Libertarian presidential candidate Michael Badnarik caught a lot of ridicule over his personal refusal to get a drivers license. What a nutjob!
Yeah, well think again, cause these licenses are being set up as de facto national identity cards. They've gone far past the original excuse of ensuring traffic safety to becoming one of the main everyday tools of the encroaching police state.
"Are your papers in order, sir?" This is one of the most immediate indicators in a movie that you're dealing with an ugly police state. Yet we object not to ever increasing expectations such as that mere passengers in cars be expected to show drivers licenses or similar state issued ID.
Note these comments in open debate in September 2004 by Indiana Governor Kernan:
But first and foremost, because of our security challenges, because of the importance of counterterrorism and security here in the state of Indiana, the driver's license, as a form of identification, must have integrity... because it is viewed in many ways as being a form of national identification.
This remark was not even treated as controversial.
Post election, one of the couple of main issues holding up passage of the intelligence reform bill in Congress has been the objection that the bill does nothing to prevent illegal aliens from getting a drivers license.
Hey, it's not supposed to be the purpose of a drivers license to ensure national security, and the federal government shouldn't have anything to do with such things in the first place.
In short, if the federal government wants to issue national ID cards that we're going to be expected to present at the behest of law enforcement, then propose it up front. That way, we can have a proper debate on the necessity and the constitutional issues involved.
Screw these backdoor methods of putting universal papers on us all, and long live the counterfeiters!
Article comments
1 - bhw
Hey, it's not supposed to be the purpose of a drivers license to ensure national security, and the federal government shouldn't have anything to do with such things in the first place.
Which such things, ensuring national security or driver's licenses? It's hard to tell from the wording.
In short, if the federal government wants to issue national ID cards that we're going to be expected to present at the behest of law enforcement, then propose it up front. That way, we can have a proper debate on the necessity and the constitutional issues involved.
There are no constitutional issues, Al. The constitution says nothing about the federal government not being allowed to issue national ID cards, nor does it say anything about the right to privacy. Any such arguments or rulings are simply being made by pinkos and activist judges.
2 - Al Barger
Beloved BHW, the Constitution says nothing granting the federal government any right to create a national ID card, therefore by the 9th and 10th Amendments, it has no such right. This is besides all the bazillion different directions in which such a thing would run counter to other specific constitutional guarantees, such as the 4th Amendment prohibitions on unreasonable search and seizure.
Admittedly however, my language was perhaps a bit unclear. Obviously though, I meant that Congress has no authority to be screwing with state drivers licenses- not national defense. That actually IS their job.
I'm not invoking just some broad made up "right of privacy." It does NOT constitute judicial activism to enforce thing that actually ARE in the US Constitution, such as the 4th Amendment.
3 - jadester
well, at least your government isn't going to charge the taxpayers to introduce an entirely new ID card, that'll take (at least) ten years to implement and the project for which will be managed by one of the government's favourite companies (despite previous big cock-ups)
go Britain! (or don't)
4 - Eric Olsen
I assume the title is metaphorical
Other than the constitutional angle, which is certainly not unimportant but is also abstract, I have not heard any particularly compelling argument against a national identity card
5 - JR
I have not heard any particularly compelling argument against a national identity card
More cops will be murdered for harassing otherwise law-abiding citizens who don't appreciate being asked to identify themselves just for being outside their homes.
6 - Dawn
Um, Al, are you sure you are libertarian or are you a paranoid schizoid?
A license is a tool - identification is a good thing - unless of course you are a bad guy doing bad things and you don't want anyone to know about it.
Anything that can be used to catch and stop criminals from doing additional harm I am all for.
I just wish there were more pratical applications for the use of a taser in routine traffic stops. It's so cool to watch adults piss their pants.
7 - Eric Olsen
the existence of a national identity card is not the same thing as making it mandatory to carry one - it seems to me that disjunction would remove most of the negatives
8 - Al Barger
Yes Dawn, I must be a paranoid schizo. Why else would I mind the government randomly snooping through my stuff and asking questions? Why would I mind them checking up on what library books I'm reading, or listening to my phone calls? If you haven't done anything wrong, then you don't have anything to worry about.
