Your Drivers’ License is now your ‘National ID’

End of Freedom Grows Nearer as Real ID Act is Signed Into Law

Commentary by Aaron Zelman and Claire Wolf

Publisher’s Note…

If you don’t believe what you read below, go to http://Thomas.loc.gov (Don’t put www in front of the http://). In the “Search Bill Text 109th Congress (2005-2006)” box, type in HR 1268; click on “Enter Bill Number”, and then hit the “Search” button. This will take you to a page that lists 6 versions of HR 1268. At the bottom of the list of versions, click on the hotlink version marked [H.R. 1268 ENR]. When you get that screen, page down to “TITLE II – Improved Security for Drivers’ Licenses and Personal Identification Cards.” Click on that link and it will take you to the full text of the Real ID law. Read it and weep!

On Wednesday, May 11, 2005, America grew nearer to becoming a true police state when President Bush signed HR 1268 (The Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief, 2005 Bill with the Real ID Act tucked neatly inside in bill) making it Public Law No: 109-13. And guess what? Your U.S. Senators voted -- unanimously, with no discussion -- to create a national ID card.

The Real ID Act blackmails state governments into turning their drivers’ licenses into a draconian tool of the federal homeland security apparatus. If states refuse, their citizens lose such ‘privileges’ as being allowed to board an airplane, enter a federal building, or apply for Social Security.

In three years -- by May 2008 -- this Stalin-style internal passport will be an American reality. But your government will have more control over you than Stalin ever dreamed in his most violent, vicious, anti-freedom dreams.

And that’s only the beginning.
The creator of the Real ID Act, Rep. James Sensenbrenner, smiles and tells us that his Real ID Act is all about “solving illegal immigration” and “preventing terrorists from entering the country.” This is one of the biggest of the thousands of lies we’ve heard from the tyrants in Washington. The Real ID Act is about tracking and controlling Americans. You. Me. Our children. Everybody!

In May 2008, barring a miracle, America as we once knew it will be in ruins. It will be gone. And the rights of gun owners will be among the first scheduled for destruction.

Gun Owners: Prepare to Resist

Here’s your future: You walk into a gun store, fill out your 4473, and show your government ID just as you now do. But instead of looking at your license and taking down some information, the clerk runs the license (which is likely to contain a radio-frequency ID chip) through a scanner. Your purchase is instantly recorded in your state drivers’ license registry. The federal government isn’t currently allowed to keep a gun registry. But no problem; the Real ID Act gives them an open door into your state records.

Complete information on every firearm you buy will be instantly available to every police officer (and possibly every government employee, store clerk, or computer hacker) you ever encounter. You’ll be an instant criminal suspect every time you deal with someone who has access to the database.

Just as travelers are encouraged to get background checks and give fingerprints to avoid some of the worst excesses of TSA screening, gun owners will be encouraged to get background checks and give whatever biometric ID the Department of Homeland Security requires. This will be sold as a ‘benefit,’ ensuring you’ll never again experience an ‘instant-check’ delay. In fact, Congress, the BATF, or the FBI might even ‘mandate’ 5-day or 15-day delays for anyone not enrolled in the Trusted Firearms Buyer program.

The private purchase ‘loophole’ will be closed, so that all gun buyers must make trackable purchases. (The ultimate goal is for every purchase of every kind to be trackable.)

Buying ammo? The store scans your national ID card and -- bingo! -- your purchase is registered in the state database.

The federal government or state governments will then be able to ‘effectively’ legislate limits on the amount or kind of ammunition you’re ‘allowed’ to purchase. Try to buy more and the database instantly rejects you.

The federal government or state governments will then also be able to ‘effectively’ legislate limits on the number of guns you may own. Try to buy more, and the database rejects you.

Eventually -- after the federal government ‘discovers’ the obvious, that the national ID won’t stop either illegal immigration or terrorism -- the old attack on ‘evil guns’ will resume. When they want your 50 caliber rifle they’ll know just where to find it (because the Real ID Act says your home address “must” be revealed). When they want your evil ‘scoped sniper rifle’ (you know, the one you hunt deer with), they’ll know just where to get it. Ditto with your ‘Saturday Night Special’ or your ‘assault weapon.’

If you don’t surrender your guns, well, then the Department of Homeland Security will cut off your driving ‘privilege,’ as well as your right to escape the growing police state via plane. You’ll be a prisoner in your own home, in your own country. Or you’ll be forced to function as an outlaw, operating and living a precarious existence beneath the government radar.

Paranoid? Or Are You Not Paying Attention?

You say these projections are ridiculous? That we’re paranoid? Well, frankly, if the Real ID Act doesn’t make you paranoid, you’re not paying enough attention. We ask you to consider the long-term impact of a few other ‘acts’ of government.

In the 1930s, Congress promised us that our Social Security numbers would never, absolutely never, be used for identification. Now, they’re the key to everything about us -- and without a Social Security number you won’t get a drivers license and you won’t even be ‘allowed’ to drive after May 2008.

In 1913, Congress and the media swore to us that the brand-new income tax would only affect the rich. Well, how rich do you feel after paying 40 percent of your income (or more!) in taxes?

