REALID: HELLLOOOO??? SENATE PASSES A NATIONAL ID CARD...ANYBODY GIVE A DAMN???

RealID passed the Senate late Tues. tacked onto the $82 billion Bush asked for war operations.

The vote was 100 to 0. It was sneaked onto the appropriations bill with no debate.

The tight Homeland Security Dep’t regulations on states will require citizens to show 4 pieces of ID including birth certificate, utility bills, and your social security card to get a driver’s license.

Your personal information will reside in a chip in the new card. You won’t be able to do banking, pay IRS taxes, travel by air or Amtrak, or drive legally without this new license.

This is the pay-off given quacko Wisconsin Congressman James Sensenbrenner for letting the Bush’s so-called intelligence reform bill  he was holding hostage out of committee  last year. 

Besides being scary and unprecedented in America, it’s a huge, burdensome, unfunded mandate on the 50 states, most of whom are broke.

To be signed by Bush in a couple of days,  the law will be in effect in 3 years.

blatherWatch asks:

--why wasn’t this debated in either house of Congress, the media or anywhere else?

--Why is this buried today in the mainstream media?

--Where were the Democrats when this was passed? Patty Murray, Maria Cantwell? Ted Kennedy and John Kerry? 

--Where, for that matter, were true conservatives? John McCain?

--How about all you evangelicals worried about 666 stamped on your forehead? Comment please, Pat Robertson. Or is the Mark of the Beast OK when it’s administered from the Righteous-wing?

--Any Libertarians out there?

--any libertarians out there?

Here’s more from unrealid.com:

What Is 'Real ID'?
from the Hartford Courant, Oct. 30, 2001
On Tuesday, May 10th, 2005, the US Senate voted on the implementation of a national ID card system without ever debating the issue. The Real ID Act is nothing less than a Real National ID Act. The only thing left to the individual states is which pretty picture they will choose to put on the card: everything else will be controlled by Washington DC bureaucrats.

What does this mean for America?

1. Dead Cops.

The Real ID Act requires that you give your permanent home address: no PO boxes; no exceptions. What about judges, police, and undercover cops? Oops!!! Hey Senators, let's endanger our police and judges!!!

2. Stolen Identities.

Our new IDs will have to make their data available through a "common machine-readable technology". That will make it easy for anybody in private industry to snap up the data on these IDs. Bars swiping licenses to collect personal data on customers will be just the tip of the iceberg as every convenience store learns to grab that data and sell it to Big Data for a nickel. It won't matter whether the states and federal government protect the data - it will be harvested by the private sector, which will keep it in a parallel database not subject even to the limited privacy rules in effect for the government.

3. Government Spying.

Real ID requires the states to link their databases together for the mutual sharing of data from these IDs. This is, in effect, a single seamless national database, available to all the states and to the federal government.

4. Papers, Please.

If Real ID passes the Senate, our nation will join the ranks of the old Soviet Union, Communist China, and Vietnam by issuing its citizens a national ID card. The Machine Readable Zone may come in the form of a 2-dimensional bar code - but the Department of Homeland Security, which will be crafting the regulations implementing Real ID, has made clear that it would prefer to see a remotely readable RFID chip. That would make private-sector access and systematic tracking even more easy and likely.

This national ID card will make observation of citizens easy but won't do much about terrorism. The fact is, identity-based security is not an effective way to stop terrorism. ID documents do not reveal anything about evil intent - and even if they did, determined terrorists will always be able to obtain fraudulent documents

5. Unsafe Roads.

Once upon a time, a driver's license was a license to drive a motor vehicle. Turning driver's licenses into national identity cards will actually make our roads more dangerous: by barring illegal immigrants from getting a driver's license, Real ID means more illegal immigrants will now drive without any training or certification. Your insurance company is certain to be understanding.

What's wrong with the Senate?

The Real ID Act has never been debated on the US Senate floor. They've never talked about it in any committee. Heck, most of them haven't even read it! Yet they're planning to vote on it on Tuesday, no questions asked.

In order to make a single irresponsible Congressman with totalitarian leanings happy, the Senate leadership let him write the bill and then slipped it into a another bill, one that would keep our fighting men and women taken care of in Iraq and Afghanistan. Supporting our troops means making sure they come home to a free nation, not a surveillance state.

Comments

[sicktodeath]

This is outrageous..got to agree with you this time--and I'm a conservative. I don't think President Bush's intentions are bad, but he's not always going to be president, what if we get another Big Government democrat like Clinton in there?

[Scott]

Amazing - the GOP controlled Executive and Legislative branch coordinate a Big Brother - Big Government piece of legislation and we hear not a peep from the so-called "conservatives" on this issue.

I guess the lesson here is simple. The GOP is against big government intrusion in our lives....except when it's not!

[Fremont]

I, for one, am delighted to have National ID! As it is, ANYONE can fly a Cessna into DC airspace. Now, pilots will be required to show four pieces of ID before they can terrorize the nation. Hallelujah!!

[Rollup Gridd]

One set of my jewish grandparents living in Munich in the 1930's said, "...this is dangerous and frightening...". They left.

The other set of my jewish grandparents, living in Gottingen in the 1930's said, "...it can't happen here. This is a passing phase...". They remained in Germany until the late 30's.

Both sets of grandparents were educated,liberal professionals and educators. Both acted, or didn't, on their beliefs.

You guess which set had dead family at the hands of the Third Reich.

[Scrilla]

I've heard one real (local)conservative bash Bush on budget, immigration AND RealID.
Any guesses?

[blathering Michael]

come on, Scriller, don't be coy...

[Josef of Josef's Public Journal]

I support a voter ID card, but NOT this...

[3rd party voter]

>>"The Real ID Act has never been debated on the US Senate floor. They've never talked about it in any committee. Heck, most of them haven't even read it!"<<

Few, if any, read the Patriot act either. Then, during the last election, we were treated to KIRO commercials whereupon John F. Kerry said he "helped to write the patriot act". So we had a choice between the ultimate signer, bush and a guy that "helped write" that unconstitutional piece of crap.

Lots of Americans have been fooled by this charade for too long. There is no opposition party, except for 3rd parties. The Republicans do what the Democrats can't, and the Democrats do what the Republicans can't (i.e. Nafta) and the new boss looks alot like the old boss.

It's like a giant national WWF session. Grunt, Growl and groan in public and then scheme behind closed doors for the next match, while patting each other on the back.

Just ask Mary Matalin, ex aid to the Vice President, and her husband James Carville, one time Democratic "leader". They smirk and pout at each other on national TV, then go home and try to concieve another privileged child who will shill for more corporate sponsors. If Mary and James can't point out the fact that the "opposing sides" are really in bed together, what will?

And, in 3 short years, scads of people will sell out their convictions and principles and say "you are throwing away your vote if you don't pick one of the preselected corporate whores".

It's gonna get worse before it gets better.

Papers Please!!!! More appropriately, Paperien, Bitte!!!!