I'm steamed at the Federal Government again.

If you peruse this blog for a while, that won't surprise you, will it?

This time, it's the Real ID law that has me bent out of shape. The Congress has decided to set new standards for driver's licenses and other state-issued IDs and to require all states to conform to those requirements by this May. I kept hoping some group of legislators in Washington, D.C., would come to their senses and repeal this foolish act.

My problem is that the ID law sets new standards for verifying the identity of citizens who apply for IDs, presumably foiling illegal immigrants, identity thieves, and those pesky terrorists (it's notable that this law wouldn't have stopped the criminals who perpetrated the mass murders of September 11--they had valid passports and no need for additional IDs). This law, ABC News reported, would cost states roughly $4 billion to implement and it's little more than a half-baked effort to create a backdoor method to force states to enforce the federal immigration policies, since it's clear the Congress won't fund effective enforcement--or better yet, come up with an immigration policy that makes sense.

But none of that really peeves me much, we're all used to Washington not making sense, right? My problem is that those IDs will have encrypted security data on them, ripe for theft and hacking by any criminal with a magnetic card reader and a bit of software. This is supposed to protect me from criminals? How? But here's the best part: states are required to verify our identities by collecting and recording all of our identity information. You know, all the stuff the criminals want to know about us: Social Security Number, date of birth, place of birth... So the states will have to store this information in computer databases, right?

How long do you think it will take before thieves find a way to steal all that data? What state will they go after first?

By the way, did you know that there is no constitutional right to privacy to prevent this? There's also no basic, over-arching federal legislation guaranteeing you comprehensive, clear rights to privacy.

Don't worry, the feds would never abuse that, would they?

CDs listened to today:

• Gyorgy Ligeti: Requiem
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Fever To Tell
• Kevin Puts: Dark Vigil
• Ludwig Van Beethoven: The Piano Trios, disk 1