Via the NYT: Congress May Require Closer Scrutiny to Get a Driver’s License
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.
A couple of things come to mind:
1) If Congress wants a national ID card, then it should just create one, not sorta/kinda make the states make the drivers license into one.
2) I have to wonder if this is worth the cost and the hassle in terms of the actual benefit. Just because some of the 911 hijackers had drviers licenses doesn’t mean that had they not had them that they wouldn’t have been able to carry out the attacks. We are talking about millions of dollars in expenditures, and it is unclear to me as to what actual security benefit it will ultimately have.
3) Are DMV’s around the country prepared to handle this much paperwork and data storage?
4) Do I want the DMV to have this much data concerning me on file?
5) Won’t this just add to the frustration of getting a license and actually have little effect on our security?
And one does wonder about the ability to actually pull this off:
State officials and some senators say the new provision, known as the Real ID measure, imposes verification procedures - like the authentication of birth certificates - that would be difficult for even the federal government to meet.
I would think that a determined, well-financed terrorist could probably come up with a forged birth certificate.
I am not one to freak out over national ID cards, but this is a patchwork approach that reeks of a TSA-like measure.
Update: James Joyner is less skeptical than I on this one.
Congress to Require Background Check for Driver’s Licenses
Trackback by Outside the Beltway — Tuesday, May 3, 2024 @ 8:28 am
Congress to Require Background Check for Driver’s Licenses
Go read it yourself, ya lazy bum.
Trackback by Outside the Beltway — Tuesday, May 3, 2024 @ 8:31 am
Sounds a lot like what MA already does. I won’t hijack your comments with a description of the hell I had to go through to officially exist here, but suffice it to say that I’m not impressed with the idea at all. The theory may be ok, but the execution is guaranteed to take the DMV from annoying to nightmare.
Comment by Deb — Tuesday, May 3, 2024 @ 9:04 am
Driver’s License
I favor this, and I would be happy to see it become a national id card that had biometrics on it, but did not allow citizens to be tracked, but was impossible to forge, and was required to vote. I also favor visitors getting a card that showed they w…
Trackback by Don Singleton — Tuesday, May 3, 2024 @ 1:37 pm
No
You might remember from five years ago or thereabouts, a very effective line of argument against the Clinton Administration on its continuing push for more gun control laws. The response from then-candidate George W. Bush and the NRA was, "Why…
Trackback by Yippee-Ki-Yay! — Tuesday, May 3, 2024 @ 1:54 pm
Well, I’m against both the de facto use of a driver’s license as a national ID card, and the establishment of a de jure national ID card.
That said, at least using a photo driver’s license in this way would be better than the present use of the SSN as a national ID number…
Comment by McGehee — Tuesday, May 3, 2024 @ 2:00 pm
I agree that this isn’t a necessary measure for national security. Although, if people like Sensenbrenner really want this there is a much easier way: require all passengers on flights to provide a passport.
It wouldn’t cause any undue burden on states and would be within the regulatory structure of the FAA.
In fact, I would assume that Marion Blakely could do this simply by issuing new regulations.
Comment by Kappiy — Tuesday, May 3, 2024 @ 2:08 pm
I wonder what Gov. Doyle of Wisconsin is thinking.
Comment by Neo — Tuesday, May 3, 2024 @ 8:55 pm