National ID, State Nightmare

[realFedUp]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060112/ap_on_re_us/real_id;_ylt=AoCNjl3vXFV28KjkgJ4AqK2s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MjBwMWtkBHNlYwM3MTg-

AP Exclusive: National ID, State Nightmare

By BRIAN BERGSTEIN, AP Technology Writer

An anti-terrorism law creating a national standard for all driver's licenses by 2008 isn't upsetting just civil libertarians and immigration rights activists.

State motor vehicle officials nationwide who will have to carry out the Real ID Act say its authors grossly underestimated its logistical, technological and financial demands.

In a comprehensive survey obtained by The Associated Press and in follow-up interviews, officials cast doubt on the states' ability to comply with the law on time and fretted that it will be a budget buster.

"It is just flat out impossible and unrealistic to meet the prescriptive provisions of this law by 2008," Betty Serian, a deputy secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, said in an interview.

continued

[qanda]

1. I wonder which companies will be making money

Off the upgrades needed to make this program work. And then I wonder if those same companies lobbied congress for this bill.

[realFedUp]

3. no doubt...I'm sure that info is out there about Real I.D.s...

you want the lackies in the government knowing
where you are every day, what you're buying, seeing,
talking to...

here's some info on RFIDs...
http://www.globalchange.com/rfids.htm

[pinerow]

2. Just another back-door attempt to create a national I.D...

Get a passport...!

[realFedUp]

4. National Insecurity Cards

http://www.alternet.org/rights/21977/

National Insecurity Cards
By Bruce Schneier, Schneier.com

Posted on May 11, 2005, Printed on January 12, 2006

Editor's Note: The REAL ID Act -- a bill that brings the country steps closer to imposing a national ID system -- was sent to the president's desk on Tuesday when the Senate voted to approve the measure, which was attached to the $82 billion war funding bill. As the author explains below, these ID cards are not just a violation of our privacy rights and a covert attack on immigrants. They will also be entirely ineffective in fighting terrorism.

As a security technologist, I regularly encounter people who say the United States should adopt a national ID card. How could such a program not make us more secure, they ask?

The suggestion, when it's made by a thoughtful civic-minded person like Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times, often takes on a tone that is regretful and ambivalent: Yes, indeed, the card would be a minor invasion of our privacy, and undoubtedly it would add to the growing list of interruptions and delays we encounter every day; but we live in dangerous times, we live in a new world ... .

It all sounds so reasonable, but there's a lot to disagree with in such an attitude.

The potential privacy encroachments of an ID card system are far from minor. And the interruptions and delays caused by incessant ID checks could easily proliferate into a persistent traffic jam in office lobbies and airports and hospital waiting rooms and shopping malls.

continued

[Peregrine]

5. Actually I favor national ID cards if

they are smart cards that permit people to elect to waive their 4th and 5th Amendment rights and it is required that when a person votes Republican they automatically waive these rights. After all, if you are not guilty, you shouldn't have anything to worry about.

[cdsilv]

6. if it contains RFID technology...

...can't you just wrap it in aluminum foil and unwrap it when you have to 'produce' ID?

[leesa]

12. On those terms I might consider it...they should also automatically waive

all first amendment rights, all UN rights and all Geneva Convention Rights if they are registered as Republicans.

[Triana]

7. "grossly underestimated its logistical, technological and financial..

...demands."

Well. Anything Gee Duhhbya and his facsist minions does seems to suffer from this problem, doesn't it. Shall we make a list?

[gizmo1979]

8. Does Bush use the Book 1984

as his blue print for government or what?

[aquart]

9. 1984? Not Mein Kampf?

Or maybe just the cartoon they made of Animal Farm.

[dethl]

10. I'll pop my national ID into the microwave...(and if they have RFID)

I think 5 seconds is more than enough to totally fry the RFID chip inside.... :D

[realFedUp]

14. tell me how that works for ya...

:-)

[leesa]

11. That's because it's authors are Republicans who have brains of peas

[RazzleDazzle]

13. Heh. I just rec'd my new state drivers license good til 2016

[f-bush]

15. Can anyone say "facsit state"?

[Victimerican]

16. i'm more worried about hackers than the govt

I've seen the government. There's no way it's capable of tracking everyone, even given a tool such as RFID with all your personal information, without managing to make accessing that information next to impossible.

However, your technophile neighbor from down the road can make an apparatus capable of reading and decrypting all RFID info within 50-100 feet (I think that was what the latest ones do) in his basement, with equipment he already has. Hell, he doesn't even need to study the inner workings of RFIDs: A simple google search would provide him with all the infomration and programming he'd need to access and change RFIDs.

RFID is NOT secure. It wasn't designed to be. The secure RFID's only come in 8 bit encryption (Not very secure at all) and the cheaper ones have none. While I can see this being useful in the future, right now the technology is just not where it should be for anyone to be considering it.