SECURITY BLANK: MARILYN PENN
http://politicalmavens.com/
MARILYN PENN
The Department of Motor Vehicles allows you to renew your license by mail (or online) but requires you to have your vision test form filled out and signed by a certified health care official or an office of the Motor Vehicles department. They do not require you to have a current photo taken. This is so unbelievable that I’ll repeat it louder: THEY DO NOT REQUIRE YOU TO HAVE A CURRENT PHOTO TAKEN. In my case, this means that the photo used to identify me for security purposes at airports, in government buildings, for financial transactions, for car rentals and most other circumstances requiring proof of who I am – is of a person sixteen years younger than I now am. Does it resemble me? Vaguely. Could a skillful lawyer argue that it also resembles 47% of other Caucasions of similar age? Probably. By the time my new license expires, the picture will be more than a quarter of a century old. Should it be left to security screeners to do mental time lapse adjustments of a generation or more? Well….Some of the obvious changes occurring with age are: hair – present or absent; glasses – added or subtracted; teeth – yellow, white, metal or missing; wrinkles – more or less; piercings and tattoos – infinite variety; expression – age-related scowl or age-related demented smile; overall demeanor – surgically enhanced, botched or simply left out to dry.
Several years ago (ok 17 to be exact), I needed to do some research at Columbia’s library. Entrance was barred to anyone but students and faculty so I borrowed the student I.D. of a friend’s daughter who looked nothing like me but had a postage sized picture that was appropriately blurred. To my surprise, the security guard astutely stopped me as I quickly flashed it and scrutinized the picture against my face for half a minute, looking down and up as he compared the person with the image on the card. As I got ready to apologize for handing him the wrong card, he smiled and waved me through, perhaps indicating nothing more than his own assessment that nobody in pre 9/11 days wanted to break into libraries anyway.
The driver’s license renewal form also allows you to conveniently donate all your organs by signing on the line with a cheery little heart next to it, looking like a piece of children’s stationery in the days before e-mail and i-phones made paper extinct. There’s no requirement for this to be notarized – no need for an official witness that you haven’t been pressured into giving the ultimate gift. You can’t divest of all your worldly possessions without a witness but you can give all your vital organs without anyone affirming that you’ve still got a functioning brain at the time of donation. Though this doesn’t impact national security, it does weigh heavilly on the integrity of your corpse and strikes me as worthy of the same notary public required for minor financial transactions.
Though a driver’s license is sufficient ID for many purposes, we need to rethink its suitability as a document reliable enough for security clearance. Perhaps a fingerprint that can be readily scanned should be added to the card, or your blood type or some other immutable aspect of your personhood (a pictograph of your stubbornness). The way things are now, just imagine Elizabeth Taylor being wheeled through an airport security gate presenting her driver’s license with her head shot from Butterfield 8 – is this any way to establish a first line of defense for national security?
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