Mention national identity cards, and absolutists on the right and left go into a tizzy. "It'll be like Nazi Germany," say the liberals. "America will be indistinguishable from the Soviet Union," warn the conservatives. This is hysteria.Nothing like a little ad hominem slap to get your thinking started.
Is Senator Sununu a nut? Is Sen. Joseph Lieberman hysterical? What about the many state legislatures standing opposed?
Is it not concerning that Mona Charen wants to turn private-sector transactions into background checks?
If every person staying in any hotel anywhere in the United States had to produce his national ID, it would be far easier to catch illegal aliens.I think many conservatives despise illegal immigrants so much (and I oppose illegal immigration), they are ready to trade off our heritage of freedom just to deal with the issue. Apparently such a trade is easier than making tough decisions at the border.
Finally, Charen displays her desire to be more like Europe:
When you travel in Europe, most countries require that you produce your passport in order to stay at a hotel. Information about every guest is reported to the police.
"Information about every guest is reported to the police."
But rest assured, Mona Charen says, national id cards won't create a police state...
This is simply amazing.
(I left a comment at her post. I regret my typographical errors there. Oh well...)
1 comment:
The biggest humdinger of a lie yet has to be given to the Heritage Foundation. I guess when Cato came out against REAL ID, they had to find someone else to schill for it. Here is an outrageous post by Heritage, that ALL states now comply with REAL ID! http://www.heritage.org/Research/HomelandSecurity/wm1886.cfm
Really, this is outrageous. NO states currently comply with REAL ID. Zero, none, nada. The REAL ID final rules are very clear that to be REAL ID compliant, that it is not enough just to meet the standards. You also have to get the official DHS 'symbol' on the license (it will be an eagle, or star, or what not). You have to ask for approval. In fact, DHS has said they may designate one license as compliant, even if it is materially less secure than another, just because the one state asks for the approval. That is crazy, but putting that aside for now, NO state has officially asked for this seal, and no license has it.
No state can comply with REAL ID as well because some of the databases that would be required for REAL ID compliance aren't even in existence yet.
Is what Heritage really trying to say here is that all 50 states have been granted an extension on the REAL ID deadline, and so are 'complying with REAL ID'? This is even a huge stretch, as asking for compliance does not legally commit states to going along with REAL ID in the future. In fact, many extension letters explicitly said so. In other cases, such as Montana and South Carolina, they wrote letters saying they were not going to comply, and DHS chose to take those letters as states asking for an extension (Gov Schweitzer called this DHS choosing to call a horse a zebra).
Heritage has lost all credibility on this posting. Are they getting paid for this? Are they hoping AP will pick up the story and spread disinformation? Does Chertoff's son in law work there now? We may never know.
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