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In Louisiana, we have passed a law forbidding enactment of the REAL ID. Gradually, our legislature has been caving in. The latest - Homeland Security advised that they will not allow anyone thru their security without a REAL ID. I haven't heard anyone talking about it on this forum (did I miss it?).
The article I read said that 30 states are still holding out. The government did back off requiring RFID chips on each driver's license, but still requires the states to allow other states, and the Federal government to access this information and will require:
Full legal name
Signature,
Date of birth
Gender,
Unique, identifying number
Principal residence address
Front-facing photograph of the applicant
photo ID, or a non-photo ID that includes full legal name and birthdate.
Documentation of birth date (birth certificate).
Documentation of legal status and social security number
Documentation showing name and principal residence address (Wikipedia)
Said cards must also feature specific security features intended to prevent tampering, counterfeiting, or duplication of the document for fraudulent purposes. These cards must also present data in a common, machine-readable format, such as bar codes. (Wikipedia)
All of the above is designed to protect us from terrorists! The will also use it to catch illegal immigrants. (Last I heard, the Feds were using the 'catch and release' method on illegals) I wonder what the odds are of me being caught driving without a driver's license? Personally, I think my state will cave in and comply. I also don't think people will object - they simply won't notice the change, or they won't care. After all, we still have a draft registration going on - just in case we go to war - and no one objects!
Went through that in Montana a few years ago, it was rejected as unnecessary because our drivers licenses already have the required information already on them.
The legislatue and governor both rejected it, so no issue here.
That will be interesting for travelers from others states that don't require it. I believe there is a constitutionality issue with interfering with interstate travel and commerce or some such. I get sick of hearing about this governmental interference of the citizenry as a response to "terrorist threat" nonsense. I'd rather take my(remote) chances than be slowly harassed. First time I've heard of "real ID" though.
I looked it up: It was kicked to the curb in AK, and the state where our second home is let it die by inaction. I wonder why LA is working so hard on this?
Another sign of the times. Police state in the making. Federal government wielding too much power. I often wonder if the anti-federalists actually had the right idea all those years ago. They warned of this. Of course, that's one reason tth Bill of Rights was enacted under the fledgling Constitution. But you know something, we could just as easily had a "Bill of Rights" under the Articles of Confederation (upon agreement from all sovereign states). There may have been other challenges had the Articles of Confederation stood, but there never would have been the situation we are in now where the federal government has grown too big for its britches and is essentially erasing the states.
Another benefit would have been that each state could have decided whether to go more socialist, conservative, liberal, libertarian, communist, capitalistic, or whatever else... and if Person A didn't like System X, he/she could move to a state that was more in line with his/her social philosophy. I think that was part of the original plan. Too bad it's going to a one-size-fits-all form of government. A true republic allows for a variety of social/economic models and doesn't force any one of them on everyone.
Oh well, no use crying over spilt milk. I'd love to see that experiment play out though...
Ask not what your country can do for you, but fear what your country can do TO you.
I do not understand the big deal of IDs. I carry multiple photo-IDs and I have for most of my adult life.
My SIL lives in DC and she is very active with political groups and campaigns. She and I got 'into it' on this topic once. She insists that there are elderly folks who have never had a birth certificate, never a driver's license, never a SSN card. These folks were all born in the US, they have worked jobs, attended colleges, owned homes, raised children, and through it all they never had any need for any form of government documentation.
She claims that to require proof of identity is a huge burden of these people. She insists that there is a huge faction of the population like this, and most of them are elderly.
To make peace with her, I have dropped the argument.
But I still do not see how all of that is possible.
I did not get past 1 1/2 decades before I needed photo-ID. How does someone get past 6 or 7 decades without ID?
"there are elderly folks who have never had a birth certificate, never a driver's license, never an SSN card. These folks were all born in the US"
OK, I can see someone who is maybe 90 or 100 years old, and was born way out in the sticks in a shack, maybe not having a birth certificate. And if they never learned to drive, they wouldn't have a driver's license. But no Social Security card? The only people I know of who cannot obtain Social Security cards are non-U.S. citizens.
My grandmother was born in 1891 and died in 1980. Sometime in the late 1950s she applied for Social Security. She did not have a birth certificate on file (probably because the State of IL didn't require them until about 1915) nor did she have a driver's license because she never drove a car, but she had a "Delayed Record of Birth" filed, in which an older brother and (I think) one other person signed affadavits stating her date and place of birth. So even she was able to get a Social Security card, and this was more than 50 years ago. I cannot imagine that there are still vast numbers of elderly U.S. citizens who are TOTALLY without any way of verifying their identity.
I've got no problem with owning a driver's license or state id card. I do have a lot of problem with the undocumented aliens voting in our elections and organizations like ACORN registering cartoon characters to vote and voting for them.
It's a nice concept: trusting everyone to be honest at the voting polls, but unfortunately, those ethics are long gone from the general population.
So, yes, if you want to vote, you ought to be able to prove who you are, that you are a citizen, and that you live at that address (and aren't registered to vote at 20 different addresses under 20 different names)
Lots of old people with no id, no SS#, not ever? I don;t think so. I'm old and my mother is even older, and nobody in my mother's generation is without ID. I can imagine a very few 100 year olds who were born in a shack and never had their birth registered, but I can't imagine that person is not collecting their SS or their Medicare.
Do people who never went to school, never had a driver's license or ID, never had a job, never had a social security number even go down to the polls to vote?
I don't think this thread is about oldsters who got through life without ID. It's about the constitutionality of requiring all US citizens, regardless of state, to carry a uniform 'federal' ID (which is what Real ID is about). In my family, we all have passports, which serve the same purpose, and do not believe in Real ID.
I think anyone on the road should pass a basic driving test and get a "regular" license; requiring anything more just to drive would result in me and my wife driving without a license. I've been on the road 50 years and owned a trucking company, so I definitely would not be a menace on the road, licensed or not. But does the US govt have the right to all that data about me on a single card? I don't like it, and neither do enough state legislators that there is still some serious resistance out there. It would apply to them, also.
I think a man should be able to live with some privacy in his life, yet still have the opportunity to support himself and own private property. These are God-given rights. The old "papers, please" routine used to be a joke; we are finding out what's funny and what's not.
Here's a new menace cropping up out there: tracking your vehicle using programmable license tags than can be electronically programmed to say "Uninsured" or "Stolen" - or even display ads (I can see it now...):
Here's a new menace cropping up out there: tracking your vehicle using programmable license tags than can be electronically programmed to say "Uninsured" or "Stolen" - or even display ads (I can see it now...):
I read the article, and yeah it will probably raise the monies paid in to the local cop-shop, but I think the bigger picture is taxes.
With cars making better milage, tax receipts are down from gas taxes. This gizmo would allow your friendly state government to track how many miles you drive and tax you accordingly since you aren't paying your fair share when you buy fuel.
Crazy idea I know, but these days, I put nothing past government planners when it comes to "revenue enhancement".
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