The NY Times is reporting this morning on developments in a lawsuit in which a Muslim woman alleges that Lifting Veil for Photo ID Goes Too Far and violates her religious beliefs and her “reasonable expectation” of privacy. <Insert explective of disbelief of choice>! The point of having a photo on a driver’s license is so that a police officer or other official can quickly determine whether or not the driver is the person who was issued the license. Police don’t stop a driver unless they have a reason (generally, let’s not get into the bad cop thing) and in such cases identifying the driver is important and reasonable.
This woman’s lawyer claims that the full facial photo demand is “bogus” because his client offered DNA, fingerprints, or other data by which she could be identified. And is offering to supply the state of Florida and all police cars with the equipment necessary to match DNA or fingerprints on the spot? As far as I know, science fiction TV shows aside, there is no way to do this away from the lab or office so these identifying datum would not satisfy the situational requirement.
This lawyer further states that “his client should not be subjected to unreasonable restrictions simply because of her religion.” But that argument is sophistry: she claims the restrictions are unreasonable due to her religion; Florida is NOT attempting to apply a special standard to her based of religion. Another bogus element of their complaint is that since other states allow veiled photographs on a license, Florida is unreasonable in not allowing it as well. The refutation here is easy: the whole point of allowing states to make their own laws is to provide for local communities to control local decisions. What’s agreeable to one community is not in others. To cite a very well-known example, what’s obscene in private in Salt Lake City is legal on the street in San Francisco.
Of course no one is claiming that this particular woman will ever violate the law. That doesn’t mean she should be exempted from it. Because, as we’ve seen time after time, there are plenty of people who will take advantage of any loophole or evasive technique to get what they want. *cough* Enron *cough* Worldcom *cough* bin Laden *cough* World Cup host nations *cough* Martha Stewart *cough* Richard Nixon *cough* identity thieves *cough*
BillSaysThis 