BlueBloggin

Big brother has arrived. Welcome to the new America.

• (CNN) — Americans may need passports to board domestic flights or to picnic in a national park next year if they live in one of the states defying the federal Real ID Act.

• The act, signed in 2005 as part of an emergency military spending and tsunami relief bill, aims to weave driver’s licenses and state ID cards into a sort of national identification system by May 2008. The law sets baseline criteria for how driver’s licenses will be issued and what information they must contain.

• The Department of Homeland Security insists Real ID is an essential weapon in the war on terror, but privacy and civil liberties watchdogs are calling the initiative an overly intrusive measure that smacks of Big Brother.

• More than half the nation’s state legislatures have passed symbolic 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.

• “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.”

• Chertoff said the Real ID program is essential to national security because there are presently 8,000 types of identification accepted to enter the United States.

• “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.

This should get the attention of the anti national health care crowds who hate government interference.  Wait till they need an ID to take their RV’s to the Grand Canyon. Their brains are going to explode over this.

• Everyone must visit DMV by 2013

• The Real ID Act repealed a provision in the 9/11 Commission Implementation Act calling for state and federal officials to examine security standards for driver’s licenses.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

• New Hampshire passed a House bill opposing the program and calling Real ID “contrary and repugnant” to the state and federal constitutions. A Colorado House resolution dismissed Real ID by expressing support for the war on terror but “not at the expense of essential civil rights and liberties of citizens of this country.”

• Privacy concerns raised

• Colorado and New Hampshire lawmakers are not alone. Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier Foundation say the IDs and supporting databases — which Chertoff said would eventually be federally interconnected — will infringe on privacy.

• EFF says on its Web site that the information in the databases will lay the groundwork for “a wide range of surveillance activities” by government and businesses that “will be able to easily read your private information” because of the bar code required on each card.

• The databases will provide a one-stop shop for identity thieves, adds the ACLU on its Web site, and the U.S. “surveillance society” and private sector will have access to the system “for the routine tracking, monitoring and regulation of individuals’ movements and activities.”

Full article

Posted by nytexan1 August 16th, 2007 | Category: Chertoff, Freedom, Homeland Security, News, big brother, civil liberties, civil rights, national security, nationl ID | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL