ACTION ALERT: Spread the truth and defund the Real ID Act

c/o The 5-11 Campaign

Our economy and government are going through tremendous strains from financial and budgetary shortfalls.  In the past, this has worked to slow implementation of the deeply flawed Real ID program.  Real ID, like many federal programs, are headed for budget cuts. This would stop federal subsidies to develop local Real ID database hub infrastructure; which would be both insecure, damaging to privacy and civil liberty.

Many of you have been committed to actions which helped to combat a dangerous national ID card program in the US. Right now, we really need you to raise your voice again, to spread the truth and to ask Congress to defund Real ID.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) issued an opinion editorial to drive support for post 9-11 Commission recommendations, including increased enforcement of the Real ID Act.  Rep. Smith made an attempt to connect an adequately foiled terror plot of 20 year old Khalid Ali-M Alswsari in Texas as reason to sustain the Real ID Act. 

In this instance, the alleged plot was stopped cold by FBI agents simply doing their jobs. Smith is simply trying to drive scared people to ask Congress to continue the Real ID program, to create funding for it before the prospect of a government shutdown in March.

He also has the ideological support of the Heritage Foundation, a neo-conservative  policy firm, who is responsible for propagating the following myth.

Myth: Real ID will keep illegal aliens or terrorists from getting a license.

Fact: Illegal aliens have always found a way to get a license. In 2009, a ring in South Florida was arrested that included several driver license examiners that were bribed to issue licenses to those that were ineligible. It's worth noting this case was made via old-fashioned police work without anyone's rights being violated. The REAL ID Act does not require people to submit anything with a photo on it (except a passport used in lieu of a birth certificate), so if you borrow or steal someone else's papers, you can obtain a REAL ID compliant license. Source: Floridians Against Real ID

Do not let your friends and neighbors be misled into support for a national ID card program. If Congress votes for budgetary support for the Real ID Act in 2011, it would further establish infrastructure for the US surveillance state.

Please send this notice to your friends and contact your Congressional leaders asking them to please defund the Real ID Act.

Your effort contact may be the one that makes the most difference.

You can make your mark by doing the following.

1. Find the contact for your congress members here. 
2. Call your congressional leaders via phone, at the district office closest to you.
3. Write your congressional  leaders. Compose an e-mail.  After sending, print a copy and mail it to the local office. 

Here is a suggestion of what you could write.

Dear Representative/Senator,




The Real ID Act was declared "dead" in 2009 by Secretary Napolitano, but DHS continues to keep trying to fund it.


In this time of stretched budgets and fiscal crises every penny counts.  Please vote down legislation which enforces government waste on programs opposed by over 25 States.  Such is the case with the Real ID regulations. 


Please work with legislators who have aims to defund this national ID card program, in exchange for deliverable reforms which don't waste our budgetary resources. 


Sincerely,


[YOUR NAME HERE] 

Real ID Report on Florida House committee hearing

c/o 1787 Network Reports 

"REAL ID: Final Regulations"

c/o NCSL

"States were required to certify compliance to DHS by May 11, 2008, or request an extension until Dec. 31, 2009. All 56 U.S. jurisdictions have received an initial extension. To merit a second extension through May 11, 2011, states must demonstrate material compliance with REAL ID—meeting many or all of 18 benchmarks—and by Dec. 1, 2014, must begin issuing REAL IDs to applicants born after Dec. 1, 1964. The reissuance process for all driver’s license and identification card holders is to be completed by Dec. 1, 2017. During any extension, the state’s non-REAL ID-compliant driver’s license and identification card will be recognized for federal purposes."  :::MORE HERE:::

SEE ALSO:  @12:00 NH State asks about RFID profits

"New Internal Cavity X-ray Technology for Airports"

"Opposition Forces In Pennsylvania Moving On REAL ID"

Why Schweitzer is not on good terms with "nullification", and why that's okay.

10th Amendment proves useful even if no one says anything about using it

BTC Commentary -- Our Constitutional Bill of Rights are being perpetually scrambled, challenged and re-challenged. The name of the political game is to get you maneuvered out of your rights. Why should a battle over your 10th Amendment be any different?