This is the way government works. They’ve even got a term for it: “mission creep.” And there is no creepier mission than the mission the federal government has currently set itself upon: to track everyone, everywhere, and to control what we do.

We warned you in The State vs. the People that this was coming. That book is still relevant, still a good read, and still filled with information about what our future will be like in this new American police state. Be forewarned. Be aware.

Real ID: It’s the Law and It’s Criminal

George Orwell was the first to describe totalitarianism as a “boot stomping on the human face forever.” But in Orwell’s day Americans would have had a hard time believing that the law -- the good old, all-American legislature -- all those smiling Senators and ‘Representatives’ would be the ones to plant their iron heels in our faces. Back in those innocent days, we imagined tyranny would come from outside, not from within.

Well, tyranny is here. And it’s a gift from the very people we so trustingly put into office.

Tyranny is The Law

Is this a way to run a country? Tacking something as onerous as a national ID onto a must-pass bill and making it law without any debate? What does this say about people the gun owners consider their friends? In the House, where the bill containing the Real ID Act [HR 1268] passed by a margin of 368 to 58, [Final Vote Results for Roll Call 161 on HR 1268] only three Republicans voted against it.

[In Missouri, Congressman William Lacy Clay (D) was the ‘only’ Congressman to vote against HR 1268. In Illinois, Congressmen Luis Gutierrez, Danny Davis, and Janice Schakowsky (all three Democrats) were the only Congressmen to vote against the bill.]

In the Senate, not one person cared enough about freedom to vote against it -- or even to demand that Senators discuss it. [Which means Missouri Senators Kit Bond and Jim Talent, as well as Illinois Senators Barack Obama and Richard Durbin voted for the bill.]

The Real ID Act originally passed the House in February of this year as a stand-alone bill (HR 418) by a vote of 261 to 161. House leaders, realizing a national ID would have been in trouble in the Senate, then added it to a must-pass military appropriations bill in a cynical ploy to make it almost impossible to fight the national ID.

Turning America into a full-fledged police state was just business as usual to your Representatives. And, just as Adolf Hitler scrupulously followed German law while committing his horrors, so your ‘Representatives’ and the bureaucrats you face at the national-ID drivers license bureau will also be following the law -- the Real ID law that allows them to enslave you.

[To see what a real Bill of Rights leader would do, read the novel Hope by Aaron Zelman and L. Neil Smith.]

What’s Next?

We have two choices; to resist or submit. More than 600 organizations, from the American Civil Liberties Union to the National Governors Association, opposed the bill. Even the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (which loves national IDs and was largely responsible for an earlier attempt at such legislation nine years ago) criticized it.

We can expect lawsuits against the national ID, including at least one suit led by state governments. However, nearly all the opposition from state governments focuses on one area: They’re upset because the federal government didn’t offer them extra money to enslave us. If Congress bribes them with enough millions and billions, they’ll gladly sell our freedom.

Ultimately, real resistance is up to us, as individuals. There are certain courses of action Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership cannot recommend, but every freedom lover should be pleased if all the people who had a hand in creating the Real ID Act lost their jobs – and lost them as soon as possible. And, those individuals who truly value their (and their children’s) futures should seriously consider making the national ID their line in the sand.

We have already heard from many people saying they will drive without a license rather than submit to a license that has become a Stalinist control document. We just hope their resolve stays equally strong when they face a world in which it’s impossible to buy, sell, retire, travel -- or buy a gun -- without a national ID.

We ask you to remember men like Alexandr Solzhenitzyn and Natan Sharansky. Both stood up and boldly opposed a tyrannical regime in the Soviet Union. Both risked their lives. Both suffered horribly for their resistance and their protests. But eventually, they triumphed -- and the Soviet Union crumbled.

We are in need of such people, and such courage, today. We cannot wait for someone else to stand up and show that kind of integrity. We must become the kind of people we admire if we are ever again to live in a nation we can trust.

G-d help us if we fail. (We spell G-d this way because in Judaism it is considered a sign of respect. We spell out the name of the Creator only in sacred settings.)

Aaron Zelman is the Founder and Executive Director of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO) a non-profit, tax-exempt, educational civil rights organization headquartered in Hartford, Wisconsin. Claire Wolf is a prolific writer on freedom issues and script writer of Innocence Betrayed an award winning documentary showing how gun control makes it easier for a government to commit genocide. Zelman and Wolf have just published a new book entitled Out of the Gray Zone which can be purchased by going to the JPFO web site www.jpfo.org. JPFO also provides “Alerts” as a free service to the Internet community. If you wish to help support this service, consider joining JPFO for $20 a year (no, you don't have to be Jewish!), for 2 years and receive a free JPFO lapel pin, or become a life member for $500 or $41.67/month for 12 months. To subscribe to JPFO Alerts: send a blank e-mail to: jpfo_alerts-subscribe@topica.com.

The above article is from the front cover of the July 2005 issue of the St. Louis MetroVoice, which is a conservative Christian newspaper that approaches everything from a Christian world view perspective. For more information regarding the MetroVoice, please visit their web site at www.metrovoice.net or call 636-936-8119.