Republicans should support an up-or-down vote for the Real ID, aka, the National ID Card. If it's such a great idea, they shouldn't put it in with some military spending bill; let its supporters go on the record.
If you think so, or whatever you think, you can fax your senator. If you are in the US, of course.
I really don't know weather I support the idea of a national ID card yet, but both Democrats and Republicans vowed to take action based on the 911 Commission's report, which included a recommendation for a national ID card. The Republican's didn't come up with this idea! This is not a Bush scheme, just the result of a promise to take the recommendations of the 911 commission seriously.
The reason it's in the spending bill for the military is because the Democrats didn't want it as part of the bill to appoint a national director of intelligence. To get a concession they struck a deal with Republicans by allowing it to be included in the next must-pass piece of legislation.
I think Scneier's post on REAL ID sealed it for me:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/05/real_id.htmlHis post on national IDs is also good:
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0404.html#1I would have been against it anyway on principle, but I think this analysis makes it clearer that the purported reasons and security gains are not correct.
what is this? and like java is this a wiki system??