Yeah, this is a RealID act post.

First, the links:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/16/real.id/index.html

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/18/1942200&threshold=3

Do we really need this? That's really the thread topic, I hope.

Set aside partisan stuff, and let's just discuss this as Americans. Do we need this? What are the upsides?

"Applicants must bring a photo ID, birth certificate, proof of Social Security number and proof of residence, and states must maintain and protect massive databases housing the information."

Yeah, just what I want, all of my most personal information digitally stored on a system run by the government. I'm completely against this, and I believe this is an overreaction. I don't like the idea of a Federal ID card. It's too big brother for me. I'd rather take my chances with what we have currently. At some point, a free society must be willing to accept a certain amount of risk, otherwise we will no longer be a free society.

I have very mixed emotions about this. I sort of lean toward agreeing with Vitalogy, who articulates his position well, as usual.

Trouble is, we're entering an era where the enemy who has vowed to destroy us is slowly infiltrating the motherland. They are among us. They can literally turn this country into another Iraq if they want to. Perhaps a little far fetched, but think about it. A dedicated enemy could do everything they are doing in Iraq.

Then I come back to thinking about the government in a big brother roll. I too do not trust the federal government. It employs far to many morons to be in control of anything.

I agree with Missing's initial position. This discussion should be non-partisan. One party or the other will only be in control for a certain number of years. This big brother thing will live forever. Once in, it will never go away.

That's a significant point for me.

If temporary things, really were temporary, that's one matter.

But this is an infrastructure change. It's not seen solid debate, IMHO.

One upside is solid differentiation between citizens and non-citizens. (assuming we let it run for a while, shake out the bugs, meaning regular shakedowns for everybody) Not sure that's worth it however.

I agree with Vitalogy....Way too big brother for me.

I've heard that they are going to embed RFID chips (or something similar) in drivers licenses soon.

I guarntee that the first time I get one of those, it's going in the microwave as soon as I get home from the DMV.

x2 also on what Deane said: "I too do not trust the federal government. It employs far to many morons to be in control of anything."

I'm currently learning about RFID. Gonna snag some core tech gear and explore what it does, range, etc...

It's a spooky technology, when implanted. Quite useful in many other ways though.

From what I read, good detection can happen in a 3' radius from the device.

This means, somebody buying the basic gear I'm going to, could pack batteries, an inductive reader / transmitter, CPU and data storage in some pockets and go crowd walking...

The inductive unit is the biggie. It's got some size. The other components are scary small for these purposes.

Police could scan an annoying (but legal) crowd to scoop names...

They are in the passports now, I believe.

Tampering is a felony.

The microwave would then be a felony --better to have an accident of some kind.

massive databases? the entire country has under 300 million people, each persons data would take about 2K bytes. I could fit that on my laptop.

When people say, "massive" they refer to both the meta data and the scope of the data itself, as applied to us ordinary people.

Also, the 2Kbytes of personal data is augmented with many relational links. Those consume a lot of storage as well. Then we have derivative data and associated data. Linking people to buying habits, Internet logs, demographic patterns, crime, house value, etc... all requires additional data be collected, stored and linked relationally.

IMHO, that fits into the category of "massive" in the literal size of data characterization.

Interesting possibilities for law enforcement beyond the terrorist elements. Child molesters, bank robbers, you name it.

But, none of that data, is withen the scope of the law. Check with your various credit agencies for the rest.

You dont have to have a new ID, just if you want to use shared facilitues, such as flying in a plane , where there are shared responsibilities that you need it.

Actually, that is a significant point of discussion. Right now, we really have no idea what the scope of the law actually is. This is largely because we have no idea what is being recorded, how it is linked, nor where it is permitted to go.

And that, finally, is due to poor oversight and review / audit provisions and distribution of those responsibilities.

I think the possibilities are most interesting to ID thieves. Once a thief has all of your info, including your birth certificate, SSN, DOB, Address, mother's maiden name, etc...anyone could become you. Don't think it could happen? Look at the security breaches companies commit where millions of records are compromised.

The new Federal database would be one stop shopping for frauds and thieves and will not provide any additional security above what we already have. In fact, in my not so humble opinion I think it's a net loss for the people as a whole, because they will be more likely to be subject to other abuses than actually be saved from a terrorist attack because of this system.

You know, it is very interesting that those on the right who do not want to register their guns for fear of the government some day taking them over, are the ones who want us all to be ID'd by the government.

No one is saying any one has to be ID'd, if you dont want to fly, or use a national park, your fine.

ANd right now, you have to have an ID to fly, its just that the ID's arent cerified by anyone.

When I got my first drivers license, I had to have an original or certified birth certificate.
I see nothing wrong with that.

It does seem people might be over reacting to this. It's not that the new cards are going to store your social security number, all you have to do is show proof of having one (you have to do this for a job) I remember having to show an original birth certificate as well for my drivers license.

Of all the things to worry about, this seems way down on the list of threats to your security and safety.

So what are the upsides?

Granted your point on it being not at the top of threats, but have you considered the longer term ramifications?

Do those change the list order. ie: can we just let nasty stuff slip through if it's not so nasty at first?

Check out the Documentry America: Freedom to Fascism. It tells all about the ID cards and chipping Americans.

BTW: This is something I just simply won't do, period.

As far as I am concerned, my body is mine, I call the shots as I live with the results.

We've plenty of biometric things we can identify with. We can just use those, if we must go there.