About Damn Time

A national id is, for reasons that pass understanding, politically impossible in this country.

The fact is that we have a de facto national id, it's simply a bad one -- driver's licenses.

The 9/11 Commission called for standardization of these cards, and so far they've been basically ignored.

You will recall that requirements for standardizing them (involving whether citizenship was a requirement, a huge debate) held up the intelligence bill for quite some time, until a deal was brokered, a deal that depended upon this issue being brought up and brought up quickly.

Payback time.

The proposed new rules will require states to determine whether all applicants (including those renewing licenses) are in this country legally. And it's added to a supplemental for Iraq.

You can imagine the wailing:

State officials complain that the new requirements will add a costly, complicated burden to the issuance of driver's licenses, which has been their responsibility for almost a century. Civil rights organizations and privacy advocates say that they are concerned that a standardized driver's license would amount to a national identification card and that a central database would be vulnerable to identify theft.

I like the worry that it will be vulnerable to identity theft. That's compared to the current situation, where just about anyone can get a license, you understand.

This is what's stunning to me:

Eleven states now grant driver's licenses to noncitizens who do not have visas. There is no reliable estimate of how many licenses have been issued to noncitizens, whether in the country legally or illegally.

You have just got to be kidding me post-9/11, given all the things licenses open the door to. I'd be fine with it if there was some clear big red stamp on it that said NON-CITIZEN and NON-LEGAL but otherwise, forget it. And if you want to argue that that idea would set up a two-tiered system, my answer would be, uh, no kidding. That would kind of be my point.

For example:

In July, Tennessee began issuing driver's licenses marked: "For driving purposes only. Not valid for identification." The license, given to people who cannot supply proof that they are in the state legally, is printed vertically, to distinguish it from most other driver's licenses, which are horizontal.

Check this out:

Some of the ideas in the new measure were considered and dropped in December. But conservative members of the House, led by Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Republican of Wisconsin, threatened to block passage of the intelligence bill, and won an agreement that they could try again this year. They got a pledge from the leadership to include the driver's license measures in a must-pass bill this year.

Yes, Sensenbrenner is a conservative. So what? Some adaptation of the current system has been advocated by any number of experts in homeland security, including the rigorously bipartisan 9/11 Commission. Are they all conservative? does this suggestion stem from their conservatism? Don't think so.

Under the rules being considered, before granting a driver's license, a state would have to require proof of citizenship or legal presence, proof of an address and proof of a Social Security number. It would need to check the legal status of noncitizens against a national immigration database, to save copies of any documents shown and to store a digital image of the face of each applicant.

The licenses issued must include the driver's address and a digital photograph, and would incorporate new authentication features designed to prevent counterfeits. The new law would also require that the licenses of legal temporary residents expire when their visas do. The rules would also apply to renewals, an aide involved in the conference said.

Excellent.

Some argue that this goes further than the 9/11 Commission:

A bipartisan group of senators - the Republicans John E. Sununu of New Hampshire and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, and the Democrats Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut and Richard J. Durbin of Illinois - complained about the proposal in a recent letter to the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist.

"By repealing a provision enacting a central recommendation of the 9/11 commission, in favor of unworkably rigid federal mandates," the letter said, "it would jeopardize an initiative that can make the nation safer from terrorist attack."

Okay. (Not that the article really explains what the 9/11 Commission recommended in place of this proposal.) Sit down, negotiate, mess with it. As long as it's workable, relatively rigid, demands proof of citizenship, real proof of identity, and ends up being something that genuinely can be counted on to prove identity. There are multiple ways this can be done, I'm not tied to any particular proposal.

Just keep in mind that the fears of a "national identity card" are a red herring. Driver's licenses are a national identity card now, they just aren't one that can bear the weight we ask it to. Fears of identity theft are also a red herring.

Think about it -- the worry is that people will create for themselves an identity that is not theirs.

Well, that is exactly what they're doing now. So what's the answer, not doing anything out of fear that if we do something they might be able to benefit from our attempts to protect ourselves against what they're doing now?

We have to make the attempt, and then you just invest everything you can in as many firewalls as you can.

And write the law so that corrupt employees go away for life.

Comments

[Neo]

The official closing of the American frontier.

[Jonas Grumby]

Wow, I hadn't thought of all this. A Naional ID will solve so many problems!

"And write the law so that corrupt employees go away for life." Brilliant! That will certainly stop stolen personal information from being exchanged. Once the evil-genius DMV worker is locked away forever, the pilfered information will disappear thanks to the magic of technology in the hands of our omnipotent government!

A national ID database would certainly never be misused by anyone in positions of power either. It's not as if the government has ever committed a crime against one of its citizens. I'm sure political dissenters won't mind being tracked by facial recognition as they go about their lives.

All hail the Fatherland!