Grow up and standardize your driving licences? 
People should not pay for aeroplane tickets only to need to drive them around, thatās what pilots are for!
A press officer for the Department of Homeland Security said the lawās intention was not to create a national identification card but to extend what the agency calls best practices on issuing driverās licenses that apply to all states.
Why is this such a bad thing again? Why is it better to have no free national ID card of any sort?
So you might say that some people that travelled to New Mexico are stuck facing Truth or Consequences?
*looks at feet
I live in Minnesota, which is one of the states that has a law prohibiting RealID, so this is something Iāve been paying attention to.
What I donāt understand, and nobody has addressed yet, is how the RealID requirements mesh with the fact that the TSA says its OK to fly without an ID (see here: http://blog.tsa.gov/2013/04/tsa-travel-tips-tuesday-can-you-fly.html ).
Does that mean that if I present my MN drivers license Iāll be prohibited from flying, but if I claim to have lost it then Iām OK? That makes no sense whatsoever, but seems to be what the TSA is saying.
I say that ID cards are generally a bad idea, or at least, they need to be democratized. People are able to explain who they are, and no one is owed any explanation beyond that. You are your āIDā.
Why would having them available be a bad idea?
We need some kind of ID card to interact with most aspects of society (get a job, etc.) and right now the only universal one is the Social Security Number, which we rely on for all the wrong things (and itās not like you can change that number when a stalker gets ahold of it).
In many situations theyāre also useful so that people can know who youāre not (homes for battered women, etc.)
I agree that we should have a level of civility owed to us even without the existence of an ID, but thatās a civil rights issue thatās far beyond the scope of a freely available trustworthy source of identification.
Lets just start tattooing a personalized bar code onto every person at birth. What would be the harm in that?
For a long time I didnāt have a state-issued ID and I donāt remember it ever being a problem when flying. It was only a problem when Iād try to buy alcohol. On those occasions Iād present my passport (which, oddly enough, I never needed as long as I was flying within the US).
I was frequently told passports werenāt a valid form of ID. Iād probably get the same response now if I tried to show it as my ID when I go to vote.
Ooh, or what if they modify our DNA to carry a bar code?
Seriously though, thatās exactly nothing like an ID thatās freely available useful for identification but can be changed if you want, unlike the existing Social Security Number.
Interestingly enough, I had my wallet stolen this summer. And I did in fact recover it, as well as my license; however, when I reported it stolen to the police department they expressly asked āwas there cash missing?ā.
I said noā¦credit cards, driverās license, things like that. They said, there was nothing they could do as Credit Cards and a License are not considered items of value. To which I asked himā¦āUm, explain to me how my identity and personal data as well as my likeness are not of āvalueā?!?ā He replied, āpossessions and cash are considered to be items of value. The other stuff is all replaceable and useless.ā
Now this raises a point. If my driverās license is stolen and it contains on a chip all my personal data, or can be used to access personal dataā¦shouldnāt there be a way to provide security around it?
I also really canāt help but wonder about the simplest question hereā¦why would TSA have any authority over a state issued license???
Why I think itās a bad idea is that it perpetuates a notion that The State is more trustworthy than the populace. This creates an asymmetry where accountability becomes mostly one-sided. It is an idealistic shortcut around the reality that trust needs to be earned rather than assumed - but this is equally true of groups and governments as well as individuals. Being told that The State must be considered a ātrusted partyā for security seems naive and destructive. If I donāt trust them to account for their own affairs, then I certainly do not trust them to account for mine.
It is far easier simply to ask people about themselves.
Okay, but that doesnāt work for having a large integrated societyā¦and it DEFINITELY doesnāt work for places where people need to be safe from other people (homes for battered women, which I mentioned specifically in the post you replied to)
Itās also not a reason to inconvenience a lot of poor people (passports arenāt free) who do want to integrate with society.
The chip contains the same information that is written on your license. Itās not storing your SSN or anything like that.
Which, by the way, is the only number in this discussion that cannot be easily changed and is used for ID currently. Guess how much fun it is to have a stalker get ahold of that info?
Dealing with the other stuff is a breeze by comparison.
They donāt. But they do have authority over airline passengers.
Also, @pleppik, do you really think the guards at the gate are going to risk thinking? Hereās something the boss says - hereās something some smartass found on the web. Which one wins?
Which is more likely to succeed? Arguing with the TSA at the gate? Or attacking the TSA where they live?
If each person did one small hit on TSA infrastructure once per year, on a random day, then the problem would mostly take care of itself. Make it seem too dangerous/inconvenient to work for the TSA. Real consequences make much of a difference than mere complaining.
Are you advocating shooting Federal agents? Because last time I asked you how many Federal agents you have shot, you changed the subject.
Papers, please.
Scenario?
Isnāt it more fun to let them go undercover and pose as the ābad guysā, and then manipulate them to shoot other agents who also pose as the ābad guysā?
There was a couple of such shootouts in Northern Irelandā¦
