IDP Affiliate UnRealID.com reports the latest REAL ID outrage:
“The Department of Homeland Security plans to outsource REAL ID implementation to third-party data aggregators, according to official DHS documents.”
get the full scoop at http://www.unrealid.com
The Real ID bill that was sneaked into law last year is getting pushed by head totalitarianism czar Michael Chertoff. Slashdot readers are unimpressed. State legislators throughout the US will be considering bills to either ban Real ID or to implement it in 2007. We suggest writing to your state representatives, asking them to ban it in your state. It will cost billions, it will hassle every ordinary person (you’ll have to produce original birth certificates and such to the DMV again — and any paper that’s out of order will mean endless harassment), and the basic premise is wrong in two ways. One, the federal government can’t tell us citizens that we’re not permitted to travel, or go to court, without its permission; those are RIGHTS, not privileges. Second, the federal government doesn’t have the authority to demand that the states revise their IDs; that’s a state power. The reason the federal government doesn’t have either of these powers is to guard against totalitarian rule from Washington. All hail Czar Chertoff! (Those who don’t salute will be blacklisted).
The DHS has been illegally operating a scheme for at least four years that assigns a terrorist risk assessment score to any American who crosses the border by air; and retains all the data used to generate the score for 40 years. The “Automated Targeting System”, which DHS Chertoff has described as “righteous”, has been operating illegally for several years, despite a specific ban by Congress on any and all risk assessment scoring on US citizens.
The time to speak out against this illegal, un-American program is now. DHS is trying to paper-up it’s illegal scheme by publishing a notice in the Federal Register.
We’ve set up an easy way for you to submit your comments without having to navigate the Byzantine labyrinth that is the Federal Register. Simply click here to be taken to a user-friendly submission form.
The comment period closes December 29th, so now is the time to have your say.
Rejecting the objections raised in comments by the Identity Project and others, the DHS Bureau of Customs and Border Protection has ordered that all travelers between the USA and Canada, Mexico, or other countries in the Western Hemisphere, where passports weren’t previously required, will have to present current valid passports to enter or leave the USA by air or sea, effective January 23, 2007.
“Your papers, please!”
Orders applying the same requirement to travel by land across the U.S. borders will follow, no later than June 1, 2009.
In issuing its final rule and an updated (but still grossly inaccurate) assessment for the “Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative”, the CBP summarily dismissed all of our objections based on international treaties and human rights laws protecting the freedom to travel:
Comment
One commenter stated that the NPRM [Notice of Proposed Rulemaking] is contrary to U.S. obligations under international human rights law, free trade agreements, and U.S. statutes, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Charter of the Organization of American States, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the NAFTA Implementation Act, because the rules restrict free movement of people in the Western Hemisphere.
Response
By requiring a valid passport as an entry document, DHS and DOS are not denying U.S. or non-U.S. citizens the ability to travel to and from the United States.
So I guess they mean that as long as they give us permission to travel, they can impose whatever restrictions they feel like on how, when, or where we are allowed to travel, or what papers we need to show them in order to get their permission?
The new UK Identity and Passport Service will publish an action plan for its RFID national biometric ID card scheme next month, and procurement will start next summer. ZDNet story, MK News.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Blair spoke in support of mandatory ID cards, while the Tory opposition party pledged to abolish ID cards. The No2ID opposition organization is finding and opposing the new interrogation centres being created to administer the scheme. They also have some fine T-shirts and stickers.
I received a political hit-piece today from one of the candidates for California Secretary of State. It says:
“When you rent a movie at the video store you have to show ID.
Why shouldn’t you have to show ID to vote in California?
Secretary of State Debra Bowen
Bruce McPherson wants is AGAINST
to require ID at the polls. requiring ID at the polls."
In case you had any doubt before, papers please! readers now know who to vote for.
And for Mr. McPherson, a clue: We shouldn’t have to show ID to vote, because some people who have a RIGHT to vote do not have an ID. You can’t take away their right to vote, just because they decline to have an optional ID card.
Clue #2: A mandate that every citizen must obtain an ID and present it to exercise their constitutional rights is, in legalese, a “licensing scheme” for imposing “prior restraint” on those rights. The process for obtaining those IDs is going to have to meet constitutional standards for prior restraints. It doesn’t even come close, today.
Addendum: Mr. McPherson lost the election.
Press reports say that China will no longer allow people to post to the Internet under pseudonyms without registering their “real name” with the government.
But that could never happen here. We all know that there is no requirement to register your real name or address with the government before being allowed to exercise any of the rights in the Constitution. At least those in the first two amendments. Right? Wrong.
The National Animal Identification System is a system by the US Department of Agriculture in which every farm is “registered” with the federal government and that every animal on every farm is tagged by some method, and has its movements tracked for life in a federal database. “These methods could include radio frequency identification tags, retinal scans, DNA, or others.” NoNAIS.org is a good source of information opposing the plan.
Just like TSA’s tracking program for humans, Registered Traveler, and the State Department’s chipping program for humans, RFID Passports, NAIS is “voluntary” now but planned to become mandatory. Various states, such as Texas, have already passed laws requiring farms to register for it. USDA is honest enough to admit its plan:
No mandatory regulations have been “initiated”, but lots of other actions have been. Many small farmers have been threatened by state agriculture agents with big fines or the slaughter of their animals if they refuse to play along. And you can be sure that all the lessons learned about how to tag and track every animal will be re-applied to tagging and tracking every human.
Alaska struck the first legal blow in the fight against a national ID card by refusing to pass legislation to bring the state in line with REAL ID requirements.
The bill, SB-189, breezed through the state’s rubber stamp Senate before being killed by a duo of freedom-loving legislators in the House of Representatives.
Who are these heroes of the Bill of Rights? Front and center is Rep. Paul Seaton of Homer, a commercial fisherman and Chairman of the House State Affairs Committee. Through his leadership and by voting against fellow Republicans, Rep. Seaton killed SB-189 and beat back a last minute attempt to resurrect the bill by his party. The party paid him back by killing most, if not all of his own bills.
Assisting him in fighting-off REAL ID was Rep. Max Gruenberg of Anchorage, the former House majority leader when it was under Democratic control. Rep. Gruenberg worked across party lines to make sure that this piece of un-American legislation died on the vine.
The Identity Project is proud to have been involved in testifying before the State Affairs Committee and providing the information needed to make sure that the oppression of a national ID card never hits the shores of the Last Frontier.
Alaska has said ‘no’ to a national ID card: which other state will love freedom enough to follow in their footsteps?
The Denver Post reports that the RTD bus system is proposing to reroute three bus lines which currently go through the Denver Federal Center. These buses will be routed around the Federal Center so that their passengers will not be harassed by Federal marshals and rent-a-cops to cough up an ID card or be arrested.
Two other routes that terminate in the Federal Center will continue.
“RTD attempted to resolve the dispute in a way that would allow buses to continue passing through the federal campus, but inconsistent enforcement of the ID requirement made the bus service unpredictable for commuters, agency spokesman Scott Reed said.”
Passengers and employees who wanted to ride buses to the Federal Center will have a long walk or an extra transfer to make.
The federal government has never offered a rationale for demanding that people show their papers in order to visit federal property. People who enter are not checked against any kind of list, nor are their names or identities recorded. A mere show of submissiveness, e.g. flashing any plastic card of the right color, usually suffices. There is also no law that requires people to show their papers to enter federal property; in fact, the law states that federal property is open to the public during business hours. This hasn’t stopped the Gestapo from imposing their own made-up rules.