Hacker News Reader

Comment by frob | Hacker News Reader

> ...two forms of photo ID...

I have one valid photo ID. Most people have only one valid photo ID. How is this supposed to work?

This article is incorrect. What the bill says is you need to provide a photo ID, and then you need to provide a photo of yourself to prove you're the person on the ID (presumably like those tinder verify features where you take a picture of yourself doing a silly pose to prove you're the person in the photos you uploaded).

That said this bill is being proposed, so it's expected to change, particularly on implementation. It's basically a rough draft

"Man's got a point. Two is no good. Let's make it three photo ids." - Texas Legislator Tex

"Hole up there son, we don't want to have to revisit this every year to patch holes. Let's put in a safety margin: Five photo ids." - Texas Legislator Champ

For some governmental (aka official) examples:

* State-issued ID card (aka the lesser equivalent to a driver's license card)

* Federal-issued passport

* Federal-issued passport card (yes, these are a thing)

For some informal examples (if they have a photo):

* Company ID card/documentation

* Library card

* Medical card

----

Everyone always has access to a state-issued ID card (or driver's license) and a passport issued by the federal government. Most people satisfy the "two forms of identification" requirement found in many situations with them.

> Everyone always has access to a state-issued ID card (or driver's license) and a passport issued by the federal government. Most people satisfy the "two forms of identification" requirement found in many situations with them.

Most Americans don't have a passport, so that can't possibly be true

That is by choice, and if someone doesn't want to obtain a passport then that's their problem. The opportunity is there, should they wish to pursue it.

Passports aren't free.

So? Passports aren't expensive either.

EDIT: I looked up the fees, it is $130 USD for a passport book, both for first-time issuance (plus separate fee of $35) and renewals. Most passports are valid for 10 years. That is not expensive, and practically free.

Source: https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/passports/forms-fees/Pa...

That's expensive to most regular people.

Most people buy thousand dollar smartphones, among other luxuries.

$130 dollars for federally-issued identification that is valid for 10 years is not expensive.

Is $130 plus whatever a state ID costs a reasonable fee to pay (to the government) to access Facebook?

That's prohibitively expensive for an ID, even for most Americans. Any required government IDs should be nearly if not completely subsidized.

Requiring IDs in the USA has historically been used as a form of voter suppression. Texas is one of the worst states WRT voter suppression [1]; anecdotally in the 2020 election (during COVID) Houston, TX (3rd largest city in America) had exactly 1 ballot dropbox [2].

1. https://www.aclutx.org/en/news/5-ways-texas-suppresses-vote-...

2. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2020/10/13/trump-j...

$130 probably isn't much to the majority of people on this forum, but $130 can buy multiple weeks of groceries for 2 people at low cost retailers. That is absolutely a lot of money to the significant percent of Americans who live paycheck to paycheck.

Even if you're not living paycheck to paycheck, $130 could be a decent chunk of what you're able to save annually. When money and expenses aren't consistent, it's be tough to prioritize a passport with no intention of traveling internationally.

Plenty of people only have a SSN card and a birth certificate, as they neither drive (perhaps due to age or preference) or travel by plane (often for financial reasons or preference).

As I said in my other reply, their lack of governmental identification is by choice. Should they choose to not obtain them even if they have the opportunity, then that is their problem.

As I said in my other reply, its too expensive. Are you going to pay for it on their behalf?

Additionally, how are you going to handle undocumented persons.

$130 is not "too expensive", especially when it's a one-time expense every 10 years. What level of destitute do you have to be for that to be expensive?

As for illegal aliens, they are illegal. They shouldn't be getting IDs issued by the government in the first place, be it state or federal, and should be deported as they are found.

Perhaps you could be deported from HN

What about people with disabilities who wouldn’t be able to get a license, and can’t afford / don’t have a way to travel to get ID at the DMV or whatever? Also, do you think Facebook should have more requirements to access than going to a grocery store or taking a bus or any other infrastructure activity you might do? Almost nothing requires double photo IDs, this requirement is ludicrous regardless of if you happen to be privileged enough to have good health and money and time to have multiple photo IDs and it’s not an issue for you personally.

IDs issued by the state are generally free or very close to free as far as I'm aware. State-issued IDs usually have no requirements for issuance other than having residency in that state.

>Almost nothing requires double photo IDs

From experience, anything that is very and truly important has always demanded I produce multiple forms of identification. Usually 2 or more.

I doubt I'm going to change your mind on this, but I think you are under-estimating the difficulty of getting ID in certain parts of the country, for certain people. For example, people living on reservations often have difficulty getting ID because the DMV/other agencies are hundreds of miles away, many lack transportation, many lack the necessary documentation required to get the IDs, some states have put legal hurdles in the way (many homes on reservations don't have legal addresses, for example).

No doubt there are some specific people who will have difficulties obtaining identification for no justifiable reason. Such barriers to access should be rectified.

However, we are speaking in general rather than specific contrived what-ifs. The vast majority of people have the opportunity to obtain multiple forms of governmental identification that are accessible and affordable.

> No doubt there are some specific people who will have difficulties obtaining identification for no justifiable reason. Such barriers to access should be rectified.

They should be, yet somehow that is never part of the plan in bills that require these IDs. And isn't it curious that the areas where these difficulties are found are almost always correlated with minority demographics? Weird.

Such barriers should be rectified before making ID mandatory. If the response to that is "well then we'll never be able to implement this!" then one should have a period of deep reflection on why that is and its implications.

When it comes to creating systems whose consequences infringe on rights things like "the vast majority" aren't valid escape hatches. This is doubly true when the folks making the rules have political motivation for disenfranchising the very same group who doesn't have IDs in this case. In fact, when such discrepancies are pointed out and then are instituted anyways, such biases functionally become the point of the institution and increases culpability rather than decreases it.

Passports are very expensive though, like hundreds of dollars. They’d have to make them free for this to work

US passports are $130 for both first-time issuance and renewals, though first-time issuance also has a separate $35 fee.

Most passports are valid for 10 years. This is hardly expensive.

Source: https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/passports/forms-fees/Pa...

Thats too costly of a barrier to the legal right to share cat pictures

> Most people satisfy the "two forms of identification" requirement

53% of US adult citizens have a passport as of 11/22. Most of them have a state ID as well. So yes, a bare majority of citizens will be allowed internet access.

I have never seen a library card or insurance card with a photo id that is accepted as id at all, much less valid id. Do you have examples and if so how common is this in Texas?

I don't live in Texas, and I did call library cards and the like informal.

Passports are easy to obtain and are not expensive[1] at all. If someone chooses to not obtain them, that's their problem and not mine nor anyone else's.

[1]: https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/passports/forms-fees/Pa...

Why do you think people without passports (or uncomfortable uploading government documents to nearly every website they wish to use) should not be allowed to use those websites.

Not everyone has a passport. It is a lot of work to get one, costs over $100, and can take months to have them delivered.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com