In case you hadn't noticed, the United States is turning into one of those countries where citizens can't turn around without showing their "papers."

Remember those movies where our hero maneuvers through some foreign country, avoiding police patrols and control points because he would have to show papers that he doesn't have? Or the ones where our guys are escaping from a POW camp and the most important equipment they have is a set of cleverly forged papers?

And then, of course, there was the Soviet Union, where citizens could not go anywhere without having internal passports they had to produce at railroad stations, airports and any passing KGB patrol.

In America, having papers has never been especially important. Until now.

The U.S. House has passed a bill requiring additional paperwork in order to get a driver's license, and the Senate is expected to pass the same bill. As the Associated Press summarized the measure, applicants will have to show proof of citizenship or legal residency. We will have to prove where we live. And we'll have to provide a photo ID. (How that can be accomplished if you don't already have a license was not explained.)

States will have more to do as well. The DMV in Oregon and every other state will have to verify the documents presented by applicants, using "federal databases."

Because of this, getting or renewing a driver's license likely will take several days. And the states likely will have to beef up their staffs to handle the additional records. But that's not the main issue with these added requirements.

The main issue is that Americans will once again be a little less free. The United States will once again lose some of the quality that makes it, to immigrants anyway, better than other countries.

This is a response to the terrorist threat. And it is another way in which the 9/11 attackers have accomplished their goal, which was to weaken the United States and exact revenge for whatever grievances they felt.

The conggressional supporters of the new license requirements point out that several of the 9/11 hijackers had valid driver's licenses that enabled them to negotiate airport security. So what? It wasn't the presence of driver's licenses that enabled them to take over the planes. It was their murderous intentions and their training. They also had surprise on their side, and the fact that the passengers and crews, except in one case, did not or could not resist.

In fact, the DL requirements do nothing to affect airplane security at all. Foreign terrorists can use their passports as ID, and domestic ones their driver's licenses. All the law does is add to the thicket of red tape of which Americans used to be largely free, less than a generation ago. (hh)