Re: Legality of requiring credit cards?

[Dale Thorn <dthorn@gte.net>]

David Wagner wrote:
> Adam Shostack  <adam@homeport.org> wrote:
> > (Speaking of which, is a state university student ID considered
> > 'government issued?'  How about a faculty or staff ID card?)

> Well, when I fly they ask for 'government issued' picture ID, and
> I present my UC Berkeley student ID for inspection.  They usually
> grumble at me, but I grumble back, and in the end they've always
> accepted it.  Try it sometime.  (And yes, my student ID is probably
> eminently forgable -- it looks very ragged and unprofessional.)
> P.S.  At JFK I had a guy tell me that they preferred to see my
> social security card!  I was completely surprised, since it has no
> picture, and (I think) says 'this card not to be used for identification
> purposes' at the bottom.  Anyone know anything about this?

This is really weird.  Maybe the person asking for SS cards is just
clueless, or from somewhere outside the U.S. I haven't seen my SS card
since 1965, shortly after it was issued.  I did three years in the U.S.
military without the card (although the military switched from RA and
US numbers to only SS numbers circa 1967-1969), and nobody has ever
insisted I have one, although I've seen a reference maybe once every few
years about the need to have one.

Real-world humans lose cards all the time, hence the need to implant
people with ID chips as soon as the chips are secure enough to use as
guaranteed permanent and unique ID.  Not my first choice, of course.

Several (or most) states threaten their drivers in the license literature
that if they're caught driving without possession of the license (even
though the person so caught has a valid license somewhere), they can be
jailed as a criminal.  If there are any cases where this has been tested,
I'd like to hear about them.