Thanks to the ACLU, I learn that the following federal initiative is afoot:
The law would federalize the design, issuance and management of state driver’s licenses, creating a uniform identity card and database tantamount to the first national ID card. Residents of states that fail or refuse to comply with Real ID will supposedly be unable to use their driver’s licenses for any activity that requires federally accepted identification, such as boarding airplanes or entering federal buildings.
That is way cool. There’s finally a movement in the works to create something like a national ID card. We could all carry something in our wallets that could save our lives in hospitals, let us breeze through security at airports, prevent people from stealing our credit, help cops catch crooks, and go a long, long way toward solving this immigration issue that so many people seem to be so worked up about.
Of course, the ACLU’s against it. Here I am, thinking, "Why go around our posteriors to get to our elbows? Why not just go ahead and have a national ID card? Wouldn’t that be simpler administratively, and more likely to work, without so many moving governmental parts?"
And the ACLU’s having a total conniption over it.
So much good could be achieved in this world if the libertarian paranoids would just take it easy. I know they have their function, but a canary that passes out before you even get to the mine isn’t much use to anybody.
OK, so maybe I’m a little less concerned about privacy than I should be. Maybe a national ID wouldn’t be the greatest think since sliced pepperoni. But I think it would be pretty good. Why can’t we have a reasonable discussion about it, instead of starting from the assumption that it would be awful?
I realize this is a gut thing to a lot of people, maybe even most people. My gut’s never felt it. I don’t understand the fear, never have. Maybe I shouldn’t sneer and be so dismissive. But the nervous Neds at the ACLU just bring that out in me.
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Indeed. Europe has had them for decades. Plus, when someone moves to another county, whether they rent or own, they have to register locally. It’s in the the public interest that government knows where its citizens (and non-citizens, of course) live.
Except when the government goes bad!!
“Europe” has not had them for decades. *Some* parts of Europe have had ID *cards* and *some* population registers, some both. The UK and Ireland haven’t. Denmark doesn’t.
And most of those systems are just paperwork: a nuisance, a continual reminder the the state is boss and the citizen belongs to the collective, but not effective tracking mechanisms. They are not remotely the same sort of panoptic database scheme that is being promoted by the megalomaniac regimes of Hugo Chavez and Tony Blair – and big government fans everywhere. Such schemes were deemed unconstitutional in Germany way back in the 80s – though the present Chancellor is wriggling to find a way around the ruling.
Before you assume that a compulsory ID for everyone else will save *your* life in hospital ask some Emergency Room residents; see what security engineers think about it making your life easier at airports.
The airy positive claims made for such systems are always short on evidence. And their advocates never have an answer to why credentials locally secured by modern cryptography – *without* a central database accruing information and power – aren’t better.
The history, on the other hand, of abuse by governments and by organised crime of the capacity to track and investigate individuals is all too real. I’d suggest it is no coincidence that the most evolved versions of national biometric registers are to be found in the People’s Republic of China and the Arab nations of the Western Gulf, places where civil rights are an alien concept – and, like most alien concepts, rigorously suppressed.
I wish I had something intelligent to say on this matter. But I don’t, so I leave you with the the below space blank.
Six years ago I would have been with you Brad. Thanks to the Decider I’m a bit leery. With our government shredding the constitution at every turn (warrantless wiretaps, torture, suspension of habeaus corpus, etc.) we should move very slowly on this. The first time you get burned by government over-indulgence you may change your thinking. Just ask all those soldiers who witnessed atomic bomb explosions then came down with cancer how far they can trust their own government. Or the black men who were used as research guinea pigs for STD research back in the 50s.
I don’t dismiss the idea out of hand but we should move with great caution. This is an issue of trust and frankly right now my trust of the federal government is very low.
Bud, as recently as the 80s there was secret HIV drug testing on minority foster kids in DC.
“I know they [Libertarian paranoids] have their function, but a canary that passes out before you even get to the mine isn’t much use to anybody.”
That may be my favorite quote from anyone related to The State newspaper ever.
The ACLU can be extreme, but it has this one right.
I think there is a greater chance that an individual could be harmed by a corrupt or abusive elected offical, or a bad cop, than by a terrorist.
I think the insidious erosion of personal liberties under the Bush administration is a threat to the health of our nation. The Bush admnistration has lied to the American people repeatedly, and violated wiretap laws.
