, ABC's Dan Harris observed, "committed, well-financed terrorists will still be able to buy fake ID on the black market." For the rest of us, DMV offices will be "an even more tiresome, tedious experience."