I’ll grant you there is an excluded middle – neither.
Not at all. I think you are dividing the subject nicely. Now if only we can conquer after dividing!
Musicat It’s not about GPS, not all phones have GPS. If it is GPS it’s easier for the government to access that data because they control the network. The Phone company can triangulate your position by examining the data strength of your connection between three different towers. GPS requires more battery power than a regular cell phone because the signal has to reach a satellite. As such, no ID can have GPS capability in it at the present time.
Knowledge, as the saying goes, is power. The more information the government has about you, the more power it has over you. You acknowledge the traditional prejudices of bureaucrats but you seem to be saying that if these people had more information they would put aside these prejudices. Why? What if they instead just use this additional power to increase their ability to follow their prejudices? It seems to me like it’s a pretty dangerous experiment to make.
I’m hoping we won’t have to go through with it, now that the government gave all our data away to identity thieves, several times.
Perhaps, but when I signed on to a different cellphone company about 2 years ago, they would only accept models with GPS built in. I assume that is the way things are going, partly for 911 (emergency) reasons.
Whether or not all phone have it now doesn’t change my premise or question, so this really is a non-issue in this discussion.
I am not a die hard survivalist, nor a criminal, and I don’t want to be tracked. It’s my business what I’m doing, and I don’t think I need to be overwatched by ‘Big Brother’.
Um, your example of losing your NM license is a perfect example of being treated as a ‘data object’. Instead of someone actually listening to your very human problem, they just answered a proverbial buzzer and silenced the alarm. That was a pain in the arse to you, wasn’t it? Still want to be treated like [del]cattle[/del] a data point?
It is a matter of ideology. People should not fear their government, it should be the other way around–and I’m not talking about violence, I’m talking about votes and voices. Having an “equitable” government should mean a slow-moving, paced, debating body that takes its time with issues and problems: enough time to hear all of the sides and weigh the issues. It is not something that has all of the data (which is susceptible to corruption) with which to make a kneejerk decision.
The minute you begin to compile data to make it easier on “the government” to pull up your data, you start getting a little too close for comfort to actively overwatching your constituents. It then goes a few steps into actively managing your constituents, which is completely against natural law.
And there are some things the government just ought not do. I pay the government (through taxes) to deal with the international issues I alone simply cannot handle. I pay it to provide a voice in the international community. I pay it to provide welfare when needed, disaster recovery, and for economic assurances my dollar will be worth tomorrow what it is today. I do not pay the government to monitor “my data” for me, nor to babysit me–this is contrary to my freedom as an individual. I am a citizen. I expect to be treated as one. And until I surrender that right to full citizenship through committing a crime, I expect to be treated like the adult, aware citizen I am.
Innovations that would bring the government up to modern standards, in this case, are best left up to the individual states (i.e. through their own state systems). I grant you that citizenship is an overarching national issue–as it ought to be. However, the personal issue of identification and what data is shared between agencies/states is best left to . . . the states themselves.
Tripler
There already is a form of National ID: it’s called a passport. And that’s good enough.
It will happen, then after a few years people will forget they ever objected to it. Future generations will laugh at anyone now objecting. Like all those people who refused to leave messages on answering machines when they first came out because “I don’t talk to machines, man.”
Or maybe nobody’ll know that it was ever a debate. Maybe, like the war against Eastasia, we’ll have always had cameras in our homes watching us every minute. I’m guessing that laughter will be minimal though.
Or maybe we’ll stand up for ourselves and future generations will laugh at the idea that the government ever thought it had a chance of telling its owners what to do.
I’m reminded of those 19th-century farmers who banded together against mandatory public schooling for their children. Personally, I see nothing at all wrong with a national ID. No doubt I just don’t “get it.”
For all the debatable issues over them, public programs like education and health have a clear good as a goal. What’s the good we’re supposedly gaining by giving up our privacy to government monitors? Are terrorists really that big a threat to us? Let’s face facts, most of us are more likely to be killed by a bee than a terrorist. Why should millions of us surrender our freedom so one criminal can be captured? The freedom we lose is worth more than anything that criminal would have ever done to us.
