Real ID Facts
Rohrer Wounds Warning Against Real Id Act
Why Everyone Should Be Concerned About The Real ID Act
First of all, let me clearly state that I fully believe that terrorism poses a real and ominous threat to all Americans. However, as Benjamin Franklin once said, "They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Balance ion this type of debate, is of paramount importance. I fully recognize that a fine ine often exists between government protection and governement intrusion. However, rather than offering a viable way to track the "bad guys," this federal legislation, passed by Congress in 2005, interferes substantially with legitimate privacy rights of law abiding citizens without ever establishing a clear benefit for doing so.
This attempt to launch a national identification program is not the first of its kind. All previous legislative attemps to create this this type of system failed to rally sufficient support. However, under the threat of terrorism, this time the legislation passed.
Touted as a counter-terrorism measure the REAL ID Act was recommended by the 9/11 Commission to set national standards for state-issued driver's licenses, require all motor vehicle departments to keep copies of personal identity documents and force states to link their databases of individual driver information.
If these objectives sound harmless or even logical to you, I encourage you to keep reading. The REAL ID Act also stipulates that the Department of Homeland Security can mandate additional requirements, such as collection of biometric data, including fingerprints and retinal scans, to placing Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips in every American's driver's license.
Clearly an interlinked national database containing the confidential information of American citizens is already ripe for the picking by high-tech 21st century identity thieves.
Perhaps worst of all, the potential inclusion of RFID technology opens the door to all sorts of privacy violations, including giving the federal government unchecked authority to track your whereabouts any time, any place.
Failure to comply means that anyone, even U.S. citizens, not possessing a REAL ID compliant driver's license or other type of governemnt-approved identification will be unable to board a plane, enter federal buildings or obtain services from the federal government.
Again, as the REAL ID is viewed as the "primary means" to inhibit terrorism, it is highly possible that this card willbe required tender for anyone who wants to buy, sell or otherwise participate in American society or the economy.
If you have friends or family members who own a gun, are concerned about the spread of illegal immigration, attend church or even drive a car, I urge you to share this newsletter with them as well.
You Can Make A Difference
Let me assure you, the battle against REAL ID is far from over. The new federal ID card was origionally required to be implemented in each of America's 50 states by May 2008. However, the ongoing controversies surrounding REAL ID have resulted in the compliance date being postponed until 2013.
REAL ID Act: America's Next National Security Crisis
Proponents of the REAL ID insist that establishing a uniform national identification system will provide America with the most effective defense against terrorism that the world has ever seen, deliver unbeatable illegal immigration control and eradicate completely the crime of identity theft.
Unfortunately the facts regarding this specific proposal lead to a completely different conclusion:
- License to Terrorize: Make no mistake about it, confidential information will be compromised through the implementation of a national identity system. For example, Social Security numbers, license plate numbers and driver's license numbers do absolutely nothing to provide an accurate terrorist profile or determine evil intent and can be adapted, counterfeited and reproduced by domestic and international terrorists to complete their deadly missions. Because REAL ID standardizes driver's licenses, it makes it easier to duplicate licenses.
- State-of-the-Art Passport for Illegal Aliens: Similarly, some national security experts advancing the REAL ID as the "silver bullet solution" to end America's illegal immigration epidemic refuse to acknowledge or put into practice real world solutions that would actually fulfill the federal governement's constitutional obligation to secure our nation's borders against foreign invaders. Producing fradulent identification is a major key to success for any illegal immigrant who wants to avoid detection in the United States. Rather than forcing individual states to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue to implement the REAL ID, taxpayer dollars would be much better spent on other programs, such as building border fences or training local police to identify and prosecute illegal aliens.
- More Identity Theft, You Be: Computer and security experts around the globe have repeatedly gone on record stating that creating a single REAL ID standard will lead to even more rampant identity and asset theft. Centralizing personal, financial and medical data on one single REAL ID card guarantees convenient "one-stop shopping" for any technologically-savvy identity thieves.
Reagan Is Still Right About REAL ID
New American magazine in their July 9, 2007 edition reported that President Ronald Reagan opposed then U.S. Attorney General William French's proposal to implement a "perfectly harmless" national ID card system as well as a second cabinet member's proposal to "tattoo" a number on each American's forearm."
According to the former White House domestic policy advisor, Martin Anderson, the "Great Communicator" responded "My God, that's the mark of the beast," signaling an abrupt end to the national ID card debate during the Reagan years.
Unfortunately, due to the bipartisan endorsement by both Republicans and Democrats at the Federal ID, the REAL ID monster is again alive and well in the 21st century with the very realy capability to unleash a fully-functional and expandable national identity system which could be able to track the movements and activities of each and every law-abiding American citizen.
Opposing Sides Work Together To Derail REAL ID
It's not just Conservative-driven grass roots organizations such as Gun Owners of America and members of the "Christian Coalition" that continue to raise objections to final implementation of the Real ID Act of 2005.
