US senate passes bill creating electronic ID card

Well we are now one step closer to a police state it is expected to be in place by 2008.

Linda Rosencrance, Computerworld

The US Senate passed a bill Tuesday that would create an electronic ID card designed to stop illegal immigrants from getting driver's licenses. The bill, which was tacked onto a measure to pay for military activities in Iraq, was passed by Congress earlier this year. The legislation, which President George W Bush is expected to sign, requires states to issue federally approved electronic ID cards, including driver's licenses. Anyone without such a card would not be permitted to board an airplane or Amtrak train, to open a bank account or to enter a federal building. Called the Real ID Act, the bill mandates that driver's licenses and other ID cards include a digital photo, various features designed to thwart counterfeiting and a "common machine-readable technology" such as a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag. The technology must meet requirements set out by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.