Oh, prescient Heidegger! See this for more; I only name-drop because Heidegger is the only writer with whom I’m familiar who explored our relation to technology. Might Foucalt do as well?
Really? Why on earth would you think that? Unless you mean egalitarian rather than equitable, but that’s a doubtful proposition also: as we all know, some pigs are more equal than others.
Why does the government need a “better view [of] it’s citizenry”? And, to provide an acceptable answer, I ask for (and expect) some definition of “better” and some enumeration of what comprises this “view” of which you speak.
Of course there is some ideology; there’s always something underlying any advocacy – even if the only obvious one is simple apathy on your part. As I point out time and again – and you continually ignore – RealID isn’t just an “innovation”. You keep coming back with “data about you is already being collected”, as if a simple declarative erases the differences between what is current practice and where things might go. As if it is enough to absolve you of actual thought.
Yes, I/we get it. You’ll not only voluntarily provide most organizations with information about you, you also grant and encourage whomever has that information to use it in whatever manner they deem fit. Furthermore, you have no concerns about possible [ab|mis|dis]use, so long as it’s efficient – determined by how long you have to stand in line at the DMV.
Gah, sorry about the mini-rant, but that post frustrated me.
I see others have responded to many points that I might have made. But I wonder about this:
I’m still on the fence about a national ID (although, as I stated, not about RealID); perhaps I just don’t get it either, although I suspect I fall on the other side of the divide from you. I’m guessing that one might justify mandatory schooling on a “benefit to society” basis. So, help me out here: why should there be a national ID? (Really – I’m asking in all seriousness to focus my thoughts.)
If there’s no good reason, or even if there are very good reasons that cannot be put into practice in a practical manner, isn’t it just a waste of time, effort, and money? And isn’t that a bad thing?
Of course ideology is involved. How can it not be?
What if you’re accidentally deleted from the system?
What if some bureaucrat deems you “corrupted data” and thinks you should be contained or eliminated, even if you have broken no laws?
Treating everyone exactly the same is NOT the same as treating everyone fairly, because different people have different wants, needs, and desires.
No, if it’s already occurred then we should fight against it even harder. I don’t seem why I should lay down and surrender merely because YOU’RE a coward
Why?
Our government functioned for over 200 years without this “better view”, why does it suddenly need it now?
And sometimes does a really piss poor job of it, too.
Apparently, I don’t fit the system - those on line book sellers like Amazon with their fancy algorithms to find books I might be interested in? Doesn’t work. Those magazine subscription sellers that try to match your interests? Had one told me once in all seriousness that the magazines I was interested in they don’t offer to women “because they’re not interested in those subjects - but we could sell them to your husband”. NONE of the political parties match my views, just they all seem to think I’d be an ideal member. I’m a law-abiding citizen yet I don’t seem to fit anyone’s stack of profiles and no, I do NOT want to be hammered into a different shape so my peg will fit their hole.
WHY the hell is government selling my information to private entities anyway? How is that serving ME?
My point is that I am already treated like a data point. This is why I say it isn’t ideological. The government already treats me this way, but the system is setup in such a way that I get caught up in the recursion. I see your argument as being against cleaning up the line code. Whereas I am saying that we need increased standards to remove recursive legacy issues. I see this as being little different from IEEE. Do you feel like IEEE is oppressing you or providing an essential service?
I am only slightly aware of the respective philosophies of Heidegger and Foucault. I’m more familiar with the issues that are being presented recently since the Dotcom era and until now.
The more data that the government has to handle, the less involved in your day to day movement it will be. This is why we work on a market economy. It is not in the government’s best interests to interact with our every movement. Just because they are collecting the data doesn’t mean that a human being is looking at it. There is just too much data to be monitored individually. Until you perform some series of actions that red flags you, you are unlikely to be affected by human prejudices.
Broomstick You made two semantic mistakes around which you framed your last post.
