Joey Maresca’s column about the Muslim who refused to be photographed for a driver’s license had some interesting misconceptions.
The right of an individual to obtain a non-photo driver’s license because of a religious objection has existed for many years – the legal cases regarding this were raised by Christians who believe in the Second Commandment (“thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image”) very sincerely. Because of these cases every state is required to have some procedure for issuing a non-photo driver’s license.
Indeed, I know of at least a dozen states that have this procedure codified into law (Indiana, Illinois and Pennsylvania are examples. Ohio has a process, uncodified, and has most definitely issued them.). Then of course, Vermont, New Jersey and several Canadian provinces do not require photos on licenses at all.
The security argument, framed by Maresca against the non-photo license, is actually strongly against the photo license document. The non-photo license document is worthless for anything but driving a car. No one uses a non-photo license for anything else – they simply can’t because no one trusts it enough.
What terrorist would try to get on an airplane with a non-photo license? What fraudulent person would use a non-photo license to pass a bad check?
On the other hand, people trust the photo license too much, terrorists or fraudulent people can leverage that trust for their malicious motives. It should come as no surprise that all the Sept. 11 terrorists had genuine photo licenses in their real names.
Why anyone should consider a cheap plastic card an essential part of security is a mystery.
James Moyerjunior in economics and Russian
