The debate over a national ID has stirred up a lot of controversy. There are supporters on both sides of the fence. Personally, I am still sitting on the fence and trying to weigh both sides of the argument.
First, I really don't like the way it was passed. It was attached to a bill for tsunami relief and the war in Iraq. Who was expected to vote against that? Anyone who did would most certainly have been labeled as "not supportive of our troops in Iraq" come election time.
Second, those in favor suggest that illegal immigrants will no longer be able to get driver's licenses. I would assert that illegal immigrants probably don't have them now. A sweeping statement you say? Probably so. But as long as the Bush is willing to call illegal immigrants "undocumented workers" and stifle attempts to stop the flow of them into this country, then I will make sweeping statements as I see fit.
The act also forces states to comply with the national id standards. A significant amount of money belonging to each state will be spent in order to issue the national id and replace our current driver's license. If the states choose not to comply then the citizens from each state would be the ones to suffer. There are those arguing that the national id will create a national database. A single point of storage for data about each individual citizen. This would lend itself to the suggestion that there would be a single point of failure as well that when compromised would allow citizens' data to be stolen.
With the news full of recent identity data being stolen its not that hard to drive this point home. Additionally, the same people worried about identities being stolen are concerned that the new national id will become the defacto marketing key for individuals. Grocery stores, video rental stores, and a host of others will use our national id to create an ideal method of tracking our purchases in an attempt to better isolate who we are and what we do when it comes to spending money. Our social security numbers were never meant to be used as id numbers, but that is what happened to them. How far from the truth are the concerns over our national id being used in much the same way?
And of course there are those that will don their tin foil hats and whisper unintelligible remarks about Big Brother in between mocking slogans of "Papers Please!". Whether or not this is true ( the supreme court did decide that a police officer may demand to see the id of any citizen regardless of whether they are committing a crime or not ) it may be inevitable.
Regardless, I have no doubt that Bush will sign this - he has signed everything else. You be the judge: An article from Wired. This guy set up a website to campaign against the national id. You can find a plethora of information about the national id as well as take action against the national id.
A news article from cnet about how the national id will affect you.
Second, those in favor suggest that illegal immigrants will no longer be able to get driver's licenses. I would assert that illegal immigrants probably don't have them now. A sweeping statement you say? Probably so. But as long as the Bush is willing to call illegal immigrants "undocumented workers" and stifle attempts to stop the flow of them into this country, then I will make sweeping statements as I see fit.
The act also forces states to comply with the national id standards. A significant amount of money belonging to each state will be spent in order to issue the national id and replace our current driver's license. If the states choose not to comply then the citizens from each state would be the ones to suffer. There are those arguing that the national id will create a national database. A single point of storage for data about each individual citizen. This would lend itself to the suggestion that there would be a single point of failure as well that when compromised would allow citizens' data to be stolen.
With the news full of recent identity data being stolen its not that hard to drive this point home. Additionally, the same people worried about identities being stolen are concerned that the new national id will become the defacto marketing key for individuals. Grocery stores, video rental stores, and a host of others will use our national id to create an ideal method of tracking our purchases in an attempt to better isolate who we are and what we do when it comes to spending money. Our social security numbers were never meant to be used as id numbers, but that is what happened to them. How far from the truth are the concerns over our national id being used in much the same way?
And of course there are those that will don their tin foil hats and whisper unintelligible remarks about Big Brother in between mocking slogans of "Papers Please!". Whether or not this is true ( the supreme court did decide that a police officer may demand to see the id of any citizen regardless of whether they are committing a crime or not ) it may be inevitable.
Regardless, I have no doubt that Bush will sign this - he has signed everything else. You be the judge: An article from Wired. This guy set up a website to campaign against the national id. You can find a plethora of information about the national id as well as take action against the national id.
A news article from cnet about how the national id will affect you.