First: I am not a coward for not adopting your position. I do not like being treated like a steer, but I like having a subway. The subway has to be paid for and maintained, so they have to have some way to regulate the usage of it and encourage me to pay. Turnstiles are that preferred method. What annoys me most on the subway is when the convenient entrance is locked so I have to go another two blocks in the rain to the unlocked entrance. If they were monitoring that entrance with a camera, it wouldn’t have to be locked in the middle of the night and I wouldn’t get soaked before I get on the air conditioned subway. That is a net increase in my freedom due to efficiency.
Though, I’ll concede that perhaps it is an ideological issue.
Second: You are making an old fallacy of basing your view of future technology based upon the functionality of the current tech. Amazon’s heuristics are being improved all the time. Mac OS X.5 is light years beyond the CPM operating system I was using on my Kaypro 10, 20 years ago. You are correct there are errors in the way data is used, but there are also errors in blind systems. One of the innovations I see as possible is the lack of the need for laws that restrict your movement due to the blindness of the system, as per my subway example above. Like in New York City, instead of policing parks, they are closed at night. Maybe I would like to hang out in the park at 3 AM? So instead of leaving the park open they restrict my movement in order to protect me. If there were cameras watching it, maybe I could go into Central Park at night.
Believe me, I’ve given a lot of thought to these issues being a borderline anarchist for many years. It’s pat and easy to quote Benjamin Franklin on Freedom and Safety, but what I’ve come to realize is that they aren’t mutually exclusive. Many of the anti-arguments against this have to do with identity theft and the way that data will be used as though there will be no process of innovation that improves their data management as time goes by. You’re all trying to create a bulwark against a Black Swan of fascism that will sweep the land like wildfire. I know that one cannot prepare against a Black Swan. If they collected this data, there would be levels of access. Your average local bureaucrat would not have access to the higher level stuff, that would be at the level of the FBI, CIA and NSA. The thing about that is that the FBI, CIA and NSA already have access to that kind of data. It’s not in their interest to show their hand to you until it’s time to take action, so their role likely will not change. There will be safeguards against monitoring your financial transactions by local police, who would be the ones who would bust you if you were smoking pot anyway.
The breed of bureaucrats at the Federal level are all looking over spreadsheets of data. They aren’t looking at you as an individual. Herein lies your protection. Their personal piques and prejudices won’t factor into how they do the math all that often. The people who would be worried about what ‘type’ of person you are, tend to be at the local level, and that’s a visceral reaction anyway. They wouldn’t have access to the higher level data.
Imperialism and government is a long sequence of events hinging around data management. The control of information. The movement of commerce. It’s innovations include things like the census, or standardizing weights and measures. To me this innovation falls within that sort of category.
If they took an interest in every person who bought a copy of Qutb, Nietzche, Proudon, Hakim Bey, Leary, and Hubbard, the system would be overwhelmed. Every individual they investigate has to open a case file, that means that man hours they are paying for is dedicated to the investigation of that individual. Following people’s political habits is simply inefficient as they’ll have trouble differentiating between the amateur academic and the hardcore radical. It’s action that matters, not thought. If you are buying those books AND tons of fertilizer yet don’t own a farm, well then, they’ll start to take notice.
No, but if you say “Well, that’s the way things are, we lost the battle, there’s no point in fighting to restore what we once had” then yes, by my reckoning you ARE a coward. It’s not your difference of opinion that I object to it’s your fatalism.
I don’t live in the future, I live in today. I do not find it reassuring that Real ID’s technology will be amazing and wonderful 10 years from now if it causes me a problem today and tomorrow and next month.
Yet they still can not understand that I read Samuel Delany and Octavia Butler because they are science fiction writers and not because they are black.
And WTF do surveillance cameras do for you, Joe Citizen? They don’t protect you from crime - at best, they make it easier to trace a perpetrator after the crime has been committed. As a coworker found out a couple years ago when she was raped and beaten in front of a security camera in a Chicago parking garage - yes, they got the whole thing on tape but that didn’t prevent her being raped, it didn’t make her broken bones feel any better, and because the guy was covered up like a ninja it didn’t even help in ID’ing the criminal. No one was watching that camera - help arrived when 40 minutes later the next wave of commuters came through the corridor and her fellow citizens called 911
What I object to is people fooling themselves. A security camera does NOT make you safer - it just makes it easier to document crime when it happens. Searching little old ladies using a walker at an airport, or putting a toddler on a no-fly list, does not prevent terrorists from blowing up airplanes. It is, at best, illusionary window dressing. It wastes time, money, and effort. It promotes false security.
