By now, most readers are familiar with the story of how a Virginia couple, Michaele and Tareq Salahi, crashed the White House State Dinner last Tuesday evening. President and Mrs. Obama were entertaining Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the first official State Dinner of the new administration. The Salahis were not on the invited guest list, but were still allowed to walk right into the White House. They even had face-to-face conversations with both President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. Photographs of the Salahis with the President and Vice President have been published in numerous newspapers and on hundreds of web sites.

I wonder if the American people are thinking this episode through? Think of it: in the post-9/11 world, a world that has invented the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), body scanners, retina readers, the Patriot Act, hundreds of laws and regulations restricting the freedoms and liberties of the American people, thousands of cameras photographing our public movements, and satellite spy devices, a couple can walk right into the White House and meet the President and Vice President without being invited!

Is there something wrong with this picture, or what?

I well remember what I had to go through when I was an invited guest of then-Vice President George H. W. Bush at the White House. My wife and I joined several others for a luncheon with Vice President Bush and his wife, Barbara. Later that day, we were in a crowd of several hundred who got to meet President Ronald Reagan. Needless to say, security was tight.

Upon arriving, we had to show the proper credentials to White House security, along with a photo ID and the personal invitation that had been sent to us ahead of time. I remember how some of the folks who had actually received invitations were denied entrance due to bureaucratic mix-ups or unintentional lapses in proper protocols. And these were people who really did have an invitation to be there. I can tell you this: there was absolutely no way that an uninvited person could have gained access to the White House that day. And remember: that was nearly two decades BEFORE 9/11!

That an uninvited couple could be granted access to the President and Vice President in this day and time is more than a “fluke.” It betrays something much deeper.

For the last 8 years, the American people have been told they must sacrifice certain liberties in order that the federal government might protect them. And for the most part, the American people have been happy to accommodate this incessant intrusion into their personal liberties. They know the feds are monitoring their emails, personal phone conversations, and even their personal letters when received from overseas. They have sat silently as their banking institutions have monitored and reported virtually any and all financial transactions to the federal government. In today’s super-security world, one cannot even cash a check without showing the bank teller his or her driver’s license, which is recorded and made available to the feds. Sometimes, we are even required to provide our thumbprints. Beyond that, even certain service personnel that must come into our homes to provide in-home repair services, home inspections, or general services are often required to report what they see to various law enforcement authorities. All of this is done in the name of “national security.”

All the while, America’s federal buildings today more resemble castles of ancient Europe than they do buildings that house the people’s servants. Concrete barriers along with super-reinforced, “bomb proof” structures remind one of castles of old, with their guard towers and crocodile-filled moats. Today, people must walk through metal-detectors and surrender their pocketknives to even visit their local supervisor of elections office (or just about any other public office, for that matter). Again, this is all done under the rubric of “homeland security.”

In the name of “national security,” veterans who have been accused of some kind of domestic disturbance or who have affirmatively answered an ambiguous question on a VA form regarding whether they have feelings of “anger” or “depression” are having their right to keep and bear arms stripped away. That’s right, in the name of “homeland security,” some of the very men who were entrusted with lethal weapons to fight America’s wars are now being told they are not fit to purchase or possess their own firearms.

Yet, in spite of all of the above, an uninvited couple is allowed to calmly walk right past Secret Service personnel and have personal audiences with the President and Vice President of the United States in what is ostensibly the most heavily-guarded, tightly secured building in the country: the White House.

Furthermore, this story comes on the heels of the mass shooting on what one would think would be a rather secure location: the US Army base at Fort Hood, Texas. And, have we forgotten the fellow who brought a gun into the Capitol Building (the home of the US Congress) in Washington, D.C., a few years ago and killed two police officers?

Dear Reader, ask yourself this question, Do you really think those schmucks in Washington, D.C., actually believe that protecting you and me is more important than protecting American soldiers, US congressmen, and especially the President of the United States? “Are you serious?” (To quote Nancy Pelosi.) The truth is, to the elites in DC, you and I are expendable commodities. In fact, to some of the soulless creatures running things, you and I are worth more dead than alive (but that’s a topic better discussed at a later date).

The point is, all this talk about “national security” is simply a ruse for Big Government elitists to steal our liberties and make slaves out of us. They don’t care about security; all they care about is POWER.

