# National Driver's Licence **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 26, 2008, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-drivers-licence/469636 "2008-10-26T15:54:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2008, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-drivers-licence/469636/41 "2008-10-27T15:02:25Z")
> [@Q.E.D](#): > > Presenting ID to the TSA prior to boarding a commercial aircraft isn’t a matter of convenience, it’s a requirement you must meet in order to be allowed on. If you don’t have ID, you can scream 14th Amendment till you’re blue in the face, but you ain’t getting on that plane. Minor nitpick, but I wouldn’t declare this to be “true,” although the collection of experience on the net still shows varying degrees of success at getting the TSA to follow it’s own rules. [http://www.tsa.gov/press/happenings/enhance\_id\_requirements.shtm](http://www.tsa.gov/press/happenings/enhance_id_requirements.shtm) According to the TSA, if you legitimately don’t have an ID and aren’t just being stubborn, they’ll still let you on the plane assuming you bend over and jump through whatever hoops they manufacture on the spot. So while you need an ID to get an a plane, you might not. Or something like that. What a ridiculous agency. ---
**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2008, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-drivers-licence/469636/42 "2008-10-27T19:12:32Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > The means for showing you are eligible to work is a boolean nightmare of “One ID from Col A or two or more from Cols B and C”. \*\*It seems that we have made it as inconvenient as possible for the law abiding while making us no more secure. People working illegally is rampant and faith is being lost in voter registration. \*\*The only justification I can see for the current situation is to make work for bureaucrats. Bolding added. Is this the real heart of your arguement? I’ve been reading this thread, trying to figure out why you really care. Are you mostly concerned with making it more difficult of illegal immigrants to get work? Do you really think that by having a national it will make it harder to acquire a fake ID? I don’t. It just means that the manufacturing of fake IDs will go big time. Someone would be able to set up a manufacturing site someplace, and make IDs for the entire country. The idea of a national ID squicks me out. I’m certain that as soon as one was enacted, everything under the sun would be linked to it. Now, rather then someone breaking into the state’s DMV files and finding out my driving record and where I live, they would have access to an ID number that links to my health records, my employment records, court cases, etc. As others have mentioned, there just isn’t upside to this, that would make it desirable. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2008, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-drivers-licence/469636/43 "2008-10-27T19:19:48Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > We already have several generally accepted ID’s with uniform standards. > > I ask again, what is the actual gain here. Your thesis, as best as I can make out, is “lets have one big bureaucracy reaching everywhere to mess things up than a bunch of small ones.” Epic fail. You’ve gone though a couple dozen posts and still have no actual argument. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2008, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-drivers-licence/469636/44 "2008-10-28T01:59:20Z")
> [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](#): > > Bolding added. > > Is this the real heart of your arguement? I’ve been reading this thread, trying to figure out why you really care. Are you mostly concerned with making it more difficult of illegal immigrants to get work? Do you really think that by having a national it will make it harder to acquire a fake ID? I don’t. It just means that the manufacturing of fake IDs will go big time. Someone would be able to set up a manufacturing site someplace, and make IDs for the entire country. > > The idea of a national ID squicks me out. I’m certain that as soon as one was enacted, everything under the sun would be linked to it. Now, rather then someone breaking into the state’s DMV files and finding out my driving record and where I live, they would have access to an ID number that links to my health records, my employment records, court cases, etc. > > As others have mentioned, there just isn’t upside to this, that would make it desirable. For most purposes we are already where you don’t want to be. There is an amazing amount of information that you can get from just name and addesss alone. Add SSN and it’s pretty much open sesame. I’d like to think that with current technology we can do a better job than we do now. I’d like it to make it really difficult to fake ID. I think that we could do that by including biometric data such as iris scans or fingerprints and by linking up to the internet. Imagine if an HR person, TSA agent, or bartender could scan a DL and a terminal would show what your photo should look like. They could compare it to you in person and the photo on the DL and see if there is a match. If we are going to have photo ID lets at least make sure it works. I understand peoples’ reticence to having their info in a massive database, but I think that by centralizing things we can make it easier to provide security. Apparently some folks at the Ohio DMV looked up Joe The Plumber’s records. What is interesting is that the accesses were logged and the guilty parties will probably be caught and punished. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-drivers-licence/469636.md?page=2)