Likewise, this Real ID - HOW is it an improvement over the current system? How secure is it? How is this really going to improve - or worsen - life for the majority?
Yes, we certainly DO need a means of determining the identity of people in a reliable and efficient manner. I don’t question that. I do question if Real ID is the way to do it, or if it is any sort of improvement over the current ID’s we already have.
Here’s another example - tracking people’s movements. There’s no question that that can be a good thing. If I dial 911 on my cellphone I’d really, really like someone on the other end to be able to locate me even if I am unable to speak or disoriented or I pass out just after they pick up the phone. That is, to my mind, a definite good thing. There are scenarios I could think up where a criminal needs to be tracked, but I want controls on that. I don’t want the local cop tracking me around town to harass me because he doesn’t like my politics. I don’t want an ex-boyfriend/stalker dogging my every footstep. I don’t want to be denied employment because some HR flunky can investigate my off time and decide she doesn’t like where I live or what color I’ve painted my house.
I have concerns about abuse, any intelligent person should. Given the amount of identity theft in the modern world questions about the security of information in Real ID or ANY database - government or private - should not be dismissed out of hand as paranoia.
What good does a data security improvement next year or next decade do me if my identity is stolen tomorrow?
There IS a long history of identity theft in our society. There ARE examples of abuse in the past. Why is it puzzling that people are concerned how this technology/information will used in the future? These are entirely valid concerns.
Sorry - saying “all that often” doesn’t reassure me.
Right - in WWII, rather than investigate every person of Japanese descent they were simply rounded up all across North America and dumped into camps for the duration of the war.
Post 9/11 I came under suspicion merely for possessing a pilot’s license.
Too many times too many governments have oppressed people simply for having the wrong views or being in the wrong group. I want very strict controls and very strict oversight over these sorts of things, and even then you can’t eliminate the possibility of either misinformation or abuse.
Yes, yes, and yes!. No simpler statement than this has espoused my feeling on the whole matter. Thank you Broomstick, you’ve made my day.
Related to this, I’ll throw in another “What if?”: What if the power goes out? What if Katrina II hits, or another California rolling brownout strikes and constituents need help? Where is your magical, all knowing, terrorist-stopping database now?
I’m sorry, society and the government that serves it are made up of people, not electrons.
What are you talking about? 
You’re saying we need increased standards, and that’s great! I agree! I do not agree that inventing a magical database and forcing it down the throat of constituents is the correct path, nor is using that database for ‘monitoring purposes’ (or whatever you want to call it) a good thing either.
IEEE has published standards which companies are free to adopt, incorporate, use as a model, or completely abandon. The IEEE has no legal authority to impose itself on society. Nor does the NFPA with the National Electric Code. Jurisdictions use it because it’s comprehensive and they want to, not because they’re forced to. Enforcement is down at the local or county level, and the rules govern inanimate objects, not the way people act.
Besides, you’re talking about an active collection and maintenance with your government database. I’m talking about a one-time, passive inspection to make sure everything’s not an immediate danger. We do that one-time immediate check now with driver’s licensing/passports/student IDs/etc.
Tripler
:: bristles at the thought of a “better view” of the citizens ::
Computers did not exist then. Our entire system is being retooled for computers. A National ID card is merely a recognition of that fact, not some sort of fascist conspiracy. The way we interact with scientific principles is far different. No one flew airplanes into buildings. The average person can create a weapon of mass destruction. We are simply becoming more aware of everything, better organized and tracking various aspects of our existance. You were under suspicion for having a pilots license until they checked you out and saw that you were not a threat. So what?
