If I'm called to get a national ID card I will

[Ignoramus]

[GodlessBiker]

1. Aren't national ID cards called passports?

[SmokingJacket]

3. Except that, like drivers licenses....

they'll have a magnetic strip that codes all kinds of info. Yeah, the state has that now. But it's somehow more ominous when the feds -- esp. this particular group of feds -- has it.

A passport just has your entries and exits.

[Paranoid_Portlander]

2. Depends on who or what does the calling...

...and what the penalties are for noncompliance. Deny me a driver's license? I have never driven a car in my life and have no intention of starting. I doubt if I would ever travel out of the country. (not sure of that).

[slackmaster]

4. I'll change my last name to Shithead

Just to watch people squirm.

[WillowTree]

5. You realize, of course...

....that refusal under the legislation just passed would also mean that you would not only not be able to leave the country, you would not be able to fly domestically, drive a car, or in many places, cash a check, among other things for which a driver's license is used as identification.

I don't personally have nearly as much of a problem with the new federal driver's license information mandate as a lot of others. As it reads, it doesn't require any more information from me than I'm already required to give other than additional forms of identification which I'm able to provide and have no issue with providing. I don't object to standardization of driver's license information and can see some benefits to facilitation of the various states being able to readily access driver's license information from their counterparts. Yeah, I know that will enrage some around here, but that's just how I feel about it. I fully respect everyone else's opinions.

[Ignoramus]

6. You're right I do

That's why the alternatives were to already be outside the country, or be stuck here.

There's a difference between being able to find out information about someone and being told that information.

Say you once donated to UNICEF, before you were informed that it was a terrorist organization. Now when you go to buy a slurpee, Jethro the clerk sees on the cash register that you are a terrorist sympathizer and has his friends beat you up in the parking lot.

Or, what if someone doesn't like you and reports falsely that you hate Jesus, and that goes into the data mining total information database and increases your terrorist threat level. Then when President Jeb visits, and they clear the town of terrorist sympathizers you are swept up and displaced for the sake of freedom. Etc. etc.

[fryguy]

9. you need to show ID to buy a slurpee?

where on earth do you shop?

[slaveplanet]

13. they plan

to phase it in ...Not just slurpees ...every purchase cash or not....they need this provision in order to phase in the new tax schemes thay have in the works.

and as a bonus ....they'll be able to track and retrace your movements everywhere you go...

Get excited for the big minority report fun.....

[Zodiak]

8. Here is my counter-argument. With all due respect, of course.

If I trusted my government to use the information for all of the things you enumerate, then I would be for this measure, as well.

However, the legislation does not set the standards for this identification (probably awaiting a "close-door" committee in Congress), but it does give Homeland Security carte blanche to make any rule it wants concerning this ithout judicial review. Considering the mendacity that our federal government has shown to normal American citizens for political purposes, I submit to you that this is giving this government WAAAY too much power for an open-ended, unfunded mandate.

When the standards are set, then we can truly know if we can agree with this or not. Until we know there will be no RFID chips, extensive biometric data, economic/political data, criminal data, etc. associated with this card, I cannot suport a measure that gives an ostensibly fascist government THIS much power to get access to my information and distribute it at tens of thousands of points across the country (and with Canada and Mexico).

The devil is in the details, and the details are not expounded in the CNN version of this bill.

[stickdog]

10. Exactly. And **** all of you freedom-hating ****-wads who pretend

otherwise.

You are all either ignorant, uninformed or fascist, IMHO.

[dkofos]

7. I will refuse

and I hope Canada will give me political asylum, before the fence is completed.

[Llewlladdwr]

15. You do know....

that Canada is contemplating the issuance of National ID cards also, right?

[kineneb]

11. not my fourth option listed

which is to introduce the card to a rather large magnet and do a bit of informational "re-alignment"...and maybe figure out how to re-code the thing to read "butt out" or something else...

[Solon]

12. Get a credit card writer...

That should do the trick, if it uses the same standards as credit cards, that is. Of course, I'll have to figure out how to say "Fuck Bush" in both Binary and Hexadecimal :)

[expatriate]

14. My situation is particularly irksome.

I'm an American citizen residing outside of America. I am also an Australian citizen. I have relatives in America. At present, I, like everyone else, do not have a Real ID - but where am I going to be when they start issuing the goddam things?

If I have to return to the US for any reason, I will not be able to leave again without getting a Real ID, particularly if I do the recommended thing and enter the US using my American passport instead of my Australian one. I guess I could just travel on the Aussie passport and get under the radar - maybe.

Maybe I just won't come back. Ever.

[fleabert]

16. I already have a passport...

but I understand the national ID to be linked to our state ID's and/or driver's licenses...(am I wrong?)

It's the national database and putting the screening process in the hands of the DMV that pisses me off. At this point in my life, I cannot imagine not driving... I have hopes that it will be struck down.

States have got to get pissed eventually about states rights being violated left and right sometime soon.