] Have you ever wondered what good it does when they look at
] your driver's license at the airport? Let me assure you,
] as a former bureaucrat partly responsible for the 1996
] decision to create a photo-ID requirement, it no longer
] does any good whatsoever.

Post election season Richard Clarke is sounding like a more reasonable guy. An interesting mix of commentary here on ID requirements. I'm hardly convinced that smart cards and a big computer network are going to make it harder to forge an ID. I agree that government policies which seemed properly limited to real terrorism fighting would go along way toward earning trust, but in 15 years that I've paid attention to this I haven't been particularly impressed.

The New York Times - The Security Adviser: Real ID's, Real Dangers