I don’t see bashing one’s head into a wall as being a sign of bravery. The reason I accept things for the way they are is that I want the services that are provided. I like having the internet and international financial institutions. I like being able to fly from one side of the globe to another, and hopefully in my lifetime into space. It is because of those technologies that these innovations are occurring. It should be obvious that comparing things to pre-information age paradigms is silly. 150 years ago where I live in Brooklyn was farm land and I wasn’t concerned about some Amish fanatic driving his horse cart into my house and killing 3000 people. It’s simply a function of the technology that exists today and how we use it. I must point out the irony of using military communications technology to debate this issue.
Tripler My argument is that the database already exists and isn’t going away. You aren’t doing much to fight the current paradigm by arguing with me about this issue over your ARPAnet comm channel. The only way to fight this paradigm is Unabomber style. I doubt you’ll have much impact trying to convince people to unadopt the internet in order to go back to living the way it was for 200 years until now.
The reality for me is that I voluntarily use the Internet, Cell Phones, GPS, and Credit Cards. All of that data needs to be tracked and utilized for the infrastructure to be built correctly.
If you need to understand how improved data systems will make you more safe I suggest you read, “A Brave New War” by John Robb. He’s a Marine anti-terrorist cum software developer who looks at Terrorist organizations through the lens of open-source software.
Flying cars are coming, and none of you is going to want every Tom, Dick and Harry flying around like 1950s street racers. When a person’s car can be a rocket propelled explosive delivery system, the government needs to be able to react to threats immediately, not after they get clearance next week.
It is not in the Gov’s best interests to have false-positives. It wastes time and resources without accomplishing the objective. Everything we do is done with a certain level of uncertainty. No system is perfect. Yes, there will be glitches, but there are glitches now. My argument is that the glitches in the future will not be more significant than they are today. People made the same arguments against cops 150 years ago. Do you feel that way about Cops now that you live in a police state where uniformed military officers patrol your neighborhoods on a daily basis?
And yet they still managed a national census every 10 years.
And I have concerns about that. A prior poster mentioned power failures - will this ID & database system be vulnerable to power failures? What mechanism is there for error correction?
Yet, we hear of car-bombings every day. The odds of being victim to a car or truck bomb are much higher than a victim of an airplane bomb - what will this Real ID do to prevent car and truck bombs? Can it do anything to prevent another Oklahoma City that hasn’t already been done?
A highly placed person at the company I worked at who was NOT a member of government told me I should either surrender my pilot’s license or be fired, that’s what. Now, HR intervened and informed that person that it was not a legitimate reason to fire someone. That’s just one example of how accurate information can be misused. How will abuses be prevented?
And tell me - did they check out everyone with a driver’s license after the McVeigh/Oklahoma City bombing? No? Why not? There are FAR more people in this country who can rent a U-Haul and fill it with stuff than there are pilots. When are they going to get around to investigating drivers, hmm?
I like goodies, too, but I am also aware that everything has a price and I don’t want to wind up with a bill I can’t pay or that will deprive me of other things I value.
We’ve had “flying cars” since the 1930’s, they’re called airplanes and helicopters, 2 and 4 seat flying machines your average human being is allowed to fly at will (at least for now), provided they do a certain amount of work to learn the proper skills to operate them safely. They did not catch on with a majority of citizens in the US. I doubt future flying cars will, either. Too many people are either scared spitless to leave the ground or don’t want to be bothered learning the necessary skills. Particularly since the airlines can provide long-distance travel for 1/3 the cost of an individual small airplane.
We already have cars as explosive delivery systems. See “car bomb” and “truck bomb” and “McVeigh/Oklahoma”. How is Real ID going to protect us from this?
Then why can’t the Department of so-called Homeland Security keep the names of 2 year olds off the no-fly list? That’s a MAJOR problem - too many innocent people are on that list and can’t get off. Where is the error correction mechanism?
First of all, in the US the local sheriff and police are NOT military officers. Second, there is oversight of their conduct. Third, if there is MISconduct a citizen has a means of redress. If there is an error on your Real ID record will you have a means to correct it?
But computers exist, and they aren’t going anywhere. The way we interact with information is different. That’s a simple reality. You are talking about ought, I am talking about is.