So, the next time you are required to be strip-searched by an airport screener, or to surrender your pocketknife at your local county commissioner’s office, or to show your driver’s license to your bank teller, or to submit to a random police checkpoint; the next time you make a phone call that you know is monitored by a federal agent (and they all are), or drive under a video camera, or visit these castle-esque federal buildings, remember Michaele and Tareq Salahi. And, if you are old enough, remember the time in America when we really were the “land of the free.” And also remember that it’s not security they seek – it’s the abolition of our liberty.

Chuck Baldwin is a radio broadcaster, syndicated columnist, and pastor dedicated to preserving the historic principles upon which America was founded. He was the Constitution Party’s Nominee for president in 2008. Visit his website at www.chuckbaldwinlive.com

Copyright © 2009 Chuck Baldwin

During its decline from a republic to a democracy, lying Leviathan prattled about being a “government of, by, and for the people.” But the beast increasingly forsakes that pretence as it continues sliding into tyranny.

One instance of the State’s new and brutal honesty came last fall when Congress bailed out billionaires despite our overwhelming opposition. Another around that same time saw the criminals running New York City overturn a law on term-limits that voters had twice upheld. More than ever, government is of, by and for Our Rulers.

And then there’s the Feds’ dogged quest for a national ID card. Four years ago, these bozos tried to turn your driver’s license into just such a monstrosity with their infamous REAL ID Act. This dictate required licenses to include “defined minimum data elements,” most likely biometric identifiers such as fingerprints or retinal scans and RFID tracking chips. It would also make even more of our business contingent on the State’s whims: before we entered a courthouse or opened a bank account, among other activities, we’d have to produce our REAL ID for a bureaucrat’s approval – or rejection.

Congress passed this monumentally anti-constitutional legislation without even debating it, then deputized the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to implement it. Reincarnated Nazi Michael Chertoff was Secretary of DHS; he spent much of his time – and millions of our taxes – trying to ram REAL ID down the nation’s throat.

All our money bought him was the biggest revolt against DC’s diktats since 1861. Departments of Motor Vehicles in many states vehemently objected to overhauling their systems just to please DHS; the governors of those states just as vehemently protested the enormous expense of said overhaul and waxed indignant about REAL ID’s invasions of privacy. If anyone’s gonna tyrannize Montanans or Mainers, by gum, it’ll be their local masters, not Washington’s overlords. Legislatures put teeth in the dissent as states passed resolutions and even laws against complying with REAL ID.

At this point, we might expect Feds who constantly bray about democracy, who eagerly slaughter their own serfs as well as foreign ones for its glory, to throw in the towel on a national ID. Have not the people spoken, indeed, shrieked, that they’ll have nothing to do with this abomination? But Our Rulers never weary in their evil-doing. Nor do they hesitate to show us exactly how stupid they think we are. And so a litter of senators introduced the “Providing for Additional Security in States’ Identification Act of 2009″ (PASS ID) last week. Essentially, they stripped the name “REAL ID” off the old bill, slapped a new title on it, and tweaked a few of the details.

Just as they did with REAL ID, the Feds insist that PASS ID is not a national ID – oh, my, no. So what if every American has a uniform card that he must constantly show to government’s goons? That’s not a national ID, you silly citizen, you! If you were as wise as our legislators, you’d realize that both REAL and PASS ID are simply driver’s licenses with “strong security standards.” Or so say politicians who also assure us that they’re bossing this democracy according to the will of the people. True, REAL ID had some “troubling aspects”: it would have forced states to link their databases, which “could provide one-stop shopping for identity thieves and the backbone for a national identification database.” But ”PASS ID addresses those privacy … concerns…” Thus do its sponsors hallucinate about the differences between two identical bills while figuring they’ve snowed us yet again.

PASS ID does depart from REAL ID in one important aspect: it bribes the states to cooperate with a whole lot more of our taxes. Remember the indignant governors, grousing about REAL ID’s violation of our rights? Surprise: that no longer troubles them a-tall. Indeed, members of the National Governors Association so pant to push their hot little hands more deeply into our pockets that they now support REAL–er, PASS ID.

