Real ID - Coming to a State Near You
According to Michael Chertoff, head of the Department of Homeland Security, there are currently 8,000 forms of acceptable identification in the US.
First of all two questions come to mind: 1) Did he count these up, or is this another made-up statistic meandering through the tubes of the internets? And 2) Why does "homeland" have such a vague fascist tone to it? Maybe something to do with "Fatherland"? Why not "Domestic Security"? OK that's three questions, no, wait, four...
In this piece on CNN.com it seems that, if states do not comply with the mandates of DHS, law-abiding Americans from said states may be denied access to federal facilities such as local federal offices, or national parks without some such recognized "Real ID" (like a passport).
This is all beginning to look a lot like an internal passport system. How long before the average American will be confronted by a trench-coated government agent with the greeting "Your papers please"?
It all getting a little too Germanic...
Again here is the article.