Month: August 2007

True “conservatives” have long battled an Orwellian national ID card, even while claiming that black-helicopter-wielding liberal one-world-staters would be imposing such a thing so as to presage the Number of the Beast being tattooed on our foreheads, etc.

Ironically, it looks like it’s an Republican administration that’s forcing the issue — or at least saying that anyone who doesn’t have such a card will effectively need to use a passport to fly on domestic airlines or enter national parks and the like. 

It’s all part of the Real ID act, passed by the Republican-led Congress at the Administration’s behest, laying down stringent requirements for states as to what their Drivers Licenses have to have on them and how they need to be validated — the idea being that if the Feds are going to accept DLs as valid ID, they have skin in the game as to how they’re handed out.

More than half the nation’s state legislatures have passed or proposed legislation denouncing the plan, and some have penned bills expressly forbidding compliance.

Several states have begun making arrangements for the new requirements — four have passed legislation applauding the measure — but even they may have trouble meeting the act’s deadline.

The cards would be mandatory for all “federal purposes,” which include boarding an airplane or walking into a federal building, nuclear facility or national park, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the National Conference of State Legislatures last week. Citizens in states that don’t comply with the new rules will have to use passports for federal purposes.

Good luck, giving the horrific backlogs in issuing passports these days. 

(Hmmm … weren’t “internal passports regulating travel” one of those things we used to ding the Soviets for?)

 “For terrorists, travel documents are like weapons,” Chertoff said. “We do have a right and an obligation to see that those licenses reflect the identity of the person who’s presenting it.”

So speaks our most likely next Attorney General, working under the assumption that anyone presenting themselves is assumed to be a terrorist unless proven (by a Real ID) otherwise.

“It is simply unreasonable to expect our border inspectors to be able to detect forgeries on documents that range from baptismal certificates from small towns in Texas to cards that purport to reflect citizenship privileges in a province somewhere in Canada,” he said.

Though, of course, we’re also talking here about border inspectors, not internal access to federal properties and facilities.

Just wait until you need a passport to enter a federal building.  There’s a nice way to disenfranchise a whole bunch of people.

The Real ID Act repealed a provision in the 9/11 Commission Implementation Act calling for state and federal officials to examine security standards for driver’s licenses.

It called instead for states to begin issuing new federal licenses, lasting no longer than eight years, by May 11, 2008, unless they are granted an extension.

It also requires all 245 million license and state ID holders to visit their local departments of motor vehicles and apply for a Real ID by 2013. Applicants must bring a photo ID, birth certificate, proof of Social Security number and proof of residence, and states must maintain and protect massive databases housing the information.

Given how awful the states have been in gathering and protecting such info in the past, what makes anyone think this will actually make us more secure in the future?

And, again, how many people are going to have problems with a photo ID (um … a drivers license?  irony, anyone?) plus birth certificate plus “proof of Social Security number” (a SS card? a pay stub?) and proof of residence (a utility bill?).  Does that mean that the homeless will become un-identified, un-“Real” people?

Those costs are going to fall back on the American taxpayer, he said. It might be in the form of a new transportation, motor vehicle or gasoline tax. Or you might find it tacked on to your next state tax bill. In Texas, Wyatt said, one official told him that without federal funding, the Lone Star State might have to charge its citizens more than $100 for a license.

Still more disenfranchisement.  Plus, more “Prove you are who you claim to be, and pay us for the privilege of doing so.”

Chertoff said there would be repercussions for states choosing not to comply.  “This is not a mandate,” Chertoff said. “A state doesn’t have to do this, but if the state doesn’t have — at the end of the day, at the end of the deadline — Real ID-compliant licenses then the state cannot expect that those licenses will be accepted for federal purposes.”

Which means no flying on planes, under the current rules, using your Drivers License.  Heck — wait until they pass laws requiring Real IDs for voting in Federal Elections.  Sure, it doesn’t have anything to do with security or terrorism — but what difference does that ever seem to make?

Feh.