PASS ID also thoughtfully eases the burden on DMVs. Bureaucrats there need not curtail their three-hour lunches nor keep their feet on their desks past 3:30 each afternoon as they bring their little fiefdoms into compliance. But you and I will still be jumping through REAL ID’s hoops as we seek to satisfy the DMV numbskull that our birth certificates are authentic and we live where the State’s records say we do. Of course, the approximately 423 documents that substantiate such claims already reside on various government computers, but unless you bring a copy with you for the numbskull, you’ll be walking rather than driving to work. Actually, you may still be walking even if you produce every single paper the numbskull demands: after paying PASS ID’s higher taxes, who’ll have money left for licenses that cost many multiples of their former price?

Naturally, Our Rulers have our best interests at heart as they impose this totalitarianism. They repeatedly cite “the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation to enhance the security of driver’s licenses” as though anyone other than the stooges on Leviathan’s payroll gives said Commission an iota of credibility. Heck, even some of the stooges damn the Commission, especially those it set up as fall guys for the Fed’s role that tragic day.

Our Rulers also aver that PASS ID “helps fight terrorism” despite experts’ frequent refutations. “Going back to 9-11,” says Bruce Schneier, author of Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World, “every one of those terrorists had an ID. Some of them had forged IDs, some used their real name, and some of them got real IDs with a fake names [sic] by bribing a motor-vehicles clerk.” Nor is this just one man’s opinion. International consensus notes the missing link between ID and security: “Harvey Mattinson, a consultant at the information technology arm of GCHQ [Government Communication Headquarters – ‘one of the three UK Intelligence Agencies’], said that the only real value of identity cards would be to help state bodies share information about people.”

No wonder Leviathan obsesses over ID. “State bodies” not only “share information” about us, they also pin our names to our addresses so that we are easy to find and fine. The State’s usual motive for its crimes – money – explains its lust to identify us, too. Linda Lewis-Pickett, president and CEO of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, “think[s] each state agency has looked at DMVs as revenue generators – ‘Come in and pay taxes and give us money.’” After we pay those taxes, the drivers’ licenses and plates those DMVs dispense generate further revenue when officials track us to a billing address.

There’s a further benefit in matching names with citizens: it controls us and quashes dissent. Few patriots are brave enough to speak out against Leviathan’s evil when its lackeys can respond, “Papers, please.” Perhaps that’s why the Constitution empowers government merely to count citizens but never to identify them – unless they vote in Congress (Art. I, Sec. 7) or run for the presidency (Art. II, Sec. 1). It is rulers, not us, who must identify themselves lest they wreak wickedness against us (Art. I, Sec. 7).

Which brings us to the author of the REAL ID Act, Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-WI). None too happy that we’ve scrapped his legacy, this heavy-handed dunderhead thundered, “Maybe governors [who objected to REAL ID] should have been in the Capitol when we knew a plane was on its way to Washington wanting to kill a few thousand more people.” Sensenbrenner also snarls that PASS ID, REAL ID’s twin even if it lacks his name on its legislation, sends us “right back to where we were on Sept. 10, 2001.”

Would that it did.

Becky Akers [send her mail] writes primarily about the American Revolution.

Copyright © 2009 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

Regardless of whether you felt REAL ID represented critical improvements in security standards or a federal government ID system outsourced upon the states, Secretary Napolitano recently affirmed that, at least by name, that Title II of the Act was dead:

“By Dec 31st, no state will have issued a REAL ID compliant identification document.  We cannot have national standards for driver’s licenses when the states themselves refuse to participate.”

But, just how dead is it?  As politicians, we see firsthand how often things are simply retooled, renamed and resubmitted.  And in the case of REAL ID, which has its roots in failed attempts to implement AAMVA’s Driver’s License Agreement (DLA), it would not be the first time the concept behind a “one license, one record” national ID card was being repackaged.

The DLA started as a dismal failure with few states coming on board because it allowed for foreign data sharing and would have left AAMVA in charge of the biometric and technological standards of what had previously been a state’s sovereign document.

Because AAMVA is a 501c3 with foreign voting members, the DLA essentially left many important driver licensing decisions in the hands of a non-governmental organization that has virtually no state oversight.  With few initial takers, the DLA was inserted into early versions of REAL ID in an attempt to resurrect it.

Now that it appears REAL ID will be replaced with PASS ID, it will be interesting to see how many vestiges of REAL ID and the DLA will remain. Although initially less prescriptive, PASS ID retains many of the core aspects of REAL ID and still puts DHS in charge of current and future rulemaking processes.

