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Rough Draft I believe that fake Id’s are too easy to get because Oklahoma hasn’t done anything to try to prevent people from having one. I estimate that 25% of all college students in Oklahoma have and use a fake Id. Anybody who wants a fake Id in Oklahoma can obtain one very easily. There are several ways to get one. One way and the most commonly used method is obtaining someone else’s birth certificate. Most people get a brothers or friends. Now all you have to do is take it to the tag agency and tell them you lost your license. You pay them five dollars and you are on your way. It’s that easy. Another way is to scan your driver’s license with a computer scanner. Once you do this all you have to do is to open it up in Paintbrush or Adobe and type in your new age, hit print, and laminate. The third way is to drive to Dallas. There are numerous places to go. People actually make a living out of this. CopyKats and Vicon Village are just examples of places you can go. They usually charge between sixty and one hundred dollars. To many that is a small price to pay to have instant freedom. How can this be legal you ask? They are able to do it because on the back in tiny print it says not a government document. It is impossible to notice. It is against the law to have or use a fake Id, actually it is a felony with fines up to ten thousand dollars and two years in the pen (according the Norman Police department). There are loopholes in the law. Let’s say you go in to a bar and you show the bartender your fake Id and he doesn’t buy it. He takes it and calls the police. Don’t worry all you get is a one hundred dollar fine for a minor being in an adult establishment. Now lest say you go in liquor store and you show you r Id to the salesman, who is actually an undercover cop, you just committed a felony. They can only prosecute you if there is a sign in the window in plain sight that says employees may be posing as undercover cops.
How do they know if it is fake? They usually don’t. Chances are you if you own a fake Id you probably showed it to a cop and just didn’t know it. It has your picture on it. Say in a rare case they raido it in to their headquarters. If the person’s birth certificate you used is of age you’re free to go. Oklahoma is trying to cut down on the number of underage drinkers in bars. They do random bar checks. I had the opportunity to do a ride along with the Norman PD for an assignment I had last semester. We went to several bars. He walked around to random people and asked for their Id. I saw some of my friends in the bar that I knew were nineteen years of age. They all produced their fake Id’s. The officer said thank you and left the bar. This method is a waste of time. They have also stiffened the penalties for possessing a fake Id. They say you can go to jail and be heavily fined. One of my friends recently got caught with his fake Id. He went to court and received far less than what they claim they would do. He had to write a letter to all the people in his fraternity saying how much trouble you will get into if you get caught and have them sign the letter. This just showed that if you get caught you might have to write a letter. What can Oklahoma do to cut the number of people getting and using fake Id’s. If you start at the source, the tag agency, you could almost eliminate the problem. If you make the person show three forms of identification there isn’t any way you could get one if it isn’t really you. Another way is to start putting holograms on the driver’s license. That would be impossible to scan on a computer. You could do like Texas and put a magnetic strip on the back. That would be hard to duplicate. There are several things you can do. Why hasn’t Oklahoma done any of these? It might just cost too much or they have more important things to spend their money on.
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