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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hope Praytochange who wrote (682286)	5/13/2005 10:26:49 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769670

Yes, Comrades, Your Papers Please; de facto National ID Card: Senate approves electronic ID card bill By Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com Published on ZDNet News: May 10, 2005 news.zdnet.com 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. UnRealID.com, which calls the legislation a "national ID card," says that more than 10,800 people filled out its online petition to senators. The Electronic Frontier Foundation hastily created a "Stop The Real ID Act!" campaign last week, and the ACLU denounced the bill as a measure that would create "a system ripe for identity theft." Security guru Bruce Schneier offered his own negative critique. 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....