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AAAAh WTF?
from Citizen-times.com, "There is a time and a place to debate a national identification card. Or perhaps we should say there was, because just such a card was tucked away in an unrelated bill that cleared the Senate Tuesday night.
"A spending bill totaling around $82 billion was approved 100-0 by the Senate. We don’t have much to say about the bill, designed mainly to fund efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq for the next few months, except to note it brings spending on those fronts to around $300 billion."
from the same article:"A good question is why such a bill would have new driver’s license rules in them, rules that Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., says create national identification cards.
"It’s a good question to which no one seems to have a good answer."
Isn't it a bit, um, dishonest to stick a controversial piece of legislation into a totally unrelated bill because you know that the Senate will have to pass the parts of the bill that don't concern ID cards, thus passing the part of the bill that does?
Also I found something in a blog about a conversation the blogger had with the guy that wrote the Real ID bill:
"I fear that the no fly list will become more than just a terrorist watch list. With this infrastructure in place, whats to keep some group from saying that people with unpaid child support shouldn't be allowed to fly? Whats to keep a state from not allowing people with unpaid parking tickets from flying? I don't want this to become an enabler for them. His [Congressman James Sensenbrenner, the guy who authored the bill] only real answer was that nobody is forcing you to fly. Flying is not a right. If you want, you can get in a car and drive somewhere without a license and hope you don't get pulled over. That is actually what he said. I was so surprised by this that I was unable to express the necessary shock and horror by this belief to him."
this is from a particularly informative blog:
"REAL ID is expensive. It's an unfunded mandate: the federal government is forcing the states to spend their own money to comply with the act. I've seen estimates that the cost to the states of complying with REAL ID will be $120 million."
from the same blog:"If you haven't heard much about REAL ID in the newspapers, that's not an accident. The politics of REAL ID is almost surreal. It was voted down last fall, but has been reintroduced and attached to legislation that funds military actions in Iraq. This is a "must-pass" piece of legislation, which means that there has been no debate on REAL ID. No hearings, no debates in committees, no debates on the floor. Nothing."
It's true that it's not in the news. I thought maybe I just missed it, but I just did a google search of cnn.com to see what they're saying about it, and the only thing I could find on their website is two sentances tucked into an article about the war funds bill:"It also prevents states from issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, stiffens asylum laws and provides money to finish a long-stalled fence on the border between California and Mexico.
"The immigration and asylum provision were a source of controversy and debate."
This is not just about preventing immigrants from getting licences, yet they seem to want me to think that. I did a google search of my local newspaper, and they have two articles on the subject, both of which say the legislation is about preventing illigal immigrants from getting drivers licences, and have no information whatsoever on the other consequences of this.
Fox news, oddly enough, has a bit more information. They at least say that it's a national ID, and they have some info on why it might be a bad idea, although they don't have any info about why it doesn't actually prevent terrorism. (I thought that Fox News existed solely to uncritically support Bush and the rest of the republicans while giving the illusion of providing information, so it's surprising to see them giving better info than other news sources. Not that I like those other news sources much)
Sorry that I'm just quoting stuff willy-nilly. I'm mad, ok. And since they're going to make our drivers licences into these national id's, the liklihood of getting 3 million people here to sign a statement saying they'll refuse to participate is null. Most people won't be willing to stop driving, and a lot of people won't be able to. I'd have to quit my job, not just because I would have a very hard time getting to work, but also because I'm required by my employer to have a drivers licence.
And why is this happening to our drivers licences? Driving should have nothing to do with this. |
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