I'll fess up to the title - it was my attempt to translate pO157's original title ("Papers Please, Citizen") into German.  My understanding is that it means "Stop! Your Papers Please!" - but I'm also not a native German speaker, so I may have gotten it wrong.  I came up with the translation through babelfish and a cursory google search that indicated to me that other people had used that phrasing as well.  If it's wrong I'd be glad to stand corrected.

This is stupid.  Inherent in the idea of a driver's license is the notion that the person who is carrying it is who the license says they are.  While the REAL ID stuff may be overkill in some respects, it is a good idea to require states to do something to make sure driver's licenses are accurate.

Yes and no. Mostly no.

A drivers license, like a pilots license or a hunting license is authorization granted by the state to operate a motor vehicle. If your description of Maine's law is accurate, then it can be said that Maine is granting licenses to people based on their ability to drive.

Example: I go to Maine's DMV and apply for a license with the name Bob Karma. I pass my test, grab my new piece of lamine, hop in my porsche and press the accelerator for all its worth. While passing the local school zone, I get pulled over and an officer with large bosoms asks to see my license. She confirms the license is valid, and writes me a ticket then allows me to be on my way.  

As we see there is no inaccuracy in play. Even if I pay for said ticket with my checking account in the name of Joe Liberal, the validity of the license is not questioned.

Problems occur when a license is also used as an identification card - as most states do. Since identity requires authentication, most states identity cards are susceptible to fraud. This fraud is what REAL ID is attempting to address.

Now as a supporter of REAL ID, I understand the risks of a national id card all too well (it runs counter to libertarian principles). They are as follows:

1. A national id card requires a federal centralized database. Since the federal government has additional databases (IRS, criminal etc), the ID database will become the central hub profile capable of monitoring a citizen throughout his life. Every query/hit of the database can be recorded such that a bored DMV/police/fbi/hacker user can watch as I buy some beer at the Kwik-E-Mart (id check), go to the airport to take a plane to visit my mom, get accosted by a racist cop while I'm walking to her apartment, and log my visit to Washington Mutual where I am opening a secret savings account for my wife's anniversary present.

Bottomline: the first problem is that much like the SSN, a national id card will allow for citizen tracking similar to following someone's credit card purchases throughout the day. Anything that the government can conceivable think to add to the database, would be (in theory) available for review by all those who have access to the database.

2. The government's motivation is not to safeguard your privacy. As a result, not only are compromise to the data kept on you likely to occur, but redress for that compromise (it being the government) is limited. If someone fakes your national id card, your challenge to rectify the problem will be similar to that of people who have had their identity stolen (i.e. days and months of work with no clear end in sight).

3. A national id card makes it easier for an authoritarian government/corporation to restrict the liberty of its citizens. This is the classic get the undesirables to wear stars of david, pink triangles etc then round em up and ship em out problem. A national id card strips away collective/herd immunity.

4. A national id card destroys western notions of privacy. The constitution of the USA guarantees that citizens will be secure from unreasonable searches, but in an environment where all profile data is linked, queries of that data will not be viewed (judicially) as unreasonable. Eg. I go back to the Kiwk-e-Mark and the clerk demands to see my id..along with my name, my ID has my address, blood type, contact # , height, whatever the government chooses to put on it. How much of that information does the clerk need and how much do they obtain as a 'bonus'? This is the equivalent of Best Buy asking for your telephone number to complete a purchase. Both the government and private corporations will be enabled to collect information at their discretion.

5. A national id card is expensive. Managing and maintaining such a system will be an added significant cost - as fraud occurs, more and more tamper resistant measures will be added in an 'arms race' to preserve the reliability of a document which all identity systems will slowly switch to.

6. A national id card will be no more functional/useful than current identity systems. As such any utility gained from a national id card would be primarily due to newly implementable restrictions on citizens freedoms.

Memory is a strange bell, jubilee and knell.

As for the fears of a national ID card system, can someone explain the danger of that to me?

Because it's an unfunded mandate that's currently opposed by at least 17 states with the potentially troublesome aspect of carrying around all of your private info, including social security numbers and birth certificates all available to whichever low level, underpaid security operator who will be manning the helm.

Already, 17 states have said they would either refuse to issue the new licenses or have asked Congress to repeal a 2005 law that required states to collect and store additional data on driver's license applicants, such as birth certificates, Social Security numbers and home addresses.

Under Real ID, all new licenses would be machine-readable and contain personal information that could be scanned by governments and potentially by corporations.

Considering that the gov't can't even set up/contract out a website to allow travelers to post personal info securely for something as important as people challenging their presence on the "no fly list", I see little reason to have confidence in their ability to develop this into anything more than the clusterfuck of a bad idea that it already is.

A new Bush administration plan to create national standards for driver's licenses drew heavy criticism yesterday from civil liberties groups, some Republican and Democratic lawmakers, governors, and the travel industry.

The critics said the new licenses anticipated under the plan, which is aimed at screening out potential terrorists and uncovering illegal immigrants, could still be forged. They also complained that the program, known as Real ID, would be costly for states to implement, potentially restrict summer travel, and allow private companies access to the personal data of most U.S. citizens.

While I'm not normally one of those paranoid conspiracy types about govt, the plan for national IDs combined with the plans to put people under the biometric microscope when out and about in public is troubling to me. The chances of all this info being  combined, being wrong, being hacked, being sold to corporate interests, and otherwise being more damaging to the public that all these machinations are supposed to protect, seem far greater than whatever imaginary threats the backers of these things are currently fantasizing about...

Somewhere in my soul, there's always Rock -n- Roll... Joe Strummer

Inherent in the idea of a driver's license is the notion that the person who is carrying it is who the license says they are

That must be new...back in the late 80s when I got my Maine license, I had to produce (and surrender) my Florida license and show a proof of residence (I distinctly remember bringing my power bill to the DMV.)

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine