Real ID Act a Real Intrusion On Rights, Privacy

Real ID Act a Real Intrusion On Rights, Privacy

By BOB BARR

12/02/08 "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution" 06/02/08 -- - -With the announcement last month by Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff of the final implementing regulations for the much-delayed Real ID Act, the debate over this thinly veiled national identification card project moved into high gear.

The federal government for several years now has been fighting a guerrilla action with citizen groups and a number of state legislatures over imposing on the states and the citizenry this privacy-intrusive and costly mandate. With the announcement Jan. 11 of the final regulations, the debate is fully joined and pits those who support the principle of states’ rights against the legions of Big Government advocates.

Big Government advocates are personified by the current Bush administration, favoring central control of virtually every facet of activity in our society, from education to transportation and from the plumbing in our bathrooms to the bulbs in our lamps. While the Real ID debate shares some elements with its sister debate concerning voter ID, mixing the two as if two sides of the same coin dilutes the host of fundamental constitutional concerns and responsibilities affected by the Real ID Act program now being forced down the throats of the states.

Let’s leave aside for the moment the underlying federalism question — where does the federal government get the power to dictate to the states who can get a driver’s license? — to focus on civil liberties that would be undercut by the Real ID Act.

If, as proposed in the law, a person must have a Real ID Act-compliant card in order to access a federal building, access any regulated or interstate mode of transportation, or obtain any federal benefit, then we have surrendered to the federal government (that is, federal bureaucrats) the power to deny citizens all manner of activities guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Consider:

* A person not possessing a Real ID Act-compliant identification card could not enter any federal building, or an office of his or her congressman or senator or the U.S. Capitol. This effectively denies that person their fundamental rights to assembly and to petition the government as guaranteed in the First Amendment.

* A person seeking to exercise their right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment could henceforth be denied that ability if they do not possess a precious Real ID card, because the federal bureaucracy known as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives probably will decree that such a form of identification is necessary to meet federal requirements for purchasing a firearm.


* Very possibly the Real ID card will be required in order to vote in any election for federal office.

more...

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19349.htm

I'm constantly reminded of how Naomi Wolf tells us that's how it happened in Nazi Germany.

"We're still free. We can go out to dinner, see whatever movies we want, go wherever we'd like..."

Just wait.

:cry:

I'm glad to see that states and citizens are fighting against it. It's a bogus un-American piece of crap legislation that belongs on the scrap heap along with DHS, TSA and a host of other departments and legislation created under this cabal.