Look at how ruthlessly the Cheney gang tried to destroy Wilson, his wife, and anyone else who crossed them politically. They used anything at their disposal. I could fill a hardrive with recent stories of a government abusing its power.
When the feds first introduced social security numbers, they assured the public they would never be used for anything else, just an accounting of social security– and look what happened. SS#’s are everywhere. The national “ID” would be too tempting– it’s use and function would also expand.
I’d be in favor of making licenses more difficult to counterfeit of abuse, but a national ID has red alert written all over it.
Joe Wilson’s wife set him up with a trip to Nigeria, where he reported to superiors that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium for a nuclear weapon.
Before that real report came out, Wilson wrote a New York Times article, in which he lied that Iraq was not looling for uranium.
I was able to research and find that his wife was an employee of a CIA front company within about 30 minutes. It was no secret, as she was listed as an illegal donor to the Al Gore campaign in an FEC report.
A federal ID is not necessary.
Simply change a few laws:
* Deny federal highway funds to states who issue any driver’s licenses or ID cards to illegal aliens.
* Deny government contracts to any firm caught using illegal immigrants for labor.
1st offense – 90 days.
2nd offense – 180 days.
3rd offense – 2 years.
* Wages paid to illegal immigrants are not deductible on tax returns.
* No bank accounts for anyone who is not a citizen or legal immigrant.
* No bank transfers allowed by anyone who is not a citizen or a legal immigrant.
* Misdemeanor charges and fines for any accountant, lawyer or other person who helps an illegal alien prepare a tax return or file other false documents. That would result in suspension of CPA licenses and disbarment proceedings for attorneys.
Since many of the 9/11 hijackers were already on police alert lists, a positive identification would have stopped them at a lot of points prior to the actual hijacking.
The problem with immigration does not require a national ID card for honest citizens. We already have multiple valid ID cards.
The problem is
* businesses paying off politicians to let them bypass all our labor laws with illegal workers
* a government that winks at illegal aliens,
* Border Patrol agents that don’t even have a phone number to report illegal aliens,
* a system which arrests and releases over 1,000,000 illegals a year
* banks which issue credit cards and transfer billions in cash to suspicious characters who don’t even have to show an ID
* 12,300,000 people last year using false SSNs on W-4 and other IRS forms
* 22,000,000 illegals operating in the country right now
mark g — How about providing a short list of some ways you believe your freedoms have been curtailed. We don’t need the whole hard-drive, just a few of your best examples.
The Wilson thing doesn’t qualify. I have yet to hear anything about that that doesn’t sound like what I’ve always thought it was — a big, fat partisan spitting match, with one side having its own pet version of reality and the other having the opposite.
I ask this because we ran an op-ed piece Saturday from a local guy who talked about how we’re losing our freedoms, and never gave a single example. I think this is because the libertarians can’t come up with any.
We can disagree all day about what should be the legal status of "enemy combatants," with valid points made every which way. But the thing that gets me is that people keeping moaning that WE have lost our liberties, but examples illustrating that point are scarce.
So give us a couple of examples of how you have had your freedom curtailed, in a Bill of Rights sense, and we can discuss that.
I’m not just trying to put you on the spot. I just want to know what we’re arguing about. I see no curtailment of freedoms of the average citizen, yet libertarians seem to see them everywhere, but I don’t know what, specifically, they’re seeing.
This liberarian saw more curtailment of our liberties under the Clinton administration, some of which have been restored by Bush in his first term.
The Democrats are already sponsoring new legislation to confiscate firearms, raise taxes, outlaw some vehicles, outlaw smoking in private residences and businesses, etc.
Brad writes:
I ask this because we ran an op-ed piece Saturday from a local guy who talked about how we’re losing our freedoms, and never gave a single example. I think this is because the libertarians can’t come up with any.
Here’s my list:
1. I can’t play video poker in SC.
2. I can’t ride my bicycle through Ft. Jackson without showing a million IDs.
3. Freedom of speech and assembly have been compromised since I can’t protest the president when he comes to Columbia except in a so-called “free speech” zone.
4. We don’t receive receipts when we vote so our freedom to vote might be compromised.
5. Certain American citizens have been incarcerated without due process. Who’s to say American citizen ‘bud’ won’t be next.
6. It’s much more difficult to travel across the Canadian or Mexican borders.
7. If I call a friend in a foreign country the call may be monitored. The president has expressly said he has the authority to do that, even without a court order.
