I think everyone is missing a deeper issue regarding your incident. Namely, how did the the DC database link to the PA database. What was their criteria for knowing that it was the same Megan McArdle in both databases? Social Security number (you know the one that is not for identification purposes)? It's not like those could be faked or stolen. Or what if it was a different Megan McArdle (from THAT McArdle branch of the family) who was the danger to society and received a citation?
In your situation, the facts all line up and it is bureaucratic stupidity. Imagine if you were trying to prove that it wasn't you and that the SYSTEM was wrong. Time to reread Kafka.
The federal government has been pushing for deeper integration of various state systems, which is like the worst of both federalism and centralization. There's a comprehensive system of information, but no comprehensive control. DC has no way to fix my problem in Pennsylvania, but they are nonetheless forbidden to issue me a license. Kafka indeed
And it is the Republicans that are behind this in most cases. They are the law & order crew. So you have no one to blame but yourself. You can thank stuff like the Patriot Act for this.
The DMV system thinking you shouldn't get a license is bad enough. But if E-Verify screws up your data it means you wouldn't even be able to get a job.
We're heading down the path of a police state were you'll need a license to exist.
Gun buyers have been dealing with NICS for more than a decade. Despite the hiccups, it actually works reasonably well. Not ideal, but not hell either.
"And it is the Republicans that are behind this in most cases. They are the law & order crew. So you have no one to blame but yourself. You can thank stuff like the Patriot Act for this."
This is true but trivial.
In 1960 we had effective law enforcement and low crime. Progressives took over the courts and used them to make changes to the justice system. Many things that were sub rosa became explicitly illegal. Cops can't beat hooligans anymore. There's no enforcement of vagrancy laws. If someone gets shot by the police and that person is black, there are mass protests and investigations into the officers. All of these things make the law unenforceable and cities uncontrollable because these policies are all predicated on the demonstrably false premises that (1) all races are identical and (2) all people are good middle class people who will behave civilly under the same circumstances that good middle class people will behave civilly.
Since the pressure for government to keep people safe from criminals is the single most powerful pressure there is (that's why there are governments in the first place) it doesn't go away when the policy preferences of the elites make it impossible for governments to keep people safe from criminals. So the pressure is still there but the workable measures become impossible. What results is something I've seen referred to as "anarcho-tyranny". You get more and more laws that only restrict the freedoms of law abiding people and you real criminals are ignored.
Why? Well, that's the path of least resistance. The policy preferences of progressives are strong enough to stop anything that is actually effective in controlling crime but progressives love making (non-military / non-police) government more powerful. People want "something" done. Politicians don't want the NY Times screaming for their blood because they're racist or too harsh on criminals so they make laws like the one Megan got nailed on.
This will continue until people are willing to face the nature of reality and acknowledge the differences between people and the differences between races.
Social security CARDS aren't supposed to be used for identification purposes. Numbers, obviously, are.
Rob Lyman,
Your statement is not reassuring. Gun buying is not something that most people even do, and the vast majority of those that do, do it seldom. An occasional hiccough is not a huge problem. But when dealing with NICS (or an equivalent) becomes part of a much larger number of transactions, involving nearly everyone, those occasional hiccoughs grow into a major problem.
The system screwed Megan, but at least she had the resources to do a work-around: take public transportation or cabs.
This sort of thing happens routinely to people who don't have the resources to pay for cabs but who have to get to work five days a week. These people have little choice but to keep driving even without a valid drivers license. The vast majority of the time they never get caught. But for those who do get caught, they can go to jail, which results in the loss of their jobs.
A similar problem was faced by Robert Myers, a bakery deliveryman in California. He was ordered to pay $2,000/month in child support. He only made $1,600/month, so he quickly fell into arrears. So the state revoked his drivers license. This meant that he couldn't legally drive, and therefore he lost his job.
http://unfilteredminds.wordpress.com/2008/04/22/4949/
On government and health care:
I should just mention that I recently took occasion to review two years of my 84-year-old mother's medical bills and insurance statements. Wanted to make sure everybody was paying their share. She has medicare, plus two ancillary private plans. She has some health issues, so there was lots of activity.
What rather astounded me was that the medicare statements were stunningly excellent--well laid out, complete, readable information, all necessary cross-references to providers, procedures, etc, all in easily comprehensible form.
All the others--from insurers and providers, all private--were next to useless. Usually nothing more than an obscure internal code (almost never a standard procedure code) and an amount. If I hadn't had the medicare statements to cross-reference, it would have been a week's work to dig up and cross-check everything, given the amount of time I would have spent on hold just getting the basic information.
As it was, because of the medicare statements, it took me a couple of hours.
Everything was in order.
Megan,
It's almost certainly your SS# that allows DMVs to access your driving record from any state in the country (In fact there's even an agreement with Canada so that the Canadian equivalent of our SS# is accomodated as well, and vis-versa). Some years back a law was made requiring states to obtain Social Security numbers for this purpose, so that drunk drivers, child support scofflaws and other miscreants could be tracked better, and kept from getting out of state licenses when their own state suspended theirs.
Of course this brings with it a very big danger from ID thieves so might use your SS# (and name and birth date) to get a license in your name and leave you with a record of speeding tickets, DUIs and worse. The misbegotten RealID act, which is supposed to make licenses more secure will do absolutely nothing to close this loophole either.