Month: February 2004

Kafka’s Challenge

I think we ought to read the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us with a blow in the head, what are we reading it for? So that it will make us happy? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need the kind of books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into the forests far from everyone, like suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.

Franz Kafka, in a letter to Oskar Pollak, 27 Jan. 1904, Letters to Friends, Family, and Editors, trans. Richard and Clara Winston [New York, 1977]

New National ID Card?

ZDNet’s Declan McCullagh writes: the House approved the Real ID Act by a vote of 261-161. The article states:

The U.S. House of Representatives approved on Thursday a sweeping set of rules aimed at forcing states to issue all adults federally approved electronic ID cards, including driver’s licenses. [. . .]

The measure, called the Real ID Act, says that driver’s licenses and other ID cards must include a digital photograph, anticounterfeiting features and undefined “machine-readable technology, with defined minimum data elements” that could include a magnetic strip or RFID tag. The Department of Homeland Security would be charged with drafting the details of the regulation.

According to the article, many who supported the bill, like its author Tom Davis (R-VA), state that the measure was put into place to thwart terrorism: “When I get on an airplane and someone shows ID, I’d like to be sure they are who they say they are.” Hey, Tom, how does knowing that someone is really named Joe Smith mean that you can tell whether or not he is a terrorist? Seemingly, this is another xenophobic attempt to keep foreigners from infiltrating the US, following the logic that sanctioned carriers of the ID card will be reputable and trustworthy: read “Americans.”

Another section of the bill stipulates that all states’ DMVs must link their databases to continue to receive federal funding. The following information would be required in this information pool: “All data fields printed on drivers’ licenses and identification cards, and complete drivers’ histories, including motor vehicle violations, suspensions and points on licenses.”

ID Card?

ZDNet’s Declan McCullagh writes: the House approved the Real ID Actby a vote of 261-161. The article states:

The U.S. House of Representatives approved on Thursday a sweeping set of rules aimed at forcing states to issue all adults federally approved electronic ID cards, including driver’s licenses. […]

The measure, called the Real ID Act, says that driver’s licenses and other ID cards must include a digital photograph, anticounterfeiting features and undefined “machine-readable technology, with defined minimum data elements” that could include a magnetic strip or RFID tag. The Department of Homeland Security would be charged with drafting the details of the regulation.

According to the article, many who supported the bill, like its author Tom Davis (R-VA), state that the measure was put into place to thwart terrorism: “When I get on an airplane and someone shows ID, I’d like to be sure they are who they say they are.” Hey, Tom, how does knowing that someone is really named Joe Smith mean that you can tell whether or not he is a terrorist? Seemingly, this is another xenophobic attempt to keep foreigners from infiltrating the US, following the logic that sanctioned carriers of the ID card will be reputable and trustworthy: read “Americans.”

Another section of the bill stipulates that all states’ DMVs must link their databases to continue to receive federal funding. The following information would be required in this information pool: “All data fields printed on drivers’ licenses and identification cards, and complete drivers’ histories, including motor vehicle violations, suspensions and points on licenses.”