Threat of terrorism mandates law-abiding Texans provide full fingerprints for driver licenses

From the Big Jolly Politics Blog, Yvonne Larsen, a conservative sales executive to oil and gas companies, shares her view of the mandated Texas laws requiring full fingerprints from those who are either renewing their driver licenses or acquiring their first driver’s license.  With the targeted audience being Texans, she definitely can appeal to a large population. Despite her occupation as a sales executive, her references do seem credible and she does site her many sources to make her point. 

Her argument is that there is no need to profile the every-day citizen for fingerprints and facial identification because these citizens are law-abiding, whereas the criminals and terrorists who might be identified and brought into custody are not going to comply with this law in the first place. She also makes the point that credit card companies have other ways to identify perpetrators and that these safeguards don’t ask for a single fingerprint or facial identification.

My reaction to this issue is that I personally don’t see a problem in having to surrender my fingerprints to authorities because I have no reason to fear giving that information. If the government feels that mandating this information could prevent or solve crimes or terrorist acts, then there should be no reason to refrain from willingly providing such. With the increase in violent crimes, terrorist acts, etc. then we, as citizens, should offer information that might be useful in a databank. We would have no reason to hesitate.

Despite the fact that I may have a different reaction, I do see Ms. Larsen’s point and see the validity to the part of her argument in which criminals will refrain from offering information, and therefore the databank will not include that information. Obviously, if a crime is committed and all the prints and facial recognition data excludes the law abiding citizens, then those people would be excluded from the possible perpetrators and would eliminate them as potential suspects.  If one bit of information can help solve one crime, it would be worth it.