By C.J., Scan This News, 06/28/98
Today, Wednesday, June 17, 1998, the U.S. Department of Transportation published the proposed "Driver's License/SSN/National Identification Document" guidelines which all states will be compelled to comply with over the next two years. The "Notice of Proposed Rule Making" (NPRM) sets out the "standard feature" requirements for driver's license cards and other "identification" documents. States which do not comply will find that their citizens will not be allowed to participate in routine, life-essential functions after the imposed federal deadline of October 1, 2000. Nonconforming licenses will not be accepted for identification by any federal agency. [This means no flying on airplanes and only a matter of time before you won't be allowed to drive your automobile, cash a check, use a credit card. You won't be able to buy or sell, hold a job our keep your head.] Once implemented, no one in the U.S. will be able to engage in man! y basic, fundamental societal activities unless they carry with them at all times a conforming government-issued identification card. Not surprisingly, under the proposed rule it will become MANDATORY that social security numbers must be submitted in order for anyone to receive a state-issued driver's license.
Perhaps the most pervasive implication of this new National ID scheme is that in the near future an identification card will be required just to engage in activities we now take for granted. For example: Under the Brady Law's "instant criminal background check" requirements, no one will be allowed to purchase a gun from a licensed gun dealer unless they possess one of the new, conforming, identification documents. This reality alone will effectively force the states to implement the new requirements so that citizens can purchase guns; and it will likewise consequently force all citizens to have an approved "ID" just to engage in this constitutionally protected "right."
And, under the federal "New Hires Database" system and the related "Employment Eligibility Confirmation System" program, everyone will be required to possess an approved identification document in order to get a job and work in the United States. Of course other activities such as banking, purchasing insurance, writing a check, obtaining a passport, boarding a commercial airliner - and the list goes on and on - will all likewise require the new IDs. In light of the broad implications of the national ID concept, all other "liberty, privacy, and rights" issues will become moot. I therefore suggest that every group and every organization concerned with the above mentioned "freedom-traits" take this matter of the national ID on as a priority. Defeating this "proposed rule" should be "issue number one." Once the national ID scheme becomes operational, there will be no need to battle any of the other issues. Furthermore, if this rule goes into effect as written, it will no longer matter who gets elected to office; total control will have been summarily handed over to the various federal and state "enforcement" agencies. These various agencies will simply deny you whatever "service" they perform if you do not supply the required ID.
There will be no more "privacy." There will be no more "rights." Everything you do in the future will become contingent upon your providing "The Card." And when you do, your actions will be recorded, monitored, traced, and controlled. You must remember that all driver's license documents belong to the state, and the state can compel you to present one on demand.
Fortunately, thousands of people, including a number of state government responded to the attempts to require this card and the legislature defunded this portion of U.S. DOT budget, postponing implementation of the system. However, many states are already beginning to incorporate the style and information that the card required.