The 10th Amendment is about powers reserved to the States. States have it and States use it. However, they seldom make a public or corporate ceremony about invoking use of the 10th Amendment. However, when states do a corporate move to kick a federal law back to Washington it is called nullification.

Governor Schweitzer recently publicly knocked the principle of nullification.  Loud, patriotic belly bursts of declared independence over States' rights doesn't go over so well with Democrats.

However, he had no problem exercising his State's right to dump federal regulations of the Real ID Act over the rails. He just didn't dare say out loud, "I'll be invoking my 10th Amendment now." He simply did it.

Wisconsin union workers who overran the State capitol recently with protest signs and vigils didn't say, "I am  now using my 1st Amendment rights".  In similar fashion, Ollie North said, "I can't recall," instead of "I plead the 5th." And in the same manner 25 States across the nation showed DHS they weren't implementing Real ID by the federal deadlines, footing the expense. This was nullifcation by action versus a direct corporate ceremony with one chief or constituency taking credit.

Shortly thereafter, the Tenth Amendment Center stated, "The United States just nullified Real ID by the right of the 10th Amendment!" And it was true.

It seems invoking the 10th Amendment right is something Democratically led States can't be openly proud of. In fact, it is seen by some Democratic interests as almost amoral or at type of political impropriety.

How could a corporate use of the Bill of Rights be considered immoral?

The first reason is strictly political pragmatism. Many Democrats consider it "immoral" for States to opt-out of federal tax strategies. Any move against government solvency structure by a State is sacrosanct. States have to pay tribute to keep Caesar's lights on. Otherwise, there is no grand government plan which can be sustained to serve the plebean hosts.

The other reason is quickly explained by Urban Dictionary's definition of State's Rights:

1) A reference to the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

2) A code word that politicians use to signal to racists that they too, are racist. Used in the past to signal that you support segregation and Jim Crow laws.

When Strom Thurmond said he believed in State's Rights, he really meant that he wanted to keep segregation legal in the South.

If you believe in States' Rights but want to pass the Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, you are a hypocrite. 

The simple answer is that the racist south abused the 10th Amendment.

THE CIRCLE OF STRIFE

Fast forward to 2011, Americans are suffering with not just expensive government but really poorly executed government, with bad policy, resulting in the passage of blatantly unconstitutional laws. These laws don't serve the long term interests of The People they represent. Corporations hire lawyers, which negotiate PAC service fees to elected officials, legislations are filed and passed; which then return regulatory contracts and business to their corporations. It's the new normal and the legislative circle of life.

When a bad federal law is passed, State regulatory reforms are then bureaucratically dumped on State leaders desks. They are then expected to robotically comply because "IT'S THE LAW." Each State negotiates how bad is too bad, weighing federal consequences to its residents.

State leaders had a succession of rude awakenings in 2007.  Federal reforms became completely invasive to citizens once federal wiretapping laws like FISA took anchor, following train with the Patriot Act. Homeland Security started federalizing local police forces and then sought to issue a national ID card to each citizen in 2008.

By 2009, we inaugurated a bi-racial president, but we have significantly less rights as Americans to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Have we lost the forest for the trees?

It is very obvious the federal government is not recovering important Constitutional boundaries, as promised, when Bush left office. In fact, the furrows grow deeper and the power grabbing grows closer to a totalitarian state as Obama seeks to silence whistleblowers, institute a kill switch for the Internet and use federal intelligence to surveil peaceful dissent.

States have to be thinking quietly about the rights of their citizens and aspects of life they once enjoyed without federal intrusion.

Some States are beyond thinking. They're beyond talking. They are using powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States; [which] are reserved to the States respectively, or to The People.

That's using the 10th Amendment. When several states use it for similar reasons, it's called nullification.  I think some citizens of Montana don't care much what you call it; as long as they don't get a national ID card or any other federal measure going against the best interest of Montana.

Governor Schweitzer shouldn't get mired down in owning the term "nullification".  It's not like nullification will be an evasive option for Montana in the future.  Someone will always dance to the cheesy piccolo tunes tweeted by the tri-cornered hat constituencies; he doesn't have to.

I'm sure Montana will accept powerful action over political rhetoric any day.

"New Texas legislation pitched as stalking goes high-tech"