New in US security: domestic passports and facecrime

CNN is carrying a story on the growing furore concerning the "Real ID" scheme, which, as a "essential weapon in the war on terror", will introduce a de-facto national ID card.  Much like the proposed Australia Card, or much like the proposed Health Services Access Card could become.  Having a "Real ID" card will not -- officially -- be mandatory (much like the Access Card), but people without one will be subject to significant inconvenience.  In the US, you will be unable to fly, enter federal buildings or other federal areas without a passport.  In Australia, you will be unable to access public health services that your taxes pay for.

MSNBC also reports on the latest "new level of absurdity" in the US: "behaviour detection officers".  These specially trained officers scrutinise the facial expressions of passengers at airports, looking for signs of fear or disgust, which can indicate a potential terrorist.  Those identified by these officers will not (yet) be denied boarding based on the adverse facial assessment, but will be subject to additional security measures.  Whether this means a hand-inspection of their baggage or a date with a rubber glove, is unclear.  The MSNBC article correctly identifies this as absurd and Orwellian, but I think there's a much better quote from Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four they could have used:

It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself--anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offence. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: FACECRIME, it was called.