Most Ridiculous Item Of The Week
entirely voluntary as opposed to a gun to the head; right?
Best solution is to renew your passport now, then use it. Once ... outbound.
Anonymous, I agree with you. You can even be BORN without a SSN now. I can see how a corrupt government could abuse IDs, but I’d take that chance if IDs would hep track illegal aliens, sex offenders, and wanted criminals. Fingerprints might make identity theft harder, too.
Posted by goddessoftheclassroom
03/10/2007 at 06:50 PM
Seems to all that is needed on an ID are a name and the fingerprint or biometric data, and a contact, say, home or business address. For immigration and security, that should suffice to prove who you are who you say you are, and other information can be gotten with a warrant if criminal activity is involved. Until you are nabbed for a crime, any other information is none of Big Brother’s business unless you volunteer it to Big Brother.
A US Passport is, in a sense, a national ID card. In 2008, anyone traveling to and from Canada and Mexico will be required to have a passport. I grew up in the Buffalo area and we always traveled into Canada for vacations. Now, having to get a Passport to travel to Canada is going to be a pain. So, in 2008, no national ID card (passport), no travel outside of the United States.
I am OK with a national ID card. How else are you going to address the illegal alien issue? Drew, don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. You won’t be missed.
Test post after DST change. I have 4 customers with problems so far. This post should have a time stamp of 3:23 or so.
BMEWS is working well.
Perhaps I can shed some light on this. Firstly the government here has never as far as I know brought in an IT project at the original budget. The most recent project to join up the NHS IT system is a disaster. The original price was £6 billion. It is now estimated to be anywhere from £18 to £30 billion. So I guarantee you the final cost of purchase for an ID card will be a lot more than the $150 or so they project.
Putting that aside there is still the elephant in the room. Europe. European citizens can come to Britain without let or hindrance. They can get free medical and dental treatment. In many cases they have obtained state funded housing because our moonbat judges have used human rights laws to prevent the government kicking them out. From 1997 until 2004 when Poland, Czech Republic etc. joined the EU every day deadbeats turned up at the airports and in Dover claiming to be persecuted in these countries. Our crazy laws allowed them free housing and welfare whilst the incompetent authorities looked at their bogus asylum claims. Then even after 2004 they were allowed to stay here despite the fact they were living off the state.
These “Europeans” are only required to have an identity card or papers. Does anyone honestly think the standards for issuing these in Romania, Bulgaria etc. will be as rigorous as they plan in Britain? Recently a story appeared that corrupt officials in these countries are selling “citizenship” for as little as $300 in a country where an average monthly wage is most likely less than $600. Not that the standards in other European countries are much better, and the amount of stolen identity cards floating around Europe is truly staggering. Most European identity cards are crap not to put too fine a point on it, and most people couldn’t tell a genuine one from a forgery.
As for identity card preventing fraud and controlling access to free medical etc. Well I hate to burst your bubble but every year the NHS is defrauded out of millions in free treatment. The staff know that these people are not entitled to treatment but if they attempt to withhold treatment or challenge them or heaven forbid institute a debt collection agency to recover the costs the moonbats go into orbit.
Like most of you I do not fear identity cards but I resent paying the shocking amount of tax I pay now without the additional burden of a tax to prove who I am. Added to this I understand that a University has already cracked the encryption on the chip the government plans to use in these cards.
Put it this way. If you lived in say El Paso and all the Mexicans and other South Americans had to do to enter the US was show one of their identity cards would you be happy with this arrangement?
Unfortunately I will probably have to get one of these passports. Fortunately my current passport has a few years left. Hopefully I can get out before I am forced to pay for this garbage.
03/11/2007 at 05:56 AM
