Real ID

A National ID card and database. National ID cards are identification cards controlled and enforced by the US government. Far worse though, those cards represent the surface of a database that violates your privacy on a scale unprecedented in history.

• A $23 Billion Deception.
Homeland Security's estimate of $23 billion dollars to create this national ID system is probably off by $5 billion dollars...

• A Waste of Our Time.
Time is precious and waiting in line at the Driver's License Bureaus is an example of wasting time to comply with ineffective government bureaucracy.

• One Stop Shopping for Criminals and Terrorists.
All this information will be available to any DMV worker, anywhere in the country. The data on your license or ID card will be able to be called-up by any federal or state agency, anywhere.

• A National Gun Registry.
Gun registration will be eventually tied to the database.

• A Threat to Freedom.
"Your Papers, Please" is a phrase from the Soviet Union or a banana republic not a phrase we expect to hear in a free country. ID checkpoints will become commonplace - they will be disguised as seat belt checkpoints, ICE enforcement, or any of an assortment of safety checkpoints.

• A Blight on the US Senate.
The US Senate never debated or discussed the REAL ID Act. It was never debated in any committee or on the Senate floor. Most of the Senate never even read the bill. Yet they passed it unanimously to please a powerful Senator (Representative James Sensenbrenner (R) of Wisconsin) who attached it as a rider to the military spending bill HR 1268.

• Creation of a Megadatabase.
Databases that were once separate requiring individual warrants and permissions for access will now be linked. It is the creation of an open-ended database. A file with all your private information will be created and over time linked/expanded to include: copy of your birth certificate, social security number and account details, driver's record, home address, phone numbers, email addresses, parents and sibling information, associates information, medical records, educational records, political affiliations, travel data, arrest and conviction records, gun registration data, credit history, biometric information (particularly facial characteristics), fingerprints, and we expect will eventually include a copy of one's DNA.

• Enforcement Methods.
It is the methods by which our government implements its policies that particularly concern us. It is the transition to a Police/Surveillance/Database STATE that is most shocking and dangerous. This country survived 200 years of war and strife without turning into a totalitarian regime; our current security crisis is no excuse. Fundamentally, the United States Government has two choices to battle current threats. The first choice is to empower its citizens to be vigilant and be able to respond appropriately. The second choice (being implemented) is to control and to render powerless its citizens.

• Real ID is Unconstitutional.
With the REALID Act the Department of Homeland Security has been granted the power to waive all law in implementing its policies. Congress has created an agency above the Constitution.

"Each time we give up a bit of information about ourselves to the government, we give up some of our freedom."

- Former US Senator Sam Ervin

"We have enormous freedom. That's not a gift that was given to us, it's a legacy that was left to us by centuries of struggle. By centuries of people that most of whose names are completely forgotten, the ones who created the freedom and the rights we now have, and that will be taken away unless you constantly defend them."

- Noam Chomsky