Lovely New Federal ID System
In a word, good God! I completely missed this being passed. Yoohoo! Where are the good judges, please? Pretty please? Pretty please with Tom DeLay's balls on a kebab?
Again, from Skippy International, this posted by Cookie Jill:
and to think this was snuck into a bill for arming our troops and sending aid to tsunami victims. also tacked on is an attack on the environment. this is just morally wrong.
starting three years from now, if you live or work in the united states, you'll need a federally approved id card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account, collect social security payments, or take advantage of nearly any government service. practically speaking, your driver's license likely will have to be reissued to meet federal standards
homeland security is permitted to add additional requirements--such as a fingerprint or retinal scan--on top of those. we won't know for a while what these additional requirements will be.
...the real id act says federally accepted id cards must be "machine readable," and lets homeland security determine the details. that could end up being a magnetic strip, enhanced bar code, or radio frequency identification (rfid) chips.
in the past, homeland security has indicated it likes the concept of rfid chips. the state separtment is already going to be embedding rfid devices in passports, and homeland security wants to issue rfid-outfitted ids to foreign visitors who enter the country at the mexican and canadian borders. the agency plans to start a yearlong test of the technology in July at checkpoints in arizona, new york and washington state. - cnet / npr
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