A far-reaching and ever-growing coalition made up of hundreds of traditionally clashing organizations from the American Bar Association and the ACLU to the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the National Taxpayers Union are now standing together due to the following Constitutional and economic concerns:
- REAL ID is likely to conflict with any type of privacy, free speech, religious or other fundamental personal liberty protections guaranteed in each state's constitution.
- Real ID could overrule any state controls over what type of information can be included or excluded from state driver's licenses.
- With a standardized national machine-readable zone, REAL ID will make it even easier for police officers and retail clerks as well as unscrupulous credit card companies and telemarketers to access your most personal information.
- REAL ID offers absolutely no controls on what confidential data can be collected from driver's licenses, where and how long it can be stored and who is authorized or unauthorized to obtain, share, trade or sell that information.
- Moving well beyond the national driver's license registry, REAL ID is a key lynch-pin in the U.S. government's Security and Prosperity Partnership agreement brtween Mexico and Canada - a nonlegislative effort to form a North American version of the European Union.
- Not only would a Real ID jeopardize the privacy of every American citizen on a national scale, but it could easily establish an agreement with Canada and Mexico to provide equal and non-supervised access to your most confidential information as well.
- From an economic standpoint, such diverse groups as the National Governer's Association, National Conference of State Legislatures and the American Association of Motor Vehicles are predicting that the REAL ID will cost state governments no less than $11 billion to implement this completely unfunded federal mandate.
- According to the latest collaborative survey conducted across 47 states by the groups listed above, there are aslo hundreds of millions of dollars in unforseen costs such as the added time and effort citizens must spend in order to comply with their respective state's motor vehicle department.
- With an average of three to four identity documents per applicant and 80 million transactions performed annually, applicant processing time will more than double for citizens in most states - with waits in some areas increasing up to 200 percent.
- Several provisions under consideration by the Department of Homeland Security could also dramatically add to the increased taxpayer costs described above.
Consitutional Controversies: Will Gun Owners Say Goodbye to the Second Ammendment?
As Republican Chairman of the House Game and Fisheries Committee, I am deeply concerned about how the rights of law-abiding gun owners will be impacted if the REAL ID Act ever takes effect.
The Second Ammendment clearly states that our right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed upon. Thus, it is safe to say that Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and the rest of our nation's founding fathers would not even consider carrying around a biometric REAL ID card that would allow the federal government to instantly track their activities and whereabouts.
If Ben Franklin walked into his local gun shop, today, to purchase a hunting rifle, he would fill out the standard 4473 registration form and display his driver's license. However, under the REAL ID scenario, this routine transaction would significantly change.
Rather than simply reviewing and copying down some basic information from Mr. Franklin's driver's license, the store clerk would run his new RFID-equipped REAL ID card through a scanner so that his purchase was automatically recorded into both state and national driver's license registries.
Keep in mind, it is presently illegal for both state and federal governments to maintain any type of registry of leagal firearm purchases. However, the REAL ID Act will provide the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, FBI and state and local police an open invitation to not only "peek" inside and lcoate every recently purchased firearm in any law-abiding gun owner's cabinet, but to also access his or her most personal and confidential information.
Because the swiping of your driver's license would be required, the collecting and maintaining of your private information is very possible. Whether you are purchaing shells or bullets for hunting, recreational target shooting or self defense, the store will scan your REAL ID card, and your purchase will be permanently registered in the federal government's national driver's license registry.
In essence, the federal governemnt could have the ability to limit the number of guns and the amount of ammunition you are allowed to purchase or own. If you try to buy more than the government's approved ration, your purchase would be instantly denied by the national database.
In most cases, the names and confidential information of violent intruders will not show up in any database, including those made possible by REAL ID Act, because of one very obvious and logical reason: Criminals, illegal aliens and terrorists obtain their firearms illegally.
Just like all other types of gun control mandates, whenever the government is not properly enforcing the lawa that already exist to curtail violent crime, it is nothing short of an unconstitutional infringement to place additonal restrictions on law-abiding citizens whose only desire is to defend their lives, their loved ones and their property.
When Will Our North Carolina Legislators Step Up and Do What's Right?
Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington have all passed stautes or Resolutions to oppse the Real ID.
South Carolina recently joined the ever-growing list of states to flately reject the REAL ID Act of 2005. New Hampshire, Montana and Maine have also enacted rules of law that prohibit the implementation of the REAL ID in their respective states. Another dozen states have petitioned Congress to repeal the REAL ID. Eighteen additional states now stand in resolute opposition to any form of national identification.
It's time for our legislators in North Carolina to do what Representative Samuel Rohrer has done in Pennsylvania. Introduce legislation to prohibit the governer, the Department of Transportation or any other state agency from complying with any Provision of the REAL ID Act of 2005.