Topic: National Security
BOO!!!! The Department of Homeland Security has not scared us enough with terrorists to make us give up all liberty. Now it wants us afraid of the DHSby rtbohan
(Libertarian)
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
The Department of Homeland Security is a method by which the central government seeks to convince us to give up all liberties of the state government and of the individual citizen in return for supposed safety from terrorist attack..Since there is still some resistence, the DHS has resorted to threats. So far they have not been completely successful, but there are those who are eager to be subjects rather than citizens.
The latest scare tactic of the DHS has been used in an effort to bully the states into complying with, or at least making a firm commitmet to comply with, the Real I.D. Act. A number of states are not in compliance with the law, and a number of governors have announced that they do not intend to comply with it, at least until the national government agrees to pay for it. The D.H.S, announced that any state which had not complied by yesterday or applied for an extension to a date certain would find its citizens in a great deal of trouble on May 11. Citizens without the Real I.D. by that date would not be allowed to board airplanes, enter federal court houses, or apply for Social Security benefits.
The latest governor to announce the refusal of his state to comply with the demand from DHS was Governor Mark Sanford, of South Carolina.
Governor Sanford, who is a fiscal conservative and a believer in small government and states' rights, gave a speech in which he listed the reasons for his refusal to comply with the DHS demand. 1. The requirement for a federal I.D. has not been subjected to sufficient naational debate. 2. The requirement of the Real I.D. is an unfunded federal mandate. 3. The production of the Real I.D will increase waiting time and loss of productivity in the D.M.V. 3. It upsets the balance of power between the federal and state governments. 4. It requires the central stoage of personal information, increasing the likelihood of identity theft and invasion of privacy. 5. There is no proof offered that it will improve national security. 6. The South Carolina driver's license already includes sufficient visible and invisible security markers.
Governor Sanford went on to say that he was writing a letter Secretary Michael Chertoff informing him that he would not apply for an extension because the South Carolina State Legislature had forbidden compliance with the Real I.D. requirement. He said that he expected to be granted an extension without applying for one, just as the State of Montana had been earlier, and that he expected the next Congress to repeal the requirement of the Real I.D.
Secretary Chertoff did, in fact, respond with an extension since the South Carolina license is in 80-90% compliance with the requirements of the Real I.D. The extensions gives South Carolina until May 11, 2014 to comply. So much for the urgency the agency implied by its threat, so much for the need of the Real I.D. for any purpose other than the extension of federal power over the states and over the citizens.
The 20-30% of non-compliance of South Carolina with the Real I.D. requirements also raises questions about the intentions of DHS. The Real I.D. requires security tags which are visible to the naked eye, and others which can be read only under a black light. The South Carolina license is in compliance with both of these requirements. But the DHS wants other security tags which can be read only in a laboratory. Nobody can be so foolish as to believe that people will be required to wait in line at airports or federal court houses while their liecenses are conveyed to a laboratory, scanned and returned. The requirement for this kind of security tag makes sense only if their are plans to sweep up the residents of entire neighborhoods or grab people off the street and detain them until the laboratory scan can be run. So much for the Fourth Amendment.
Governor Sanford's speech drew both support and criticsm within the state. The U.S. District attourney announced that people would be allowed to enter the federal court house with a South Carolina driver's license after May 11 whether or not the state was granted an extension by DHS. The Airport Security Administration, a part of DHS, warned that there would be long lines and delays at the airports. But since South Carolina airports are small and serve relatively few airlines and few travelers it was not a particularly dismaying threat.
And Senator Lindsey Graham spoke out. He called the Real I.D. "an effective means of crackin down on the use of fraudlent documents like those used by the 9/11 hijackers....Real I.D. will also make it more difficult for illegal aliens...
"{In} this age of terorism we must secure the homeland...
"We can accomodate...national security...with the concerns raised by Governor Sanford and the state legislature"
The statement was greeted with applause by Brad Warthen of the The State newspaper of Columbia. Warthen of The State newspaper in Columbia.(www.thestate.com)
It is an interesting point that Senator Graham and Governor Sanford have both been suggested as running mates for John McCain. Whose name do you suppose was moved higher on McCain's list, and which name was scratched off?
The Democratic, and Republican and the Libeertain Party will each have their national conventions televised. Each of these conventions will have delegates, spread in their support among all the candidates who are supporters of liberty and defenders of the Bill of Rights. I think it would be appropriate if, in each of those conventions, those delegates put aside their differences and began a standing chant: ""No National I.D.! No National I.D.!, No National I.D.! No National I.D!...."
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2008 rtbohan, all rights reserved.
Published: Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Last modified: Wednesday, April 2, 2008
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As some of you may know, Mark Sanford worked closely with Dr. Paul serving on the Liberty Committee while in Congress. Governor Sanford is probably one of the better Governors we have had here in South Carolina and Senator Lindsey Graham is probably one of the most bought and paid for Senators we have had from the State since Reconstruction.
I applaud Sanford for his efforts to thwart the efforts of the federal government to institute a stratified citizenship of those who take the Real ID and those who refuse it. The Real ID was intentionally floated beneath the legislative radar without debate. It is just another attempt at subverting the Liberty of the Individual while justifying it as a security measure.
If you haven't guessed by now, The State can justify anything and usually does. Every action, every legislation, every act, every regulation and every war can and will be justified by The State even if there is no justification.
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2008 rtbohan, all rights reserved.