ACTION ITEM: Can you prove you're not a terrorist?

BTC - Better late than never. Downsize D.C., ever faithful in the anti-national ID fight is this weeks D.I.Y Government OPEN LETTER which is due a blog entry. Use it or lose it.

c/o Downsize Dispatch

The REAL ID Act has punished innocent Americans with red tape, higher fees, and lost privacy. Some in Congress want to add to these burdens.

Let's stop them! Please tell Congress to repeal REAL ID and oppose any further attempts at creating a national ID card.

You may borrow from or copy this letter . . .

What is the purpose of REAL ID?

* to prevent terrorists from boarding planes, even though there are an infinite number of other ways to engage in terrorism

* to prevent illegal immigrants from getting driver's licenses - which only increases the likelihood they will drive without ever being tested, creating more dangerous roads http://tinyurl.com/yf5r595 [GOLD STAR coverage c/o FLOGGER, Jim Harper]

Why should either (misguided) goal interfere with an American citizen's attempt to renew a driver's license?

REAL ID is working exactly as I thought it would. It punishes innocent Americans like me with red tape and higher fees by forcing us to "prove" we're not terrorists or illegal immigrants.

In Florida . . .

* the driver's license fee jumped from $25 to $48
* a woman was denied a license for failing to produce certified documentation of her first marriage, held in 1958 in Minnesota http://tinyurl.com/ykb4kud
* and a 68 year-old man's Rhode Island birth certificate that had been used to get into the Air Force, and to get a Florida license 20 years earlier, was rejected http://tinyurl.com/ylzyhct

Nevada has also been plagued by long lines with applicants turned away. http://tinyurl.com/yzgfex3

Meanwhile, two New York DMV workers were recently arrested for selling "authentic" ID's to criminals. http://tinyurl.com/yh7r7zm

This hardly inspires confidence that a nationalized ID system will stop terrorists and criminals from getting driver's licenses!

And yet the Administration and Congress are considering a replacement to REAL ID, the PASS ID Act, which will make it even easier for corrupt state employees to get access to my identity documents! http://www.realnightmare.org/about/114/

In addition, Sens. Lindsay Graham and Chuck Schumer want to force all American workers to carry a biometric ID card. http://tinyurl.com/yd83dwt

In other words, to hold down a job, I would have to be fingerprinted, enrolled in a national database, and possibly tracked.

I have had it! This is America! Americans shouldn't have to prove we're not terrorists, or that we're not illegal immigrants. I have the right to travel. I have the right to earn a living. I resent and reject any government program that presumes I must ask for permission.

I demand that you repeal the REAL ID Act and do everything in your power to oppose the PASS Act, the Graham-Schumer card, and all forms of national ID.

{END LETTER}

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