National ID Card

My friend and I were talking tonight. He said he heard something on the radio about a National ID Card they we will be required to use in 2008. We wouldn't be able to have a bank account without it. He said it passed the house and senate last year? Has anyone heard about this?

Thanks

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,191857,00.html

The National ID Card That Isn't, Yet
The Department of Transportation takes the back door and starts linking state driver's licenses. Are 50 national ID cards any better than one?
By FRANK PELLEGRINI


big snip//

The real concern

The national ID-card issue to really fight about may be when and whether citizens will be required to carry them. The average American driver's license gets a pretty good workout these days — certainly far more than traffic laws themselves would seem to warrant — but you can only get arrested for driving without one. If the U.S. domestic response to terrorism starts to resemble Zimbabwe's, which passed a law in November making it compulsory to carry ID on pain of fine or imprisonment, well, that's something to worry about.

But until Congress passes a law like that — and until you can't enter a movie theater without the usher checking you for priors — there isn't all that much to get exercised about. Most of the privacy rights — if there really are such things — vulnerable to a nationalized ID card have already been trampled under the wheels of increased security, more efficient law enforcement and better business long ago. Most of them can be regained simply by paying cash — and keeping your fingerprints off the murder weapon.

Edit to add: this is NOT current, from 2002.

Probably have a GPS chip in it too.

It's called a Commercial Driver License.

Had to get fingerprinted and cleared by
TSA to get a HazMat endorsement.:grr:

Your frined is right, but to what degree this will be implemented and when, am not sure.

Still looking for the EXACT Real ID Act of 2005 document...
Anyone? :shrug:


The Scoopon National ID

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5702505.html

Senate approves electronic ID card bill

By Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com
Published on ZDNet News: May 10, 2005, 8:10 PM PT


Last-minute attempts by online activists to halt an electronic ID card failed Tuesday when the U.S. Senate unanimously voted to impose a sweeping set of identification requirements on Americans.

The so-called Real ID Act now heads to President Bush, who is expected to sign the bill into law this month. Its backers, including the Bush administration, say it's needed to stop illegal immigrants from obtaining drivers' licenses.

If the act's mandates take effect in May 2008, as expected, Americans will be required to obtain federally approved ID cards with "machine readable technology" that abides by Department of Homeland Security specifications. Anyone without such an ID card will be effectively prohibited from traveling by air or Amtrak, opening a bank account, or entering federal buildings.

After the Real ID Act's sponsors glued it to an Iraq military spending bill, final passage was all but guaranteed. Yet that didn't stop a dedicated cadre of privacy activists from trying to raise the alarm in the last few days.

<snip>
If the Real ID Act had been a standalone piece of legislation--instead of being embedded in an unrelated military spending bill--its passage in the Senate might have been less certain.

The House approved it in February by a relatively narrow vote of 261-161, and some senators had condemned it. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., warned last month that the Real ID Act creates "de facto national ID cards" and the National Immigration Law Center said it will make it harder even for legal immigrants and citizens to get drivers' licenses.

Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican and Real ID Act sponsor, applauded the Senate vote on Tuesday. "The Real ID is vital to preventing foreign terrorists from hiding in plain sight while conducting their operations and planning attacks," Sensenbrenner said. "By targeting terrorist travel, the Real ID will assist in our war-on-terror efforts to disrupt terrorist operations and help secure our borders."

And McFuckwad signed it on May 11, 2005

:mad:


http://www.epic.org/events/id/
A LOT more at the above link. CHeck out the left frame links there)

On May 10, 2005, President Bush signed into law the REAL ID Act, a
sweeping measure that will establish new identification requirements
across the United States. The legislation mandates federal
identification standards and requires states DMVs, which have become
the targets of identity thieves, to collect sensitive personal
information. Lawmakers in both parties urged debate on REAL ID and
more than 600 organizations opposed the legislation. Moreover, the
legislation passed at a time of growing concern about identity theft
and the reliability of new hi-tech identification.