Eric, how big or long a distinction do you think there'd be between issuing national ID cards and being required to carry them? Already you're under a big cloud of suspicion to be just a passenger in a car without carrying ID.
Again I ask, in appropriately menacing German accent, are your papers in order, sir?
9 - Mark Saleski
look al, it's either a national id card or a govt. issue beanie that's got your id number plus your favorite author's photo rotating on top of the propeller.
ayn rand never looked so funny.
10 - Dawn
As a person who is privy to the inner workings of a police department - a level of law enforcement, by the way, that 99% of us average folk would only ever have to deal with - I can assure you nobody gives a rat's ass about what Al Barger is doing either at the library, or on the internet UNLESS of course you start acting like a total dickhead and perhaps proposition underage girls (or boys) into participating in illegal acts, or attempt to hack into government sites.
The cops are too busy busting check forgers, rapists, DUI offenders and keeping the occasional eye on API's in their jurisdiction - in other words REAL CRIMINALS - they don't look for "minor infractions" for which to single "you, Al Barger" out. Simply put they don't even know you are alive - unless of course (as I stated above) you are a bad guy doing bad things.
So I guess the next question is, AL, are you a bad guy doing bad things?
11 - bhw
That's not really a good enough explanation for me, though, Dawn. The government has to have probable cause to search my private records. The national ID card, as it may be instituted, would erase probable cause as a restriction on government behavior and would give people who should have no access to my personal life, library reading, web surfing habits, bank records, etc., etc. free access to it.
I haven't done anything wrong. Why should I give up my rights?
I was actually kidding Al in my first response. I don't like the ID cards at all. I don't have anything to hide, but that isn't the issue. The issue is my right to not be unreasonably searched. If there are no restrictions on law enforcement's ability to do that, look out.
12 - Ian
As a person who was privy to the inner workings of a police department, and a level of law enforcement that 99% of the average folk would only ever have to deal with - I can assure you that I AM concerned about national ID cards. Not all police officers are "too busy" doing all those things Dawn says they are. Many police officers are just as crooked as the crooks they are out to catch. Not all of them.. but enough of them.
13 - Ian Scott
"I just wish there were more pratical applications for the use of a taser in routine traffic stops. It's so cool to watch adults piss their pants."
That's a statement that's isn't entirely untypical of many who are employed by police forces. I find it to be a repugnant attitude by someone who is given power. Another reason to reject ID cards and limit the powers of police officers.
14 - Patrick
"It's so cool to watch adults piss their pants."
Removing yourself immediately from the gene pool will avoid a)diluting the average IQ, and b)increasing the amount of genetically ingrained cruelty. If you have animals, please stop beating them and turn them into a shelter. Ditto if you have kids: I'm sure they would rather not enjoy another quiet evening of pissing their pants in fear.
15 - HW Saxton
I'm hoping that the ..."It's so cool to
watch adults piss their pants..." remark
was meant sarcastically. Unfortunately,
I don't think it was. Either way it is
a really fucking ignorant statement that
speaks volumes about the commenter.
16 - RJ
"I just wish there were more pratical applications for the use of a taser in routine traffic stops. It's so cool to watch adults piss their pants."
You gotta love those civil libertarians! ;)
17 - nathan
"So I guess the next question is, AL, are you a bad guy doing bad things?"
This type of attitude is exactly why we don't need to give the police any more authority. In other words, if you're not willing to agree with what I say then you MUST be a "bad guy". The Taliban used this reasoning quite a bit.
I really hate it when someone starts reciting the
career victims creedo "I don't object to 24 hour
surveillance because I don't do anything wrong" or
the abject paranoids creedo "I'm willing to submit
to a body cavity search if it means I will be safe
on the airplane" This is the same thing as them
saying "If I ignore this it will go away."
I've got news for them, even though you may not
think so you break laws every day, the politicians
"get tough on crime" attitude has spawned a landslide of new laws and it's just a matter of whether or not you have something they want or if you have began to annoy them. As for the idea that
security is worth losing a few freedoms for I think Ben Franklin said it best "those who would abandon liberty for security deserve neither one nor the other."
As far as the 12 year old that thinks it's cool to watch adults "piss their pants" you really need to be on the wrong end of a Taser before you talk too loudly.