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Wipe that smile off your face, America. The electronic devices don't like it.

Four states, Virginia, Arkansas, Nevada and Indiana, now require "neutral expressions" on driver's license photos.

The reason: The electronic devices that are supposed to scan the photos to determine whether somebody has stolen your identity may not recognize you with a smile on your face.

So when citizens from Richmond, Little Rock, Vegas or Gary show up for Happy Hour in Greensboro, don't expect them to look happy. They'll have to look sober to match the photos on their driver's licenses, which they must produce to prove they're of drinking age in North Carolina.

With all due respect to the folks in charge of driver's licenses in those great states: If those devices are that dumb, why are you using them for such a sensitive task?

Why not make use of those gadgets they use on CSI. When Eric or Calleigh submits a fingerprint to the recognition machine, it quickly pops up a "match," complete with color photo. The perps are seldom smiling, but you wouldn't smile either if you knew everything you touched was going to retain an image of you that could send you up for life.

I try not to smile too broadly for my driver's license and passport photos, knowing that my smiling face bears a remarkable resemblance to the image of Alfred E. Neuman on the cover of Mad magazine. Still, I don't want to appear too glum. When a cop clocks me at 75 mph between High Point and Kernersville, I want to greet him with a pleasant smile that says "You don't really want to ticket me, do you? I'm the guy who donates $10 each year to the Highway Patrolman's Association."

It's the same with passport photos. When I go through the border checkpoint into Lower Slobbovia, I want the guy who admits me to perceive me as a mild-mannered representative of the country that sends Peace Corps volunteers to build homes and schools, not the truculent giant that growls, "Embrace democracy or we send in the smart bombs."

I always try to present a courteous face at international borders. As I traveled across Eastern Europe in the era of Soviet domination, I was careful to remove my glasses each time the guard scanned my passport and my face. I wanted him to know right away that I really was a peace-loving American citizen and not a spy trying to enter his country and steal his nuclear secrets. I also hoped he wouldn't notice that the signature on the passport had been forged by my travel agent when she had to replace my old expired passport at the last minute with the new one.

As we all know, passport and driver's license photos are notorious for distorting appearances, but the people who card us are adept at detecting fraud. I can't tell you how many times clerks at ABC stores have looked at the driver's license I produced for ID and asked, "May I have your autograph, Mr. Neuman?" They may confuse me with a Mad magazine celebrity, but at least they know that the image on the license matches the image on my face.

Not so those electric eyes that can be thrown off by a flicker of a smile.

I am often exasperated at the degree to which American business is bent on replacing human senses with electronic senses.

Miss Peggy and I use closed captioning to watch television, because our natural ears aren't as sensitive as they used to be. The closed captions on most programs appear to be generated by electronic devices designed in India and programmed to interpret standard English for ears accustomed to Hindi. It is also possible that they are transcribed by the Alabama clerk-typist who once interpreted "Teutonic" as "two-tonic" in a telephone message about the origins of the English language, and who took a message from a reader complimenting me on the column I wrote about "Rustomatics." No, it didn't refer to the transmission in an ancient Oldsmobile; it concerned former Gov. Lester Maddox of Georgia.

Whenever my computer balks at connecting me with the Internet (and it happens frequently), I dial the number for tech support and steel myself for a powwow with the Indians -- the folks in Bangalore who solve AT&T's glitches. But before I reach the geeks on the Ganges, I have to negotiate with a synthesized voice that asks me to explain my problem.

I have yet to reach a synthesized voice that can understand me when I say, "When I click on AOL, the little guy who runs across the bottom of the screen stops midway and refuses to budge." And it's impossible to find one that can comprehend, much less respond to, a follow-up question.

"I didn't understand that response," says the synthesized voice.

Of course not. It has tin ears.

The next time I go down to the Division of Motor Vehicles to get photographed for my driver's license, I plan to spend an hour or so conversing with that electronic gate-keeper and its computer-literate associates on the subcontinent. After that, I'll guarantee you I won't be smiling for that photo.

Readers may write to Gene Owens at 315 Lakeforest Circle, Anderson SC 29625, or e-mail him at Swampscum2@aol.com.