chico haas  04-07-2003
02:07 PM ET (US)
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I was in NY last week and asked for my license. They just looked at it, looked at me. No xerox. Sounds like everybody's just freelancing, like the early days of beefed-up airport security.
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Dutch 04-07-2003
02:53 AM ET (US)
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I suggest a different approach.
Make an obvious fake ID with a photo of yourself or someone else mooning the camera. Replace the actual information with a short statement about invasion of privacy. The front desk clerk should be fully aware of what it is.
If they just want to look at the ID: Require an explanation, then show them your real ID.
If they want a photocopy: Just give them the fake ID; then require an explanation if they won't accept it, and leave whether the explanation is rational or not.
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Cory Doctorow 04-06-2003
11:16 PM ET (US)
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I usually ask to speak to the manager.
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jwz 04-06-2003
11:10 PM ET (US)
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It's certainly important to ask these questions, but you have to ask them of someone who cares, and I doubt the minimum-wage reservation-taker is, or will inform, that person. I suspect this is a situation where the only effective form of communication is loss of business. Without that, the bureaucracy will shield itself from your complaint.
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Pat York 04-06-2003
09:32 PM ET (US)
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Would they refuse you the room if you told them you didn't -have- a drivers license with you? What are they going to do, frisk you?
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Cory Doctorow 04-06-2003
07:51 PM ET (US)
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Like I said, I don't know if it does any good, but I think it's worth framing the debate. When someone asks you to surrender some liberty in the service of security, I think it's useful to ask him or her to describe the attack that is being defended against, and the means by which surrendering your liberty creates security against that attack.
It's the most important discourse we can have, I think. There's no question that life in the XXIth Cen is fraught with perils that are unique to this technological era -- not just terroristic ones, but also natural ones (epidemiology in an age of low-cost jet-travel is fucking scary). These new threats will demand responses, and will almost certainly get them.
I'm concerned that the responses we get will be self-serving -- authoritarian types *love* to exploit safety threats and fear to erode basic rights; entrepreneurs will line up to sell them the tools to do it -- and worse, *will not make us safer*.
As a nation -- and as a world -- we need to become educated consumers of security. It's not that hard to think well about security: you need to ask what the attack is, and how the measure defends it. You need to ask what the cost of the attack could be, and what the cost of the security will be. You need to make an educated calculus that considers those variables.
But for so long as we *don't* ask these questions, we will continue to be sold on "security" measures that lessen our security -- such as CAPPS II, which won't catch terrorists on airplanes, but *will* create endless opportunities for identity theft, abuse of authority, corruption, and tuttle-buttle mistaken identity nightmares.
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jwz 04-06-2003
03:35 PM ET (US)
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Well, the real question is, after you've asked these questions and gotten bad answers, do you refuse to stay there? Because I've found that pretty much any time I've been in a situation where someone was demanding ID they shouldn't reasonably have any right to, it would have been far, far too inconvenient to actually do anything about it: e.g., "I really do need a driver's license; I really do need medical insurance; there's really no other game in town."
So yeah, you can nag the desk flunky about it, but they're never going to communicate that back up the chain once you're off the phone. It all seems kind of fruitless.
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