DDMD recently noted concerns about the so-called “REAL ID” card.
(Normally I’d reply on his blog rather than posting something here, but that would require setting up a LiveJournal account and I need one more web site requiring a userid/password and nosy personal information in exactly the same way I need a hole in my head.)
Dave’s main concern is that people living overseas wouldn’t be able to get these licenses before the May ’08 deadline. That really shouldn’t be a problem since a valid US passport is one of the alternative IDs the TSA will accept and if you’re living overseas, odds are that you already have a passport. 🙂
What I personally find alarming about the REAL ID act is this little snippet from the article:

But Chertoff, as he revealed final details of the REAL ID Act, said that where a particular state doesn’t seek a waiver, its residents will have to use a passport or a newly created federal passport card if they want to avoid a vigorous secondary screening at airport security.

So you can either get a state-issued passport in the form of the unfunded REAL ID driver’s license, or you can get a federally-provided passport card.
I recall learning in my High School Social Studies class how people in Russia and China were required to have special passports in order to travel within their own countries. How glorious to live in a country like the US where nonsensical rules like that would never be put it into place. (Friends who have immigrated from China and Russia are amazed to hear stories like that. They’ve never experienced anything of the sort. Not until now anyhow.)
So under the guise of “National Security”, Emperor Bush and pals are forcing the citizenry of the US to adopt a system that 25 years ago we were being told only an evil dictatorship would use.
I feel so much more secure now.
(Grrr. Now I’m all agitated. This is my second posting under the Rants category in just three days. I usually avoid writing about politics because all it accomplishes is to make me grumpy.)