"Show Me Your Papers"?

Ed Quillen writes in the Denver Post:

When I attended Chappelow Elementary School as a math major in Evans, Colo., 45 years ago (that’s 1960 for the mathematically challenged), we often, but not everyday–only when we felt like it, recited the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of the school day. We were also taught that America was a great country for many reasons (at least six), among them our freedom to travel.

In other countries, like the Soviet Union of the time (1960), and the Nazi Germany that had been defeated only a dozen years earlier (Yes! That’s right! Nazi Germany was not defeated until 1948–three years later than you’ve probably heard!), residents had to carry government identification and internal passports. These papers had to be presented to board a train or bus. The evil totalitarian government kept track of their movements, and punished people who traveled without permission.

We haven’t quite reached that point, but we’re getting closer. allow me to raise the spectre of living in a totalitarian state in order to make something Congress just did sound far more sinister than it actually is. Last week, Congress passed a supplemental appropriation of $82 billion to pay for military actions in Iran and Afghanistan.

It passed the Senate unanimously, since a vote against it could be spun as "a vote against supporting our troops" and that would be political suicide as is clear since everyone who voted against the prior appropriations bill lost their seats in the Senate. Republican "operatives" (Dum! Dum! Dum!) in the U.S. House of Representatives knew that, so they attached another provision to the military appropriation: the "Real ID Bill." and thus forced the Senate to include it in their vesion of the bill as well.

Basically, it sets standards for state-issued driver’s licenses. Setting standards for state drivers licenses! How totalitarian can you get! It’s just like the Nazis who were defeated in 1948!

What a sinister and patently absurd thing for the Senate to do! I mean, the states have done a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious job in setting their own standards for drivers licenses. It’s not like California was giving them out to illegal aliens and then encouraging the illegal aliens to use them to register to vote in U.S. elections. It’s not like any of the 9/11 hijackers had fraudulently obtained drivers licenses. It’s not like the post-9/11 investigation turned up the existence of rings devoted to helping criminals, terrorists, and illegal aliens fraudulently obtain drivers licenses by exploiting laxities in the current system.

ItThe bill doesn’t require the states to follow the standards, so we’re not quite at Nazi level yet, but if your state doesn’t <over the top rhetoric>kowtow to Big Brother in Washington</over the top rhetoric>, then your driver’s license won’t be accepted as proper identification for boarding an airplane or entering a federal facility. I mean, if California decides to start handing out drivers licenses to Middle-Eastern men with AK-47s and "I Heart Osama" T-shirts then that ought to be good enough for getting on a plane or entering a federal building, right? The Federal government should have nothing at all to say about what kind of people get to access to federal facilities or interstate trasportation systems capable of being turned into weapons as long as California vouches for them. If California’s "We’ll give a drivers license to anybody" policy isn’t good enough for the fedral government then they darn well ought to issue their own federal ID cards. (Thus allowing me to denounce them as being even more Nazi-like)

And if you think it’s a time-consuming pain in the posterior to visit the driver’s license office now, just wait until this Real ID kicks in. You’ll need (1) a photo ID (thus proving that you look like the person you’re claiming to be), (2) proof of birthdate and (3) address, (4) proof that your Social Security number is valid, and (5) proof of your citizenship status. What a pain! Every few years you’ll have to gather the documents to prove a whole five things! Oh, the agony, the agony! And the state, in order to issue the license, will need to verify your documentation, digitize it and put it in storage. How Nazi-like can you get? The state shouldn’t make any attempt to verify what you’ve told them. They ought to take you at your word! And they oughtn’t keep records on any of this. A state keeping records of who they’ve given licenses to? They ought to allow it to be all water under the bridge!

The license will have to provide certain data: name, address, date of birth, sex, ID number and photo – none of which are things you find on drivers licenses now – and all this will also have to be readable in some digital format prescribed by the Department of Homeland Security whenever they darn well feel like it.

Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee, Republican majority leader in the upper house, called this "absolutely critical to winning the war on terror."

It seems absolutely critical in making this nation more of a police state, I mean, if states are effectively required to give drivers licenses only to people who can prove who they are then, the next think you’ll know, jackboots will be kicking down your door in the middle of the night. bBut it’s hard to see how this has anything to do with making America more secure.

It’s not like that digitized stripe on the new drivers license would make it easy to swipe the card and see if it’s a forgery by comparing the data on the face of the card to the data on the stripe to the data in a database so that the card’s authenticity can be verified before you let somebody on a plane that might be turned into an impromptu guided missile or something.

For one thing, the country got along without government ID cards for many years before we were attacked by terrorists and we ought to be able to do exactly the same things now. Social Security cards used to say, "Not to be used for purposes of identification." As for driver’s licenses, our neighboring state of Wyoming (I’m writing from Colorado, remember) didn’t even bother with them until 1948 – and America somehow got through World Wars I and II.

In fact, in view of this history, let’s scrap drivers licenses altogether. There is no good reason why 16 year olds–or 12 year olds for that matter–ought to be licensed before they are allowed to get behind the wheel of metal machines weighing hundreds of pounds and capable of going 90 miles an hour on public thorofares and in school zones.

For another, consider that last month, we commemorated the 10th anniversary of the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. One of the perpetrators was Timothy McVeigh, a decorated Army veteran with an honorable discharge. Before the bombing, would he have had any trouble getting a Real IDs? Of course not. The Real ID could not have   prevented one of the most destructive acts of terrorism in American history. The fact that it wouldn’t have prevented one terrorist attack in which a native was involved thus proves that it would be useless in preventing attacks in which non-natives would be involved.

And there are other possibilities that reduce public safety. The more paperwork it takes to get a driver’s license, the more unlicensed, and presumably uninsured, drivers on the highway. That can’t be good for public safety or security. I mean, there are so many otherwise responsible drivers in our country who simply can’t be bothered, every few years, to gather the documents needed to prove five things. If someone lacks the prudence needed to gather the docs to get a drivers license so that he can avoid the penalties of getting caught as an unlicensed driver then he shouldn’t be penalized for that. He’s precisely the kind of person we need to issue a license to! Having a license in his pocket will make him eversomuch more prudent when he’s behind the wheel.

Identity theft should get simpler with state information repositories that are required to be accessible nationally. Like, y’know, how everybody’s Social Security numbers gets stolen every few weeks when the SSA database gets hacked. Besides, has there ever been a document that couldn’t be forged? That digitized stripe on the new cards may do a little, but not enough. It won’t remove utterly the possibility that someone will hack into a government database in order to salt it with the fake ID’s information.

The fact that no document is theoretically unforgable has profound implications here. If no document is unforgable then we might as well stop trying to make it hard for forgers. In fact, forget all those new security measure to make money un-counterfitable. Why not have the Treasury Department start printing dollar bills in black ink with an HP Inkjet Printer on 100 bond paper bought at OfficeMax? We’d save a bundle in the cost of printing money due to economies of scale! After all, no document is unforgable.

In fact, since no document is unforgable, let’s scrap the use of ID documents altogether. Nobody should ever have to prove who he is. It’s all a big waste of time since it can’t be excluded that he might just possibly have a forged ID. From now on, everybody gets to cash checks and buy liquor, guns, poisons, and ammonium nitrate without the hassle of presenting a possibly-forged ID.

For that matter, since there’s no guarantee that people won’t have stolen or guessed your password, let’s do away with passwords and PIN numbers, too! Let’s have a "free and open" Internet and banking system in keeping with the best ideals of a free and open society.

In other words, Real ID just sets up more bureaucratic paperwork. It won’t make us an iota safer,–I, the math major from Chappelow Elementary School, have run the numbers!–but it will take us another step toward the internal passports of totalitarian regimes–all of whom made sure that their states and provinces only gave drivers licenses to people who could prove that they were who they said they were.

