Well, after writing both my senators this past spring, I was disturbed to hear that the RealID Act of 2005 passed the Senate yesterday with a 100-0 unanimous decision. Apparently it was attached to the Iraq war funding measure… and any Senator worth their salt wasn’t going to come off looking like they didn’t support the troops; so it passed.
I normally don’t go crazy paranoid about laws that the government passes, but some of the language in this provision is so out of line with basic constitutional rights, it’s not even funny.
Let’s start with the obvious… if you don’t have a complying identification, how are you going to be treated when you go to the airport? Will you even be allowed on the airplane? What happens if you don’t show a proper or complying ID when travelling. These questions are real, mainly because the bill made no provision for who would pay for the implementation of this law; leaving it up to the states to decide. So… basically, 50 individual entities are now responsible for implmentation of a set of rules that they are not receiving any funding on.
Then there’s the old “withholding of federal highway funds” for states who fail to comply. Right… so now when a state doesn’t want to participate in a program that’s been shoved down their throats, they get extorted into compliance…
Being from North Carolina, I am wondering how long it will be before I can’t leave the state, because my state is going to be one of the last to achieve compliance, due to both recalcitrance and lack of funding. I mean, I doubt I am going to have a standardized ID card issued to me anytime soon, so I guess when the drooling moron at the TSA gate in the airport looks my ID and boarding pass over, they’re not going to let me on the plane.
Here’s the text from my letter to both Senator Dole and Senator Hatch that I wrote this past spring… I received no response:
I read today that the house has passed the Real ID Act of 2005, HR 418. As a fellow Republican, I am certain that you can appreciate the fact that this bill is repugnant in both its methods and decisive in its actions to remove some very basic freedoms which both states and individuals rely on. When this bill is brought before the senate, as a constituent, I urge you to please vote against this bill.
Specifically, the clause barring judicial review of actions taken (once adopted as a law), and the linking of federal highway funds to participation in the programs stipulated by this bill, are unacceptable stipulations.
I heard a quote made by some of the congressmen yesterday stating that some of the 9/11 terrorists had valid IDs. I do not understand how the presence of a law such as this would have allowed anyone at the airport from keeping these terrorists from boarding an airplane. In fact, from what I can tell, none of the terrorists were even attempting to disguise who they were when they committed these acts. This is not one of key their methods of operation.
Taking rights away from the states, the way that this act if passed, will do, is totally unacceptable. DMVs have traditionally been under the purview of the states. Mandating how the states will operate their DMVs is just another attempt by the Federal government to seize powers granted to the states by the US Constitution. Federal withholding of highways funds is tantamount to extortion.
Allowing the department of Homeland Security to take actions under this law, and not allowing those actions to be subject to any sort of review or claim defies and circumvents the US Constitution and can lead to potential violation of both state and individual rights with no recourse or protection.
Again, when this bill makes its way to the Senate, please vote against it.
So, I guess we’d better get ready for that famous phrase we used to joke Eastern Europeans about… your papers please…
