Untinted Lenz
columnist: P Hedt

Topic: Government Regulation
Security Measures Deteriorate Civil Liberties

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National ID card will lead to a loss of civil liberties according to ACLU and Ron Paul

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by P Hedt
(Libertarian)
Monday, January 14, 2008

In 2005, Congress passed an act called the Real ID Act. The act obligates states to replace its citizens’ Drivers licenses and ID cards with a Federal ID card. The Federal ID card will hold everything about you in a little microchip and will be required to get loans, travel out of state, and drive vehicles. Without it, you will be required to get a federal border crossing card or a passport to go from state to state. The purpose behind the Real ID card is to catch terrorists and illegal immigrants. This amendment was supposed to come to fruition this year, but was tabled by the Senate and postponed for consideration in the 2005 Homeland Security appropriations bill last July. Recently, a revision of the act has been presented, only delaying implementation of the Real ID Act until 2011. The American Civil Liberties Union and Ron Paul have been diligently fighting against this. They argue that this act will violate our civil liberties and open the door for further infringement on our rights in the name of security.

When this act is established, in order to get a Real ID you will have to furnish a wide variety of personal information about yourself, from your name to your blood type. The act also allows the department of Homeland Security to gather biometric information on you, including DNA, fingerprints, and RFI's (Radio Frequency Identification). The Real ID card will gather even the smallest pieces of information about you, from where you go to what you buy. The ACLU and Ron Paul are both opposed to the Real ID and have fought it since it was first proposed.

In any society, the level of security is inversely proportional to the level of freedom a society maintains; meaning the more security measures we create, the less personal privacy and freedom we have. This then gives us two choices: liberty or security. The question is, does the security the national ID provides justify the sacrifice in freedoms we will have to make? To answer that we have to determine what freedoms we will be giving up. In response, the ACLU says, "Real ID poses serious privacy threats. The federally mandated IDs would hold machine-readable data of every American. That information would be stored in a national database available to government employees at all levels, putting every American at risk of identity theft and security breaches. Ultimately, Real ID could pave the way for a society that tracks Americans' movements and warehouses personal information in centralized databases that are rife with errors and highly enticing to identity thieves. Because Real ID promises to be such an integral part of our lives, from boarding a plane to opening a bank account to verifying your eligibility to work, a small glitch could have disastrous consequences." (www.aclu.org) We would be allowing the government to monitor our every move. (To read the Real ID Act document, please visit the Real ID Act at the Library of Congress website.)

So, what do we get in return? Security? The fact is, the ID cards can and will be forged. People will find a way around these ID cards and they will find a way to forge them.  Terrorists and illegal immigrants will not be stopped, only temporarily curbed, and the American people will suffer. Having this Real ID card will allow any government official access to our personal lives via a nation-wide database, including those at the federal level.  However, some people will still argue that the Real ID card is not a national ID card. In a "Texas Straight Talk" article, Ron Paul refutes this notion saying, "Proponents of the Real ID Act continue to make the preposterous claim that the bill does not establish a national ID card.  This is dangerous and insulting nonsense.  Let’s get the facts straight:  The Real ID Act transforms state motor vehicle departments into agents of the federal government.  Nationalizing standards for driver's licenses and birth certificates in a federal bill creates a national ID system, pure and simple.  Having the name of your particular state on the ID is meaningless window dressing." (www.house.gov/paul)  

As time progresses, our liberties are slowly dwindling and the federal government steadily growing. In recent years, especially since the tragic events of 9-11, this degradation has been significantly more marked, turning a linear equation into an exponential one. A disturbing example of this shows in a televised interview where Republican candidate Governor Mike Huckabee states, "...you change the atmosphere.  We put litter baskets up and ‘No Smoking’ signs up.  You help condition people’s behavior…then you bring about action, which means that you then codify the law to what has become the new behavioral norm." (Mike Huckabee vs. Ron Paul, time marker 1m 58s).

As Americans, we need to decide if what we’re getting is worth what we’re giving up.  Do we really want some government official a thousand miles away knowing what grocery store we shop at most often and the frequency of our visits? As ridiculous as this sounds, it could happen if the Real ID Act is implemented. Maybe only a few of us would care about our grocery store habits being public knowledge, but there is plenty of personal information we don’t want to share. Also, giving up our right to privacy leads the way to erosion of our other rights, such as the right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

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2008 P Hedt, all rights reserved.
Published: Monday, January 14, 2008
Last modified: Monday, January 14, 2008

The views expressed in this article are those of P Hedt only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. P Hedt is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.

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