Rejecting National ID

The American Spectator has a good article on REAL ID: Rejecting National ID by Jim Harper.

With so many states on record opposing REAL ID, the feds have been shifting through numerous stories trying to justify their national ID. First, they said it was a national security tool. But by now everyone realizes how easy it would be for criminal organizations and terrorists to avoid or defeat a national ID system.

Then REAL ID became a way to control illegal immigration. But it has the same defects here too. Illegal immigrants will use a mix of forgery, fraud, and corruption at any motor vehicles bureau in the country to get around REAL ID. Driving illegal immigrants further into criminality deepens the problem rather than fixing it. And should law-abiding American citizens really have to carry a national ID to get at illegal immigrants? Just who is the criminal here?

Next, we were told that having a national ID was about identity fraud. But putting our personal information, Social Security Numbers, and basic identity documents like birth certificates into a nationwide string of government databases is a recipe for more identity theft, not less.


WHEN THE Department of Homeland Security came out with the final REAL ID regulations last month, a top official threw the department's final Hail Mary, suggesting that REAL ID could be used to control access to cold medicine. That's right: cold medicine. The lesson? Once a national ID system is in place, the federal government will use it for tighter and tighter control of every American.

Conservatives who love the concepts of individual freedom and limited government will do all they can to reject a national id card--not promote one.

Read more here.

Did Heritage Sell Out?

Liberty Author and Columnist John Longenecker objects to the Heritage Foundation’s position in favor of Real ID, America’s National ID Card:

"I’ve long admired the Foundation for its patriotism, and we are members," says liberty author and columnist John Longenecker, "But the Foundation’s position on Real ID is all wrong."

I've simply been amazed at how quickly my fellow conservatives are willing to undermine freedom of the individual, expand the power of government, and create a new electronic infrastructure for massive, arbitrary, and expanding regulations.

It seems that we are all afflicted with the "can't see beyond our noses" disease.

Solutions that undermine the principles of freedom are not worthy to apply to any problem.

Look Around: Smart Cards Integrated with Biometrics to Provide Cost-effective and Secure Solutions Across All Applications

National ID Cards are becoming all the rage in many parts of the world. Newswire Today! reports:

Industry participants in every part of the value chain are implementing smart cards integrated with biometrics on an open platform to ensure interoperability and ease of addition of future applications. Such long-term planning will ensure the survival of any integrated solution's implementation.

As such, there is immense opportunity for smart cards in the untapped markets in Asia. The widespread acceptance of new technology in the early stages is quite encouraging for smart card participants. System integrators have realized the need for proper planning and coordination in order to increase market revenue.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan (smartcards.frost.com), APAC Integrated Smart Cards and Biometrics Markets, finds that the market earned $249.1 million in 2007 and is expected to reach $822.2 million by 2013.

The market has already bagged numerous and significant projects such as the national ID and e-passport programs. National ID projects are the most active revenue generators for the market, since all governments in the Asia Pacific are looking at implementing biometrics along with smart cards.

A few national ID projects such as those of India's and Malaysia's have already started using biometric verification, while Japan's and China's are still at the planning stages. With many more countries looking at implementing national ID projects, and biometrics being one of the pre requisites for these projects, the market has good reasons to feel optimistic.

"The number of national ID projects that are in the pipeline in the Asia Pacific shows the huge potential for smart cards integrated with biometrics," says Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Navin Rajendra. "Furthermore, with the implementation of the e-passport program coming to an end by 2008, new issuance of passports by the countries under the U.S. VISA Waiver program will add significantly to the unit shipment growth."

What kind of governments make up most of Asia?

The United States of America has been different from the rest of the world in its clear concepts of freedom, federalism, and many other important concepts in the Constitution.

However, the politicians and population of the U.S.A. are increasingly willing to abandon those principles because of the immense power of newly applied technology.

I've always maintained that technology is usually amoral. The problems arise in how we use technology. A database society is going to challenge many of the principles that have secured American freedom for so many years.

The REAL ID Act creates, not just a "secure card," but a transformation of a license to drive our highways into a unified database network, ubiquitous scanners, and the ability to track Amercans in real-time.

When the State aligns every aspect of citizens' lives into one collective pulled by the will of the powerful--we don't have a free country anymore. We have to call it something else.

Look around.

Think again.

Read America's founding documents.

A Simple Question.

Mr. Chertoff has spoken of REAL ID's "countless other uses."

It is amazing that "conservatives" who promote "limited government" are setting up an electronic infrastructure for an avalanche of arbitrary rules--where a citizen's life is accessed by a REAL ID.

Our lives are reduced to a digital collective in which we live by constant, real-time permission of the federal government.

So my simple question is this: "If we have to 'check in' with the federal government in order to live our daily lives, how can we call it 'freedom?'"

Travelers to Europe May Face Fingerprinting

Washington Post.com posted the article Travelers to Europe May Face Fingerprinting:

The European Commission will propose tomorrow that all foreign travelers entering and leaving Europe, including U.S. citizens, should be fingerprinted. If approved by the European Parliament, the measure would mean that precisely identifying information on tens of millions of citizens will be added in coming years to databases that could be shared by friendly governments around the world....

The plan is part of a vast and growing trend on both sides of the Atlantic to collect and share data electronically to identify and track people in the name of national security and immigration control. U.S. government computers now have access to data on financial transactions; air travel details such as name, itinerary and credit card numbers; and the names of those sending and receiving express-mail packages -- even a description of the contents.

It seems that freedom is becoming obsolete.

The sad thing is that it was the Republicans that pushed REAL ID and other measures like the ones mentioned above. I'm a Republican. I'm a conservative. But even I can see President Bush's totalitarian tendencies. It is an ugly thing to see in conservatism. I'd expect it from liberalism.

Republicans should abandon all talk about the "Constitution" and "Limited Government."

They pay lip-service only.

How will Real ID affect you?

CNet News.com has posted an article entitled How will Real ID affect you? Here is a selection from the article. Everyone should realize that state and federal databases are being coalesced into one national network.

Where is the federalism?

Q: What kind of data will states share under Real ID?

Real ID will require states to share detailed information about anyone with a state ID card or driver's license, perhaps through a network called AAMVAnet, which the Department of Transportation is paying to expand in hopes of supporting the massive amount of data that will be exchanged. Databases owned by Social Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will also be integrated. (emphasis mine) The idea is that this will allow documents such as birth certificates to be validated online.

Many of the details remain unclear because Homeland Security has not made final decisions, including about whether to build on top of AAMVAnet or expand a centralized federal database already used for commercial driver's licensing. Computer scientists and privacy advocates unsuccessfully urged Homeland Security to reject Real ID as "unworkable" because of the security and scalability concerns.

Read more here.