DAVIS, California -- Department of Homeland Security officials got an earful Tuesday during a webcast town-hall-style meeting on the controversial Real ID initiative -- a federal government plan to standardize state-issued ID cards and link identification databases nationwide.
For its part, DHS made its case with little subtlety. "A fraudulent ID card in the hands of a terrorist is a weapon," said Barth, sitting under a projection of 9/11 terrorist Mohamed Atta's Florida driver's license. Barth signaled that DHS was still open to changing the rules based on comments, but he seemed exasperated with the criticism.
"We are trying to make sure no state is the weakest link in letting people do things they shouldn't do, whether that is boarding an airplane, or any other activity we want to prevent," he said. "This is not a national ID card."
(Read the rest of Ryan's article here.)
This is how bureaucrats think: "It works like a national identification card because it will be used for identification purposes by the national government. It acts like one database because all the databases are linked. The standards are uniform across the nation. But, believe me, its not a national id card.
A little honesty and a lot less double-speak would be refreshing.
Watching the men behind the table reminded me of where our freedoms have gone. They've been buried under the paper and computers of an endless sea of bureaucrats. I can hear the population give a collective sigh...
The problem with REAL ID is not cost. It is the undermining of our heritage, the loss of Constitutional thinking, and an unwillingness to make tough decisions where they really count--at the border and in the war on terror. It's just easier to use these problems as an excuse to bloat the power of government.
Federalism is a thing of the past. State governments are pretty much the front office to the federal government.
The presumption of innocence is becoming a thing of the past. We will soon be working on the presumption of suspicion (guilt)--until one is properly identified. Nothing American about this philosophy.
Freedom shrinks in direct proportion to the increase in the power of the central government.
Americans used to understand these things.
1 comment:
I watched the webcast, and almost nobody spoke up in favor of Real ID; a lot of people had very moving and emotional stories about why they were opposed.
I was excite that they took an email question of mine, although I was pretty disapponted in the response. Today's CNET article National ID card a disaster in the making echoes my point, and makes some other excellent ones.
jon
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