Will You And I Have To Carry A National Identity Card That Controls And Possibly Prevents Our Personal Travel?
These conflicting thoughts came to mind because this article is about the efforts of both the previous Republican administration of President George Bush and the present Democratic Party-dominated government of President Obama to pass national legislation making our present State Driver’s Licenses the equivalent of a national identity card. Given computer technology, such a national identity card would permit the federal government to monitor and control the movements and activities of every individual in this country.
Among other things, a national identity card could conceivably prevent you and I from boarding an airplane, entering a government building, driving an automobile or even paying a simple telephone bill without presenting a plastic card containing a computer chip giving our social security number, age, address and many other personal details about us.
Our story seems to begin on September 11, 2001 with the terrorist air bombings of the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington D.C. The response of our government in D.C. was the Patriot Act and the formation of a Homeland Security Department, placing limitations on American citizens that presumably would inhibit the planning and carrying out of more terrorist actions.
Among these governmental actions in response to 9-11 was the introduction in early 2005 of national legislation called the REAL ID (Identification) ACT. REAL ID was quietly added to the very end of a military spending bill providing the Defense Department with additional monies for Iraq and Afghanistan as well as aid efforts for the victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The new addition passed without discussion because it was tied to the popular “support the troops” spending bill. REAL ID contained all the obnoxious provisions of a national identity card mentioned above. There was a deadline of December 2009 for States to ratify the bill.
Last night, in researching another subject, I came across notice of this deadline. I began to wonder what had happened to this deadline. Using my fast Internet connection I googled REAL ID ACT. On my computer in Joshua Tree, California, I was able to read the actual bill, all the references in the pages of the Congressional Record to this legislation, and the reactions of many State Legislatures and civil rights organizations to the Act, etc.
What I learned was that 24 State legislatures had passed strongly-worded resolutions saying they would not submit to the dictates of the federal REAL ID Act. In addition, I learned that many other State Legislatures have been moving in that rebellious direction. Many liberal organizations, such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), also had issued strong statements against REAL ID. Similar opposition had been expressed by conservative organizations such as the Cato Institute. The politicians in state government were so influenced by this rage from both Left and Right that they were forced to oppose REAL ID. The legislation, therefore, was effectively dead. However, the December 2009 deadline still remained on the federal books.
In January 2009, the new Obama administration and a new head of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, took office. By February 2009, Secretary Napolitano began to suggest that the failing Real ID ACT and its deadlines should be replaced by new legislation called PASS ID. However, in July through September 2009, the ACLU, CATO and many other organizations, again from extreme conservative to extreme radical, came out against PASS ID saying “Cosmetic changes should not be allowed to resuscitate this ill-advised law…Beyond creating a National ID, both the bill and the law invade American’s privacy, endanger victims of domestic violence by failing to adequately shield their addresses, raise fees associated with identification cards, expose consumers to identity theft and fail to boost security.”
However, because of the recent huge attention paid to the health bill, there has been little coverage of this issue. PASS ID may be still alive in the present Congress and may still be supported by the Obama administration even though it will cost billions of dollars to implement.
My research indicates that PASS ID may well become the law of the land in the future unless there is continued significant opposition.
Therefore, this writer recommends readers going on the internet, googling PASS ID to better familiarize yourself with the issue than I can do in this brief article and sign up, according to your own beliefs, with one or more of the organizations opposing this dangerous legislation.
Meanwhile, please note that I started this article by saying, “This story seems to begin on Sept. 11, 2001.” I actually believe this story begins several years before the end of World War Two, possibly by 1943. At that time the Nazi government of Germany began to realize they were losing the war. That probability led the German leaders to begin secretly sending billions of dollars and thousands of undercover fascists into North and South American corporations and organizations. This huge amount of investment into American society was designed to keep the fascist program for changing the world on target even after the Nazi’s lost the war. The full story of this secret invasion is told in a factual and well-researched 2008 book by Jim Marrs titled “The Rise of The Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten To Take Over America.”
If Jim Marrs is correct, this means that right now there are secret agents of European fascism buried deep in American government and American corporations.
If Marrs is correct, and he probably is, the discussion of such issues as converting driver’s licenses into a national identity card is really part of a much larger discussion about whether the United States will use its computers to be more democratic or more totalitarian. The choice is ours!
