In Tuesday night's Presidential debate, Hillary did a flip-flop on Governor Spitzer's driver's license plan. As usual, she is saying whatever she thinks people want to hear to further her own political ends. In the meantime, Spitzer's backtracking not only creates an apartheid-like identification system, but it also bolsters the REAL ID Act, which is essentially a national ID.
I work with a diverse immigrant population, and one of the "bad" jobs that some of these folks do is to park cars. They work hard, in booths with no heat, late at night and in cold weather. Having a driver's license is the difference between having a job and not for them. Yet Spitzer's proposal will mark some of them as second class citizens. By stating that this license is not valid for federal purposes, the State casts suspicion on the holder. Whether or not the person is a citizen, when a police officer sees a license with this red flag, can anyone seriously think that they won't assume that the person is undocumented?
Spitzer's policy not only affects immigrants, but also older people who may no longer have birth records and other personal documentation. A colleague's geriatric father, who fought in WWII, was harassed at an airport security check point because his social security card was battered to the point of near illegibility.
Privacy and security advocates have long said that the database that would go along with the REAL ID Act that would house all of the personal information, including social security numbers, for everyone in the US holding a driver's license conjures nightmarish scenarios. Not only would hacking such a database give anyone bent on identity theft access to a gold mine of information, but mistakes and glitches could also prevent US citizens from exercising basic rights and privileges, like collecting Medicare.
Spitzer's plan falls in line with the Bush administration's push for a Big Brother system. Everyone is familiar with the motto: "United we stand, divided we fall." This proposal, divides New York State and symbolically pushes the country in the same direction. How can we expect to survive if we violate the basic principles underlying the foundation of our own country?