Thread: National ID card legislation appears poorly conceived

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National ID card legislation appears poorly conceived

Citizen Times | May 12 2005

There is a time and a place to debate a national identification card. Or perhaps we should say there was, because just such a card was tucked away in an unrelated bill that cleared the Senate Tuesday night.

A spending bill totaling around $82 billion was approved 100-0 by the Senate. We don’t have much to say about the bill, designed mainly to fund efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq for the next few months, except to note it brings spending on those fronts to around $300 billion.

With a price that high, if we continue to hear stories about troops without adequate body and/or vehicle armor, somebody ought to be facing jail time.

A good question is why such a bill would have new driver’s license rules in them, rules that Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., says create national identification cards.

It’s a good question to which no one seems to have a good answer.

Certainly, it’s appalling that Congress has in effect put the legislation horse before the debate cart. The license rules, following those in the REAL ID Act, appear to be a full deck of headaches for the states.

Ironically, in principle there is little opposition to uniformity in driver’s licenses, and if there’s opposition to fighting the very real threat of terrorism on U.S. soil â€â€

We will thrash about with this kind of legislation and run ourselves in circles, giving up our rights and all the rest, just because we won't control the borders.

Let's press Congress to pass laws to allow the military on the borders, instead of guarding South Korea's, and Bosnia's. Then build up the INS, the FBI and other law enforcement and mandate them to hunt down and deport every illegal they can get their hands on. Illegals are not difficult to identify. Hint, they are NOT people named Billy Joe Jones from Spivey's Corner, NC.

All that is lacking is the will and with things going as they are, I think the will is going to come.