Originally published August 15 2005
National ID card law passed without fanfare
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A new law tacked onto an emergency spending bill passed in May will require U.S. citizens to have a national ID card.
Politically underhanded tactics aside, if you're not philosophically opposed to the concept of a national identity card, the law isn't a disaster.
Though some critics have decried the very existence of a national ID card in the United States, pointing out that we've opted against creating one numerous times in our history, driver's licenses and Social Security cards have functioned much as national ID cards do in other countries.
You need a driver's license to board a plane, to open a bank account, to buy age-restricted goods like cigarettes and alcohol, to obtain utilities like electricity and phone service, to sign up for insurance or get a job in many cases, and even to enter certain types of buildings (mostly federal buildings, but occasionally others--heck, my dentist's office required me to show my license for a while after 9/11).
Second, the license must incorporate "machine-readable" technology that will be uniform throughout the nation.
That requirement was imposed to serve the bill's other purpose: to modify U.S. immigration standards and border security procedures in order to prevent terrorists from coming here and freely moving about the nation.
At a minimum, the Department of Homeland Security--which, together with the Department of Transportation and the states, has been given the task of setting up specific guidelines for some portions of the new driver's license/ID--needs to make it clear that all states must adhere to very high standards when securing our data, and it should then perform spot checks to make sure these standards are implemented correctly.
This is especially important because the states are required to store (for up to 10 years) digital images of the original documents you use to prove your identity.
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