STATE SENATORS have a funny idea of what information deserves state protection.

Last week legislators approved a bill to prohibit the sale of physicians' prescription information. Senators called this an important protection of personal privacy. Then they said it was A-OK for the federal government to create a national identification card, complete with a massive computer database including every driver's personal information.

The House had approved a bill rejecting New Hampshire participation in the federal REAL ID Act. That law would turn state driver's licenses into official federal ID cards. They already function as that, of course, but the law would make each license store driver data electronically. That data would then become part of a huge database accessible by thousands of government bureaucrats.

The privacy concerns are enormous. Washington could later require all sorts of additional information be included in the driver's license data, including fingerprints, Social Security numbers, etc. Having all of that personal information so vulnerable is asking for trouble.

The House understood that and passed a bill rejecting New Hampshire's participation in the law. The Senate killed the bill, saying the privacy concerns were overblown.

What does the Senate consider information worth protecting? Not your address, date of birth, physical description and driving record, but what types of prescription drugs doctors prescribe. The prescription data does not even include patient names. It simply lists what drugs each doctor prescribes.

Prohibiting the sale of prescription information is fine, for what it's worth. But as far as privacy protection goes, it is not worth that much. Preventing citizens' personal information from being compiled in a massive, vulnerable federal database is worth a lot.

New Hampshire had a rare opportunity to pressure Washington to improve the REAL ID Act. We should have taken it.