Reply #46: No ID: I suspect some people find it hard to believe.

[Ratty]

About a month ago I finally got an official state photo ID. I don't own a car and haven't driven in decades so keeping a current drivers license simply was not a priority for me. I'm a citizen, was born and raised here. I'm not poor. I have a college education. I *used* to have a drivers license when I drove as a teenager, and it was good for years and years after it expired as an official ID (turns out people accepted it as valid ID, even at airports). But as it became more and more outdated and its physical condition deteriorated I found myself in more situations in which it was NOT accepted as ID (e.g., trying to buy now-controlled antihistamines at the drug store).

So I lived without any kind of official state identification for over a decade. I'm not defending myself, not trying to explain *why* I never bothered to get it. I simply didn't. I have a birth certificate, I have a social security card. There is plenty of proof that I am a US citizen. But a photo ID I simply never bothered to get. I have recently found out that there are a LOT of other citizens just like me who, for whatever reason, have never bothered to keep a current photo ID. Do you know that you *must* now provide your fingerprint to get a license or state photo ID? It was a surprise to me because you didn't used to have to. And now it's all computerized and put into a huge database. It scares me.

So I'm just saying, in case you're wondering what kind of legal citizen doesn't have a photo ID or thinking that anyone who doesn't is a criminal or has something to hide or is trying to pass themselves off as a citizen when in fact they aren't--well, I'm just saying that's not true. I'm saying it's not even true most of the time or even a large part of the time. Not having a photo ID, believe it or not, is not uncommon for legal adult citizens. I'm just saying ...

I know it's unconstitutional to require a national identity card, but I wonder about the constitutionality of requiring a STATE identity card?