But to be fair and balanced here, I should note that President Bush said   that "This legislation will help America continue to promote freedom and democracy."

I guess there’s a difference between promoting freedom and practicing it. Yes! I use sarcasm to achieve the effect of being fair and balanced!

Somehow I don’t feel like saying the pledge of allegiance today.

(NOTE FROM JIMMY: I don’t think that the present use or future possible uses of drivers licenses, Social Security cards, and other forms of ID are free from criticism or concern. I just don’t think that argumentation of the kind presented by Mr. Quillen is an especially good way of getting at the issue.)

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

16 thoughts on “"Show Me Your Papers"?”

  1. Now that I’ve stopped laughing…..I’ve got a few years on Jimmy, just enough to recall persoanlly and clearly the chorus of credible conservative voices raised against national ID cards in the 60s/70s for just the reasons set out here. I also remember reading then that, someday in the blurry future, Americans might actually ASK for ID cards, for our safety–and thinking, right, fat chance of that ever happening. And now it happens.

    What does it evoke in me? This: a reminder of the the need to avoid treating any arguments based on practicalities as if they were based on principles. We might have to eat our words later on, and un-done princicples are a lot harder to swallow than obviated practicalites. Of course, all of this is a problem only for conservatives, not liberals. While both sides make mistakes, only conservatives, in my experience, ever seem to admit them….ah well. ‘nuther nice post, Jimmy. Wish you could get paid to do this.

  2. This coming from a paper whose city a polic officer was shot from an illegal immigrant with fake papers. Across the street from me in a “golf course neighborhood” an illegal immigrant neighbor is wanted to murder and who is currently susptected of hiding out of the country.

    Since the fedreal governemnt already looks at state driver’s licences, why not make some simple standards that most do now in any case?

  3. Fisking!… it’s fun AND educational!

    The argument that a person shouldn’t do “x” because it may be used against them later is not very practical. One has to weigh the potential benefits against the risks. People are assaulted or killed with knives from their own kitchen with shocking regularity. Does that mean we should think twice before replacing that broken steak knife? Of course not!

    Sure, down the road these new high-tech licenses could, maybe, be twisted to nefarious ends by some evil government. Same with gun registration (a favorite liberal big-brother device). Same with voter rolls… or fingerprint records, magazine subscriptions, e-mail servers, etc… that bird has flown the coop.

    If a drivers license is to be of any use AT ALL it has to at least keep up with the technology that is commonly available to produce a counterfeit. Remember when printing anything in color was an expensive luxury? If Bill Clinton had proposed this you would not be hearing any talk about jack-booted thugs (from the left, at any rate).

    This reminds me, my Artistic License is nearly expired. Now, where did I leave my MFA? Oh, yes… the bird cage!

  4. “It’s not like California was giving them out to illegal aliens and then encouraging the illegal aliens to use them to register to vote in U.S. elections. ” Apparently, despite the fact that Denverites used to blame their own foul air quality on alien smog drifting in from L.A., this author has never actually inhaled the miasma routinely eminating from Sacramento.

    And as for the, unsafe-unlicensed, vs. Safe-licensed driver argument, not to resort to profiling, but I rather doubt that the blonde Mommy in the Lexus SUV who nearly ran me off the road last week was an unlicensed Guatemalan nanny. I am a traffic engineer, and I say that particular argument is crap.

  6. Ed Quillen and others of his ilk love to complain how “X” is a bad way to fight problem “Y”, but they never propose a better way to address the problem. So Mr Quillen, you don’t like the Read ID Act, then what is your solution.

    What’s that? I can’t hear you.

    Buzzzzz! Thanks for playing.

  7. And as for the, unsafe-unlicensed, vs. Safe-licensed driver argument … I am a traffic engineer, and I say that particular argument is (bologna).

