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National ID Cards Coming

By Jeralyn, Section Civil Liberties
Posted on Sun Oct 10, 2004 at 11:13:39 PM EST
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Among the provisions in the House and Senate versions of the 9/11 Commission bill is one that would standardize the requirements for drivers' licenses among all states. Power to determine what information must be provided will vest in the Homeland Security Director.

The secretary could require the license to include fingerprints or eye prints. The provision would allow the Homeland Security Department to require use of the license, or an equivalent card issued by motor vehicle bureaus to nondrivers for identification purposes, for access to planes, trains and other modes of transportation.

The House's version of the intelligence bill, passed Friday, would require the states to keep all driver's license information in a linked database, for quick access. It also calls for "an integrated network of screening points that includes the nation's border security system, transportation system and critical infrastructure facilities that the secretary determines need to be protected against terrorist attack."

Civil liberties advocates are appalled.

"I think it means we're going to end up with a police state, essentially, by allowing the secretary of homeland security to designate the sensitive areas and allowing this integrating screening system," said Marv Johnson, the legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. If the requirement to show the identification card can be applied to any mode of transportation, he said, that could eventually include subways or highways, and the result would be "to require you to have some national ID card, essentially, in order to go from point A to point B."

James C. Plummer Jr., a policy analyst at Consumer Alert, a nonprofit organization based here, said, "You're looking at a system of internal passports, basically."

For more on how the standardization of drivers' licenses affects your civil liberties, visit these pages at EPIC and the ACLU . Mike Krause, writing for the Independence Institute, has more.

Standardized drivers' licenses and national id cards are a quick fix that won't do anything to stop terrorists or enhance our safety . It will only further diminish our privacy rights.

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