The lawmakers have not yet decided on the biometric card, although five of the eight senators writing the legislation have backed the idea in the past. At least three — Republicans Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona, and Democrat Charles Schumer of New York — have said they support requiring the cards but are open to other options, says the Journal.
Aides to several senators in the group — which also includes Republicans Marco Rubio of Florida and Jeff Flake of Arizona, along with Democrats Michael Bennet of Colorado, Dick Durbin of Illinois and Robert Menendez of New Jersey — told the newspaper that the biometric card would be used only for employment verification and not as a mechanism to link other personal data or to replace driver’s licenses.
I just got my secure Indiana driver's license where I had to present my birth certificate and several other forms of identification to probe that I am who I am.
That was the entire purpose for "fixing" immigration all along.
"Your name is 'Not Sure'. Is this correct?"
IPPA Computer: Welcome to the Identity Processsing Program of Uhmerica! Please insert your forearm into the forearm receptacle!
IPPA Computer: Thank you! Please speak your name as it appears on your current federal identity card, document G24L8!
Pvt. Joe Bowers: I'm not sure if...
IPPA Computer: You have entered the name "Not Sure." Is this correct, Not Sure?
Pvt. Joe Bowers: No, it's not correct...
IPPA Computer: Thank you! "Not" is correct. Is "Sure" correct?
Pvt. Joe Bowers: No, it's not, my name is Joe...
IPPA Computer: You have already confirmed your first name is "Not." Please confirm your last name, "Sure."
Pvt. Joe Bowers: My last name is not "Sure!"
IPPA Computer: Thank you, Not Sure!
Pvt. Joe Bowers: No, what I mean is my name is Joe...
IPPA Computer: Confirmation is complete. Please wait while I tattoo your new identity on your arm!
I just got my secure Indiana driver's license where I had to present my birth certificate and several other forms of identification to probe that I am who I am. I still do not know what good a secure driver's license will do me, but I got it anyway. The trouble with it is that some long dead dummy way back in 1951 misspelled my middle name. Unless I want to go through a time consuming and costly process (anything out of my pocket is considered to be costly) to get my original birth certificate amended, I will forever have to have an additional letter in my middle name in my official BMV record. It is not supposed to cause me any problems with this or anything else, but we will just have to see about that. This was a mistake not of my parents who would have no way of being aware of it, but of someone either at the county recorder's office or the hospital at which I was born. It might just be a little anal of me, but I really do not like having my name spelled one way on my birth certificate and BMV record and the correct way on every other official document that I possess including my lifetime permit to carry (if it required more than my middle initial). Just think about all of the mistakes that will be made on a national identity card.
Buried in the comprehensive immigration reform legislation before the Senate are obscure provisions that impose on Americans expansive national identification systems, tied to electronic verification schemes. Under the guise of "reform," these trample fundamental rights and freedoms.
Requirements in Senate Bill 744 for mandatory worker IDs and electronic verification remove the right of citizens to take employment and "give" it back as a privilege only when proper proof is presented and the government agrees. Such systems are inimical to a free society and are costly to the economy and treasury.
Any citizen wanting to take a job would face the regulation that his or her digitized high-resolution passport or driver's license photo be collected and stored centrally in a Department of Homeland Security Citizenship and Immigration Services database.
The pictures in the national database would then need to be matched against the job applicant's government-issued "enhanced" ID card, using a Homeland Security-mandated facial-recognition "photo tool." Only when those systems worked perfectly could the new hire take the job.
"Your name is 'Not Sure'. Is this correct?"
How long until we are all walking around with barcodes tattooed on our foreheads?