Wrong Motivations 

In my earlier post on the Sensenbrenner meeting, I mentioned that I really wanted to ask about Real I.D. This is a bill he authored, and got passed in the House. I ended up going up to him after the meeting before he had to leave in order to ask him about it. In the end this was probably better because I was able to have more of a dialog about it, and really question him on specifics instead of just getting his campaign blurb on the subject. Here are my notes on the subject:

On States Sharing Information: This is required under the bill. However he said several times that he was opposed to a National ID card. When I pointed out that this was the same as a National ID, except that the states issue it, he seemed to disagree, but couldn't tell me how it was different. The reason he gave for states sharing information was so that you couldn't hold two driver's licenses in two states. The problem apparently being solved is people who have points on one driver's license getting pulled over again, and handing the cop their other license with no points on it.

On Federal Identification Requirements: You need to have an ID to get on an airplane. You need an ID to get on a train. You need a driver's license to drive a car. Basically I feel as if my driver's license has become my internal passport. More over, I fear that the no fly list will become more than just a terrorist watch list. With this infrastructure in place, whats to keep some group from saying that people with unpaid child support shouldn't be allowed to fly? Whats to keep a state from not allowing people with unpaid parking tickets from flying? I don't want this to become an enabler for them. His only real answer was that nobody is forcing you to fly. Flying is not a right. If you want, you can get in a car and drive somewhere without a license and hope you don't get pulled over. That is actually what he said. I was so surprised by this that I was unable to express the necessary shock and horror by this belief to him.

On Illegal Immigrants: The reason he felt so strongly about illegal immigrants not getting drivers licenses wasn't just some measure to prevent terrorism... because really... how is that going to stop it. He told a story about an illegal from Mascedonia who came to Wisconsin and got a commercial driver's license even though he didn't know how to drive. Not to long after that, he got into a major accident, killing a family on the freeway. He got pretty emotional telling the story, he was getting worked up and it obviously angered him. When I pointed out that the problem wasn't the fact that he could get a driver's license as an illegal immigrant, but rather he could get a driver's license when he couldn't drive, he said the problem was both. I said that if state licensing requirements are too lax, then that is a complaint I'll bring up with my State Senator, not with my Congressman. Even funnier was that he had earlier said that illegals could get a driver's license under his bill! A state would be allowed to do that as long as that type of license was marked saying that their citizenship couldn't be determined clearly. So how does that solve this problem?

At that point he had to go, so I wasn't able to keep asking questions as far as whether RFID would be required, or anything else.