    Of course licensed as well as unlicensed drivers do unsafe things. But if someone with a license causes a problem, it’s generally easier to track him down, he can be more easily held accountable for his actions and it’s easier to keep a record of his behavior, for the benefit of insurance companies and to determine if the violation was a one-time mistake or part of a pattern calling for harsher penalties.

    I still believe that, overall, licensing leads to safer roads.

  8. I am told that this RealID will also be required to open up bank accounts. Yet another layer hindering innocent people from looking after their economic well-being.

    In a free society, the citizens wouldn’t have to prove that the government has OK’d their economic decisions.

    I think the ID system has some characteristics of internal passports myself, but I agree this guy doesn’t argue against them well.

  9. And the downside of a certain ID on people opening bank accounts is.. ? Help me out here.

    How is it a hindrance to whip out my drivers license at the bank? I do that now.

    And it what way does that entail government approval of your economic decisions?

  10. “And if you think it’s a time-consuming pain in the posterior to visit the driver’s license office now…”

    … try being an Army brat trying to prove her residency. Anywhere but you can start with the driver’s license. And if the DMV doesn’t challenge you enough, try applying for in-state tuition rates in the state your parents paid taxes in for 23 years.

    I’ve been carrying “two or more forms of government-issued picture ID” for ages now. I’d feel strange going further than the proverbial corner market without same. They can come in very useful. (Did you know that Western Union offices in London won’t accept a driver’s license as proof of ID? Found out the hard way last summer after entrusting my passport to a tour company’s safe. Thank goodness for my “spare” ID issued by the Army.) Bring on the national ID, I say.

  11. A large portion of the demand for a national ID comes from the business lobby. One of the biggest costs for big business is not being able to enforce contracts. Another big business problem is the veracity of claims by a prospective client or employee. The national ID solves this by making large databases easy to develop and the interchange of that data simple.

    The security problems are easily solvable if business stops having an implicit trust of its customers. But that will never happen, because it costs them more customers than the damage caused by fraud.

  12. Dear Jimmy,

    Rarely do I disagree with you, but I strongly disagree with you in this case and feel compelled to respond.

    Firstly, I’m unable to discern from your post whether you simply want to make fun of the people who oppose RealID or whether you support RealID itself. Your post seemed to me to be unnecessarily belittling of those who oppose RealID, a tone I’ve often encountered among those who apologize for anything the government does. There are some real causes for concern with RealID, and there is no call to belittle those oppose it.

    You were mocking in your response to the concern raised about the Federal government setting standards for driver’s licenses. I don’t know that such a move is totalitarian, but it definitely seems to be unconstitutional. The Constitution (Amendment X) states that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” Nowhere in the Constitution do I see that the Federal government has the power to issue licenses to drive, or more relevantly, identification papers, or to regulate their form or issuance. It seems to me that this act is far beyond the Constitutional scope of the Federal government.

    Now, it’s possible that such a power ought to be added to those delegated to the Federal Government by the States, but that is a separate discussion. If that is to occur, the Constitution should be altered before attempting such legislation.

    Next, you bring up a really good point when you talk about California handing out drivers licenses to anybody. I think there is a much-ignored issue in this country: drivers licenses are licenses to drive, not proper identification papers. Drivers licenses *should* be handed out to anybody legally able to drive. They are literally a license to drive; they mean that the person carrying them has been certified as being capable of handling a motorized vehicle on public streets. They were never meant to be a fool-proof ID system. Trying to make them such causes problems: what about people who can’t/won’t/are unable drive? What about children? Under the RealID act, those people would be unable to travel, or do any business with the Federal government or banks. If people are serious about better ID, then ID needs to be split from driver’s permits.

    As far as preventing terrorism, I fail to see how RealID would really stop that. Most terrorists are first-time offenders. The 9/11 hijackers all had valid US identification, and they weren’t “natives”. Even if this ID were forgery-proof, (which it can’t and won’t be) it won’t stop determined terrorist organizations from using first time offenders with valid ID from implementing attacks. This is particularly evident in Israel, where Hamas recruits young people unknown to Israeli authorities for suicide attacks. RealID really doesn’t do anything against terrorism; it just gives people a false sense of security.