Our freedoms are being eroded slowly but surely. We should be very diligent in protecting our freedoms. They are oh so precious.
Here’s an important one that I left off my freedoms list.
I can’t smoke marijuana for medicinal purposes, even if my doctor prescribes it and even if my state allows it by law.
Don’t forget that Hillary recently proclaimed that she planned to “take” business profits and use them as she saw fit.
That would be the same Hillary who stole FBI files on her political opponents, had her staff build a political enemies database called WhoDB, tried to nationalize medical industries, confiscate firearms from honest people… and began her career working for the Communist Party USA in California.
Brad,
I’ve been busy and just now saw your reply.
First, regarding Bush, start with FISA, which specifically prohibited the NSA from monitoring communications into or out of the United States without a warrant. Asked why FISA needed to be circumvented, Bush said, “The FISA law was written in 1978. We’re having this discussion in 2006.”
In other words, the president felt he had the right to circumnavigate laws at his own retion simply because he thought it was outdated.
After the McCain amendment outlawing torture of prisoners, Bush said that conducting war is a responsibility ofhe executive branch, not the legislative branch— and that he would not be constrained by law. Torture is considered to be part of “conducting war” and can therefore be “authorized by the president” despite the amendment.
Last June, the Supreme Court said the Bush administration’s handling of detainees violated American and international law. And recently, prominent conservative lawyers joined liberal lawyers, and 30 law school professors, in a legal brief that claims the new military commissions law (that allows the military to hold detainees indefinitely and denies them the right to challenge their imprisonment) is unconstitutional.
I could go on andn on about Bush. But there are also volumes written about corrupt mayors who have abused power and destroyed enemies; bad cops and courts that have knowingly jailed innocent victims.
I’m not paranoid. I’m nonpartisan. I just believe we have to remain vigilant in protecting our privacy and our constitutional rights.
I don’t always agree with the ACLU, but I’m glad they are there. Citizens need to be vigilant; the press should be,too.
It’s easy to go on and on about Bush when you are making it all up, or parroting what the DNC Media fabricated and fed to you.
Clinton’s Domestic Spying
Under Clinton, we had the bank account spying program, Know Your Customer, which was stopped by public outcry.
We had the illegal registry of gun owners, which President Bush ordered destroyed when he took office.
Then we found that Al Gore had used $20,000,000 in discretionary funds to set up some front corporations and purchase personal data through Image Data, Inc. This included information from the SCDMV.
Then we found that Hillary had stolen hundreds of FBI files on her political “enemies”.
Bill set up a telecom interception on every American, not just terrorist suspects, through the ECHELON system.
Then, after Muslim terrorists blew up a string of buildings on U.S. soil, the Clintons responded with a surveillance program called VAAPCON…the Violence Against Abortion Providers Task Force.
According to the U.S. Justice Department, VAAPCON “was charged with determining whether there was a nationwide conspiracy to commit acts of violence against reproductive health care providers.” The more than 900 targets of all this surveillance included the Christian Coalition, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Women’s Coalition for Life, Feminists
for Life, Americans United for Life, the 600,000-member Concerned Women for America, the National Rifle Association,
the American Life League, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, and even then-Roman Catholic Cardinal of New York John O’Connor.
The Clintons, like other leftists, say they advocate “separation of church and state,” but a high percentage of the 900 groups and individuals targeted for state surveillance by the Clintons under VAAPCON were conservative – and especially Roman Catholic – religious organizations or leaders.
The left believes in separation of church and state unless the “Reverend” Jackson or Sharpton are running for office. Then its an non-issue. Or when Hillary is buying off black ministers with campaign money.
Or when Democrat cult leaders like Jim Jones or clegical dictators like Aristide are hiring Ron Brown’s PR firm to funnel money into Congress. No problem.
But let a minister assert that charity is the proper role of individuals, and that high taxes intefere with charity to the point of being immoral, and here comes the IRS to examine that church.
Lee, as you point out, it’s not a partisan issue– there are corrupt politicians on both sides of the ailse willing to abuse the rights of citizens. That is why citizens and the press need to be vigilant, and why the ACLU has this one right.
When the ACLU sided with the NRA against Janet Reno’s illegal dossiers on gun owners, did you folks think they were right?
Did you praise Ashcroft for destroying Reno’s illegal records?