Score One for Us !

[Anonymous]

Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano signed a bill today that prohibits the implementation of the REAL ID in Arizona. SB2677 received a Final vote of approval in the House last week by an overwhelming margin of 51 to 1. Napolitano's signature was uncertain until today when she signed the bill into law.

The bill prohibits implementation of the REAL ID Act of 2005, which was passed by Congress as part of a supplemental spending bill for tsunami relief and the War on Terror. The bill did not receive a hearing in either the House or the Senate, and the public was largely unaware of it until it had already been signed into law.

"Everyone thinks that the REAL ID is just about protecting us against terrorism," said co-sponsor Senator Karen Johnson (Republican, eighteenth district). "But it really represents a cash cow for technology companies as well as the birth of the National ID card, complete with all the biometric information that technology can handle ­ face recognition, fingerprints, etc."

"Corporations which specialize in selling identity cards stand to gain millions of dollars in profits if the Real ID Act is implemented," said Johnson, "so, of course, they're eager for everyone to be required to carry a National ID card everywhere they go." Two of those corporations are Digimarc ID Systems and L-1 ­ the Number 1 and Number 2 companies for the manufacture of state driver's licenses and identity cards. L-1 is considered the main driver behind the REAL ID and last year had nearly $100 million in federal contracts involving identity cards. Digimarc spent $350,000 in the first six months of 2007 lobbying Congress on the Real ID Act. Apparently the two companies are soon to be merged, resulting in a powerhouse corporation, pushing the "identification-as-security" concept to the maximum in order to increase company profits as they add more and more biometric features to state driver's licenses.

"It's misguided to think that identification equals security," says Johnson. "Identification is just identification ­ it doesn't prove intent and it doesn't stop terrorists. Indeed, terrorists will forge documents ­ as they always have ­ to obtain the identification they want to commit crimes. Making U.S. citizens carry identity papers to board a plane or enter a government building stinks," says Johnson. "It's odious, onerous, and a violation of our civil liberties."

"I refuse to be tagged and numbered," said Johnson. "Requiring people to carry papers takes away their freedom. There are other, better ways to stop terrorism and to protect us against criminals. The federal government needs to butt out and let the states handle driver licensing. It's not the business of the Dept. of Homeland Security to tell us how to run our state."

More :
http://www.rense.com/general82/ariz.htm

:face:

 

[Carlos]

We were supposed to be up and running by now with REAL ID. A citizen was not supposed to be able to travel without one.

Scary thing.

 

[Ol'Dawg]

Yak,

That law probably comes as a result of Mexican govt. lawmakers going to Tuscon to protest and lobby over the new Legal Arizona Workers Act. The law states if an employer knowingly employs an unauthorized alien, the act requires that the employer’s business license be permanently revoked.

The Mexican representatives said Sonora couldn't handle the demand for housing, jobs and schools it will face as illegal Mexican workers in Arizona return to their hometowns without jobs or money after being deported from AZ.

My source--

Jim

 

[Anonymous]

That may well be, Jim -- at least in part.

But as concerns Congress, if you ignore what they say and pay close attention to what they do -- particularly to what campaign-contributing / lobbying interest groups end up with more money as a result of the laws it passes -- the rhetorical fog clears.

Heck -- Congress habitually imposes what are called Unfunded Mandates on the states themselves : forcing them to spend millions of dollars to comply with federal objectives, and over-riding state laws in the process. So long as the big contributors are taken care of, the actual people back home are of little concern to it. Witness, for an example, the wholesale changes in tax laws over the last 30 years that have been the death of American manufacturing.

Or take the government's non-response to Hurricane Katrina (and now the flooding in Iowa) as a practical example of how much "the government" cares about its "own" people. Money talks -- screw people.

Or take the Social Security cost of living increases that many elderly people depend on to survive. The current actual inflation rate, calculated by the original (honest) formula = 15 %. As calculated by Washington, what ? 2 % or 4 % ? (I forget). Screw people.

In light of the above, I may be forgiven the suspicion that the only reason the movers and shakers in Washington would care two cents' worth about anything in Mexico would be if the drug traffic were inconvenienced.

:face:

 

[PipeBrew]

Scary stuff, but even scarier is the I.D. chip that's implanted in the body. A card is just step one. At least, there's a few sane people left in this country.