It’s called redundancy. Computer security is a huge industry and a lot of solutions to the problems of the early 90s that you fear have been addressed because those kinds of issues occurred in the early days of computers.
Consolidation of data and uniform standards will make it easier to track data. Due to Oklahoma city they monitor large purchases of fertilizer. You are arguing this like it’s some new program that they are implementing, and I am looking at it as a natural upgrade to an existing convention.
Well, by having better access to information, it’ll be less likely that they’ll pick some random aspect of your identity and focus on it. Profiles are built using multiple data points, not a single one. I am sorry that you work for a moron, but that’s not a sufficient reason to dismiss a minor systems upgrade so passionately.
I think you are missing the point. You are starting to get into a pattern of, ‘what about this hysterical example?!?!?!?’ This isn’t about pilots, the program is universal.
Yes, I agree. What I am saying is that this is a minor bureaucratic upgrade. It’ll change functionality for sure, and there will always be problems, but I still don’t see this as being that big of a deal just because some idiot in your office became hysterical about your pilot’s license.
I think it has more to do with prohibitive expense than fear of flying, but that’s just me. Riding the subway is far cheaper than driving a car, and yet many people in New York drive cars. The biggest bottleneck is fuel cost.
Yes, and we already have IDs to track people’s movements and ensure that the person is who they say they are and have the legal rights to drive those cars. Real ID is only going to provide uniform standards. I’m sure if an act of terrorism occurs after it’s implemented you’ll see it as evidence of failure because you seem to have decided that if it isn’t a magical cure all for terrorism that it’s not worth it. To me that’s beside the point because governmental bureaucracy SHOULD be following formatting standards. This isn’t some new program, it’s just another step in the process of having IDs. Sure if you want to argue against ID programs then that’s one thing, but you’re not, you’re arguing against standardization of data management.
Evidence of failure does not demonstrate that it’s in the DHS interests to have false-positives. Part of that error correction mechanism is the standardization of ID data management criteria, the thing that you oppose here. This is one of the oldest jokes about government within a conservative/progressive paradigm. Progressives put in a program that doesn’t work, and conservatives ensure that it never gets fixed. You are opposing further innovation on the grounds that it was implemented poorly to begin with.
The argument at the outset was that they were military. I was appealing toward historicity, I figured there as a chance that you were aware of that debate. In my opinion the difference between regimented armed forces is a matter of degree, not kind but I am not interested in debating whether or not they are military. A citizen does have a means of redress, but that has been tweaked and modified over the course of many years. Police Departments worldwide were far more corrupt in the 1970s than they are today. The RealID will ultimately have a means to correct errors, again it’s not in the system’s interest to have false-positives. This is a matter of standards. You can still go to the DMV and update the data on your ID.
No, I’m not talking about “ought”. I’m saying that 200 years ago our government could hold a census every 10 years without computers. We don’t need computers to run a government or nation. We had both long before we had computers.
I won’t disagree that computers have a lot of advantages and uses, but there is also a downside. I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember before computers became commonplace - I do remember that time. It wasn’t some hideous, privative dark age. Nor have computers resulted in a paradise, either. They are a tool - like all tools they can be use well or poorly.
We still have identity theft.
If the power goes out virtually all stores in my area shut down - why? We bought and sold long before electricity, why not now?
We don’t have the redundancy that I would like to see, even if it is adequate for you.
Yes, that is precisely what many people fear - it will be easier to track data which can then be misused or fall into the wrong hands.
I am aware that they monitor fertilizer purchases. They also monitor large purchases of diesel fuel for the same reason. Oddly enough, Real ID was not required for this to occur.
As I said - what does this add to our current systems?
That’s the ideal - it’s not always what occurs in fact. Ask anyone belonging to a minority group of some sort. All too many people in this world would deny one thing or another to one or another category of people - blacks, Mexicans, homosexuals, women, people over 60, under 25, whatever.
