Quietly, the federal government has moved forward with its plan to implement REAL ID, a national identification card that every American will be forced to have in order to enter a federal building or board an airplane by next year.
The official deadline for states to comply with the REAL ID Act is Oct. 1, 2020. The legislation was passed in 2005, and implementation has been stalled for years due to state-level resistance. After playing the waiting game, the feds have settled on next year to enforce their unconstitutional legislative mandate.
Analyst Peter Earle of the American Institute for Economic Research explains that state-level efforts to resist REAL ID are futile, and all will be forced to comply due to federal aid being tied to implementing the onerous scheme. Earle believes these “internal passports” are another step toward the destruction of privacy rights by Big Brother.
“With various electronic, social media, and cellphone tracking measures, there is always a delay; and one can choose not to use social media, not to own a cellphone, and opt into other methods of extricating oneself from the prying eyes of the NSA or other government agencies. But the Real ID — in particular, coupled with biometrics — fulfills Orwellian conceptions of the total surveillance state,” Earle explains.
Earle makes some dire predictions about what will happen as a result of these REAL ID cards becoming mandatory:
“I will here make two wagers — both of which I sincerely hope to lose.
First, within five years of the establishment of the Real ID program (October 2020, or whenever it is ultimately established) either a forgery, an enforcement error, corruption, or some combination of those will lead to its sterility in preventing (or commission of) the very forms of terrorism or crime it portends to. Something awful will happen despite (or perhaps employing) the Real ID cards and program. At that point, revocation will not be an option: “reform,” taking the form of increased funding, a larger bureaucracy, and quite possibly greater legal restrictions will instead be piled on.
Second, within ten years of the establishment of the Real ID program it will be required to purchase tickets for and/or board trains and buses that cross state lines. It may also be required at tolls and state crossings in personal vehicles.
I hope both of those predictions are wrong, but as Americans we have been here before. Liberty has yet to win out over increased security despite the ineffectiveness of each and every such tradeoff to date.”
With systemic abuses like NSA ubiquituous spying, civil asset forfeiture, the war on drugs, and facial recognition databases coming from the federal level, it is clear that Big Brother is in full effect with individuals being virtually powerless to resist its machinations.