    You mention sarcastically that “everybody’s Social Security numbers gets stolen every few weeks when the SSA database gets hacked”. You laugh, but what you say is actually very close to the truth. I don’t know of any cases of the SSA database getting hacked—it doesn’t need to be. There are probably literally hundreds of organizations out there with your SSN, and it only takes one to be compromised for your SSN to be stolen. Think about it–every time you apply for a job,perform most any financial transaction, go to school, or get paid, when you do almost anything of financial significance, people demand and get your SSN. Most people don’t even realize that this is a broken system: SSNs were originally supposed to be only used for Social Security, not for general purpose identification; they were just for government purposes. They don’t have the qualities needed to be a general purpose identification form. But because an SSN is the only unique, government-issued number in this country, everybody uses it for internal database tracking. And SSNs are stolen far more often than much of the public recognizes; most breaches are not made public, or receive little press attention. A cute little story on this subject: http://abclocal.go.com/wls/news/051205_ns_school_hacked.html. Now, this was just a stunt by some high school students. Professional black-hat crackers wouldn’t ever let you know. Your SSN is NOT safe, and sadly most people don’t even realize how easy it is to get their personal information.

    What does this have to do with RealID? It is my understanding that RealID would embed your SSN (along with all your other pertinent personal ID info) in electronic form on a card. Now, with history of how SSNs have been used, going from being “just a number between you and your government” to a general use ID for most major private organizations, RealID is likely to follow the same path. E.g., you buy something with a credit card and have to swipe your RealID too. This means that vast numbers of people would have the ability to record, store, and retrieve not only your SSN, but all information necessary to quickly assume your identity. There is no need to read a government database; just one weak private database is enough. RealID has the possibility to make identity theft even easier than it is today.

    Ultimately, I fail to see the purpose for RealID. Is there ANY way in which it will actually increase our security? I have heard of no solid reason. Will it dampen identity theft? No, it will increase it. Will it make IDs harder to forge? Yes, but not even close impossible. All it takes is 1 corrupt DMV official, or a couple of smart EE undergrads. RealID does nothing but inconvenience every single American, and more importantly, further extends the power of the Federal government beyond the Constitution.

  13. And the downside of a certain ID on people opening bank accounts is.. ? Help me out here.

    Aside from reflecting the guilty-until-proven-innocent reasoning behind it, it’s one more layer of bureaucracy. No bank now opens a bank account without an authentic-looking form of ID. Why rework the whole system?

    Economists make a great deal about “marginal efficiency”–lots of weath can be created by cutting out tiny inefficiencies. Likewise, small inefficiencies inmposed on everyone in an attempt to catch the guilty can hinder the wealth-creation of innocent people by making them waste their time in the National ID application and photo line.

    The whole law is basically like those signs at high schools declaring an area a “gun-free zone.” It’ll be pushed as a national sacrifice we all have to make in a time of war, but I don’t think many people will raise the question of whether it will sufficiently stop a dedicated terrorist or drug runner, who likely already has surreptitions funding networks which will be unaffected by this legislation.

    I wonder if it should be called the “Increasing Feelings Of Security By Pretending We’ve Done Something That Will Help Keep Us Safe Act.” It’s a feel-good law at the moment that could have really bad future consequences should the government become corrupted in a different way than it is now.

  14. The thing I enjoy about all these new powers and regulations the government has passed since 9/11 to protect us, is that the terrorists were already in violation of the law, were identified, and should have been arrested.

    The “hole” in security on 9/11 was because of incompetence, not that the government lacked the powers or oversight needed to identify and arrest these people. Both Congress and the President should be ashamed.

    There is no reason to believe that any of these new intrusive measures will make the government any less incompetent. They will continue to screw up and avoid reform, and in return they will ask for even more power when they do.

    Net result = no greater security and less liberty.

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