Unfortunately, said moron is a senior vice president in a major corporation with nearly 100 million customers in the US. This “moron” makes decisions on a daily basis that could and sometimes does effect one out of three Americans. He’s not some minor looney locked in a back room of a small and obscure company. Being in a position of power - whether in the government or in private industry - is no guarantee of good ethics or particularly high intelligence.
I gave you an example of where a person in power abused information that was really none of his business and which he was not qualified to evaluate. That’s not hysteria, that’s personal experience. What other bias and prejudice does this man have that influences his decisions? How many other people are in a position of power to affect others who also have bias and prejudice? What safeguards do we have to prevent abuse? At the company where I worked there was a mechanism to prevent such abuse - that’s why I continued to have a job AND my pilot’s license. I am asking what safeguards there are on the Real ID system 1) ensure data is accurate, 2) correct errors, and 3) prevent misuse of data.
Then why are so many state bureaucracies so opposed to this “minor upgrade”?
As I said, that “idiot” is in a position where he makes decisions affecting nearly 100 million people. I’m sorry if that rocks your view of the world, but frankly, I don’t want that person knowing any more about me than absolutely necessary - do you? Nor is the only person in a position of power with bias and prejudice.
I have no objection to beneficial and legitimate use of information - I do have concerns about misuse.
I am a secretary supporting a husband who is disable and therefore unemployed - how much freakin’ money do you think I have? Yet I managed to get a pilot’s license. In fact, a semester at a typical college costs as much if not more than getting pilot’s license.
True, airplane gas is more expensive than what you put in a car. On the other hand, the airplanes I fly get better mileage than, for example, a Ford Escapade. As I said, I’m a secretary - I’m not even upper middle class, yet I could afford to do this. Granted, it required budgeting and making decisions about what I would spend my money on - I can’t fly airplanes AND take a two week vacation in Paris AND a month long Caribbean cruise every year.
Flying costs me around $100/hour these days. People spend more than that on tickets for a concert. The cost of flying for a private individual is not as much as assumed. You don’t need to be a millionaire (although it helps…)
Well, why don’t we just require everyone to get a freakin’ passport, for heaven’s sake? Is this about driver’s licenses or about ID? Isn’t the passport the gold standard? Don’t we have those already?
What about people who either don’t have a license, or can’t drive a car due to medical reasons? Are they SOL? Blind people don’t deserve a Real ID? OK, OK - I’m sure they do have an option for the disabled or those who never learned to drive (although I’ve heard nothing about it). But should we link ID’s to driving? Shouldn’t an ID be primarily for that - identifying a person?
Please do not put words in my mouth or make assumptions about my though process. I won’t consider it a failure if terror occurs after implementation because I am POSITIVE we will suffer more terrorism at some point REGARDLESS of whether we implement Real ID or not. Again, it’s like security cameras - they won’t stop crime, just make it easier to document when a crime has occured. The 9/11 guys had entirely clean records - not faked records that were clearn, they’re REAL RECORDS were clean. They had not been involved in a criminal act prior to 9/11. The books they read and the training they took were entirely appropriate for commercial pilots - which status they had either achieved or were on their way to achieving. Depersonalized data-points would not indicate that these guys were more threatening than any of the other thousands of foreign pilots that came to the US for flight training. What tripped the alarm regarding Mossasoui was NOT a data point but rather his attitude which was picked up by human beings, not computers.
Yes, I am concerned that we will become over reliant on computers and databases and forget to use our own squishy human brains.
Should be following REASONABLE and SENSIBLE standards. Are the requirements of Real ID reasonable?
No, it’s a new program. Oh, maybe not in California which apparently has to make few changes but yes, in many places this is a significant change and constitutes a new program imposed by the Federal government on the States.
Yes, but failure to CORRECT false-positives IS a sign of failure in my eyes. The people who set up a no-fly list that bars toddlers from flying and has no means to correct this error are the ones behind Real ID. Of course I’m concerned.
I oppose the Federal government imposing another program in the name of security when their prior one is so fucked up and they show no signs of fixing it. Maybe if it was a different administration which displayed some sign of competency in this area I’d feel differently.
Again - if they had fixed the problems with the security systems already implemented I’d feel a hell of a lot better about this new program.