"We met with Rep. Dana Rohrabacher yesterday. I asked about the Real ID proposal, which our editorial strongly opposed. Unlike some Real ID defenders, he didn't say it wasn't a national ID card. He said Americans' data already can easily be accessed by the government, so this isn't a new imposition. I asked where authority to impose a national ID card was in the Constitution. He didn't provide an answer."
[Scroll down about 2/3 of the page to "Wednesday, June 01, 2005" to read the entire commentary.]
All our data may be easily mined by government now. But unless they satisfy the law and due process under it, they may not use our data without incriminating themselves. This risk places them under the practical restraint of needing to justify to law enforcement supervision the expenditure of time and money and exposure to risk if done improperly when they decide to mine personal data.
ReplyDeleteReal ID removes even these very mild restraints and places all a person's data at the touch of one fingertip. That would make it impossible to define abuse, let alone punish it.
Real ID is undeniably the advancement of a police state.