REAL ID: The Republican/Democrat duopoly’s latest assault on liberty
Does your driver’s license have a star on it? If it does, then you’re now a part of the Republican/Democrat duopoly’s war on liberty under a program launched by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2005 known as REAL ID Act.
Though allegedly created to improve airport security in post-9/11 America, REAL ID is just another next step toward the creation of a surveillance state — a primary objective of the new Trump administration — that will give government the ability to track your every move.
As anyone paying attention should know since 9/11, the Republican/Democrat duopoly rarely launches a full-blown frontal attack in their war on liberty because their intentions would be too obvious. Instead, the strategy they typically use is one that mirrors the advice Screwtape gave his nephew Wormword in the C.S. Lewis novel, The Screwtape Letters.
“Indeed, the safest road to hell is the gradual one, the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”
The beginning of this road to hell is the REAL ID Act. Created to establish federal standards for driver’s licenses, the law requires everyone applying for a driver’s license to provide the DMV with their social security number, proof of legal residence, and two proofs of their home address. Additionally, the REAL ID Act gives DHS the authority to mandate, as it sees fit, the inclusion of additional items to put in the government database, such as various “biometric” identifiers like retina scans, fingerprints, and DNA.
The Republican/Democrat duopoly denies that the REAL ID turns state driver’s licenses into national ID cards capable of giving government the ability to spy on Americans because states have no mandate to implement REAL ID. However, history shows us that REAL ID is only one piece of government’s puzzle.
In January 2018, then-Rep Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) introduced a 400-page monstrosity called the Securing America’s Future Act (SAFA) of 2018 (H.R.4760). Covering everything from education and the workforce to Homeland Security and the military, the so-called immigration bill contains a tiny little detail about biometric identification that should give pause Constitution-loving Americans — a National ID card that would be required for everyone.
Though the bill failed, it would have established a mandatory national identification system that would be required to be carried by every American. This new card was intended to have the capability to carry biometric data such as fingerprints and retina scans, and if it had been implemented, it could be used as a tracking device and be required to hold a job, open a bank account, or get on a plane.
According to Ron Paul, SAFA gave the government many liberty-killing powers:
- It would have allowed federal bureaucrats to include biometric identification information on the card, potentially even including fingerprints, retinal scans, or scans of veins on the back of hands, which could easily be used as a tracking device.
- It would have been required for all US workers, regardless of place of birth, making it illegal for anyone to hold a job in the US who didn’t obtain an ID card.
- It would have required every employer to purchase an “ID scanner” to verify the ID cards with the federal government, meaning that any time a citizen applied for a job, the government would know.
- They would have ultimately required “ID scans” to make routine purchases, as well.
National ID cards that contain biometric information have been proposed many times in the past as part of immigration reform without success. However, in the current political climate under Donald Trump, it could be successful this time around — especially when you consider his handling of his so-called border crisis in the past and his established reputation of disregarding the Constitution when it comes to the immigration problem in the present.
Any doubts about his intentions are answered in the video below from his 2016 campaign:
“We will finally complete the Biometric Entry/Exit Visa Tracking System which we need desperately. It will be on land, sea, and air. We will have a proper tracking system.”
Though the Securing America’s Future Act failed to pass in 2018, another “crisis” arrived at time that turned America into a testing ground for digital biometric IDs — COVID. That’s when Jared Kushner and his father-in-law worked on the creation of what became known as a Patriot Act for healthcare. Kushner’s plan was to form government/private sector partnerships and create a new “surveillance and data collection system” used to track Americans infected with COVID. One of those partnerships with Apple and Google led to the development of new hardware and software capable of giving Trump exactly what he wanted — a way to make the names, phone numbers, and locations of people anywhere in the country available to the government in real-time.
One of the few victories for liberty during COVID tyranny was the failure of plans like the Patriot Act for healthcare. However, the capabilities of REAL ID now and in the future means that we could see a return of days when preventing Americans from participating in “normal” life unless they can prove they are “fully vaccinated” against whatever future “pandemic” comes down the road.
Once the initial intentions of REAL ID are established, government will likely begin requiring REAL ID for other activities as well. For instance, we could see transportation authorities at the state and local level offered financial incentives — taxpayer funds — to make REAL ID a requirement to use public transportation.
According to some pro-Second Amendment organizations, REAL ID could be used to monitor gun owners since there’s nothing in the law prohibiting the Department of Homeland Security from requiring REAL ID for firearms purchases — a real possibility in an age where many in Washington have been clamoring for a “national emergency” declaration concerning gun violence. Use of REAL ID in this manner would give Big Brother Washington everything it needs to establish the national gun registry it has been working on for years.
And here’s another way REAL ID will lead to digital ID (via ABC 10). The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will accept digital identification in some cases when Real ID enforcement begins May 7. If you already possess a Real ID and download a digital version of that identification — it’s compatible at Real ID checkpoints, a TSA representative told ABC10. If your ID is not Real ID-compliant and you download a digital version of that identification, it is still not Real ID-compliant.
In the aftermath of 9/11, we’ve been witnesses to the death of liberty in the name of “safety.” And while it’s easy to point the finger of blame at Democrats and the Far-Left, Donald Trump and the Republican Party have worked hand-in-hand with them to lead us down the road to tyrannical hell.
Like just about every other piece of “safety” legislation coming out of Washington from the Republican/Democrat duopoly post-9-11, REAL ID will do nothing for safety. It will, however, do a lot to destroy liberty — which is what they had in mind all along.
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative and the author of The New Axis of Evil: Exposing the Bipartisan War on Liberty. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties.
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