National ID Cards.

Call me paranoid, call me a conspiracy theorist , but I can't be comfortable with these type of things. What do you think?






Yet Again with the National ID
By Becky Akers
View all 8 articles by Becky Akers
Published 04/06/10

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Do you have your papers?

Fresh from their defeat in forcing national identity papers on us with REAL ID, the Feds are trying once more. Their plea this time isn't terrorism but immigration -- though they're pretty much the same, or so the State has convinced some Americans.

Introduced in 2005 to combat the waves of terrorists thronging our shores, REAL ID was supposed to thwart the bad guys by transforming our driver's licenses into a national ID card. We'd have submitted this card on demand to government's agents -- as do the victims in totalitarian regimes. Never mind that "almost no empirical research has been undertaken to clearly establish how identity tokens can be used as a means of preventing terrorism," according to Privacy International (pdf), or that "terrorists have traditionally moved across borders using tourist visas (such as those who were involved in the US terrorist attacks)" -- unless they "are equipped with legitimate identification cards (such as those who carried out the Madrid bombings)."

Governments itch to tag their subjects like so many cattle, on any pretext whatsoever. Ours thought it had a dandy excuse in the attacks of 9/11, and who can blame it? Many Americans would eagerly sell their few remaining liberties so long as a politician assured them that said sale secured the homeland. Ergo, the Feds invented a bogus link between terrorism and America's freedom from a national ID. They swore they'd prevent another 9/11 so long as we followed orders to carry "enhanced" driver's licenses.

Surprisingly, rebellion bloomed -- and this among states that have supinely obeyed any number of anti-constitutional decrees since 1865. Fifteen passed legislation prohibiting their DMVs from turning licenses into a de facto national ID; another ten officially denounced REAL ID.

No matter: the Feds slapped an alias on their failed legislation -- "PASS ID" -- and reintroduced it. But in case such cosmetics can't con us, a couple of senators are aiming at the same goal via another American bugaboo: immigration.

Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) propose to "reform" yet again the Feds' cruel and unconstitutional policies on immigration. Their charade prominently features a national ID card -- though this time it piggybacks on Social Security cards rather than driver's licenses.

"The plan calls for a big increase in immigration agents patrolling workplaces," the New York Times reports. The Bush administration already tried such raids; their inhumanity devastated whole towns, not just immigrants, and Obama's government supposedly discontinued them. But senators seldom boast an enviable learning curve. Graham and Schumer would also "require all workers, including legal immigrants and American citizens, to present a tamper-proof" -- that is, biometric -- "Social Security card when they apply for jobs."

In propaganda the Washington Post obligingly published, the senators themselves write, "A tamper-proof ID system would dramatically decrease illegal immigration, experts have said, and would reduce the government revenue lost when employers and workers here illegally fail to pay taxes." First, "there's no such thing as a foolproof ID system," as experts have also said. Second, "reducing lost government revenue" as a reason for national ID adds insult to injury. We should pack papers so the government can keep more of what it loots from us?

The senators also promise that though "we would require all U.S. citizens and legal immigrants who want jobs to obtain a high-tech, fraud-proof Social Security card," we're safe from bureaucratic prying because "no government database would house everyone's information." If you believe that, you no doubt believe as well that these politicians have only our best interests at heart, have studied rather than exploited this topic, and are competent to decide for us who our future neighbors, friends, and relatives will be.

For sure, Graham and Schumer don't have immigrants' best interests at heart. Indeed, whether immigrants can live here is determined solely by whether we can use them to "ensur[e] America's future economic prosperity." Ergo, the senators' "legislation would award green cards to immigrants who receive a PhD or master's degree in science, technology, engineering or math from a U.S. university. It makes no sense to educate the world's future inventors and entrepreneurs and then force them to leave when they are able to contribute to our economy."

Forget about those hungry, tired, and poor yearning to breathe free, the persecuted, the tortured, and the fact that the Constitution never empowered the Feds to control movements across the country's borders. If you can't advance politicians' nationalistic agendas, you won't find a toe-hold here.

The senators aren't content to menace only immigrants; they also threaten and penalize Americans who, unlike themselves, are productive: "Prospective employers would be responsible for swiping the [national ID] cards through a machine" -- and who pays for the gizmo? -- "to confirm a person's identity and immigration status. Employers who refused to swipe the card or who otherwise knowingly hired unauthorized workers would face stiff fines and, for repeat offenses, prison sentences."

Our rulers have spent the last 150 years ginning up fear of immigrants, pitting established Americans against newcomers, contriving a hobgoblin from which they squawk about rescuing us. They've succeeded so well that modern Americans happily don chains so long as it means immigrants wear them too. National ID, raids on offices and factories, a wall on our southern border: Nothing is too dictatorial when it comes to controlling migration -- including ours.

Schumer and Graham are betting Americans' fear of immigrants outweighs their love of liberty. Tragically, that's a winning wager.


Copyright 2010 Foundation for Economic Education

"I am not a number, I am a free man!"

better burn them state id cards that everyone has then and your drivers licensee to be sure....lol

SFxSTONER wrote:"I am not a number, I am a free man!"

and burn your social security card too...lol fuck it go all out and your birth certificate...

my point aint that we should be numbers, my point is that yall are too late....your a millions numbers to a million different people..agencies or whatever...all this stuff that people complain about now is dumb to me, you already have state government issued id's but na i can have a fed government issued id? whats that? i dont think this is that big of a deal, i think people should pick there battles...aim higher!!

side note...who wrote that? what affiliations does the writer have? sounds like the anti-government type, just by the type rhetoric used.

DONTxTRIP wrote:my point aint that we should be numbers, my point is that yall are too late....your a millions numbers to a million different people..agencies or whatever...all this stuff that people complain about now is dumb to me, you already have state government issued id's but na i can have a fed government issued id? whats that? i dont think this is that big of a deal, i think people should pick there battles...aim higher!!

It is kind of late but at the same time your making my point. Freedoms are taken away gradually, in small steps, not all at once, because it wouldn't work..People would rebel, so things happen in small steps so people do end up becoming comfortable with things.

and yes its always much worse when the Feds over step...Each level of government should have its own role and purpose...Handling things locally as much as we can would always be better IMO.

So your point seems to basically be, we should just give up now..na, thats not in me. Someone has to hold the line somewhere.

DONTxTRIP wrote:side note...who wrote that? what affiliations does the writer have? sounds like the anti-government type, just by the type rhetoric used.

Anti government, just the way I like it.

But to be serious, I'm not saying their should be no government at all, but someone has to hold the line at some point to keep it from getting too powerful.

ya ll thats true and i aint say give up, but pic a better fight. something worth fighting about. when a real freedom is being takin away, this id card thing doesnt seem like much...and i was just askin bout that writer cuhz the language used can be a lil put offish, whether making good points or not....