The bill is largely silent on RFID and foreign data sharing, and rather than including language that would formally prohibit such practices, PASS ID neither specifically calls for nor prohibits them. This leaves many to wonder if such controversial issues are simply being kicked down the road to future rule making processes that would take place after the states are already part of the system.

Once a state is PASS ID compliant, in practice it would be very hard for them to drop out even if the rules are subsequently changed.

PASS ID still contains provisions that States be able to verify licenses with each other, although exactly how is not defined.  A pilot verification program is being created, and while PASS ID makes it voluntary for states to participate in the pilot, the law makes it very clear that such a process ultimately can be done only in a manner that is approved by DHS.

Whether or not DHS will give its approval to any process other than the one that comes out of the pilot program is unknown, but I have doubts based on my personal experience with the DHS “Enhanced Drivers License” program in Michigan.

In that case, the State of Washington did the pilot, and the project called for the use of “facilitative technology”.  In practice this ended up meaning not just the use of RFID, but a very specific kind of RFID.  DHS said we could use another technology if they approved it, but it quickly became clear that the only type they would greenlight was the kind used in Washington.

Not using RFID was completely off the table. The flexibility we were initially promised ended up only being the flexibility to either participate or not participate.

Likewise, if the new “voluntary” verification pilot project is treated this same way, in practical terms it will still be a mandate for a state that wishes to participate in PASS ID. Going full circle, many feel this pilot will ultimately be similar to the AAMVA Drivers License Agreement.

The pilot therefore needs to run its course before states can determine what exactly they would be agreeing to.  I also have concerns that participation in PASS ID might be linked to federal road dollars, as we continue to see legislation being introduced that links expanded car seat use, ignition interlock devices and texting bans as conditions for receiving these taxdollars. Federal road dollars have quickly gone from being a carrot to a stick.

The deadlines for REAL ID are quickly approaching, and it will be interesting to see if DHS offers automatic waivers as they have in the past or if they will attempt to use the deadlines to push PASS ID quickly through the legislative process, even before the pilot project is completed.

This will ultimately be a good indicator for the states on whether DHS wants to truly be a partner this time around or if PASS ID is simply another iteration in attempting to pass some version of the AAMVA DLA.

State Rep. Paul Opsommer [send him email] was elected to a second term in the Michigan House of Representatives in November 2008.  He represents the residents of Clinton and Gratiot counties.

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger:

As a constituent who cares deeply about privacy and national security, I urge you to oppose implementation of the REAL ID Act and support its immediate repeal.

The creation of a national identification card is not a power delegated to Congress under Article I, section 8 of the United States Constitution, and violates the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution which states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

National identification systems are prone to abuse at every step of their creation and use.  The REAL ID Act would establish an enormous national database of ID holders, where even a small percentage of errors would cause major social disruption.

The ID would function as an internal passport that would be shown before accessing planes, opening bank accounts, and entering federal buildings, but its uses will inevitably expand to assist a wide variety of surveillance activities.

REAL ID doesn’t just cost me my privacy – the states and individual taxpayers will be ones who ultimately have to bear the over $23 billion burden of implementing this law.  The federal government cannot force such burdensome, invasive mandates on the states.

The REAL ID Act would divert resources from security measures that could actually work.  Most of the systems needed to implement the law do not exist yet.  Meanwhile, IDs do little to stop those who haven’t already been identified as threats, and wrongdoers will still be able to create fake documents.

The Department of Homeland Security’s recently released draft regulations do nothing to fix the fundamental flaws with REAL ID.  State legislatures around the country are already recognizing these flaws and rejecting the law’s implementation.  Two bills in Congress, S.717 and H.R.1117, would correct this illegal policy – repealing REAL ID entirely.

A materially constructive reply is expected.

Your constituent,

Douglas D. Strother

Recently, I watched Lou Dobbs, and his handmaiden, Kitty Pilgrim, get all hot, bothered, and appalled by the Maine state legislature voting overwhelmingly to refuse to enforce any provisions of the REAL ID act, an unfunded mandate passed by Congress in 2005, and which is supposed to go into force in May of next year.

REAL ID is the complex workaround to Congress’ failure to sell a national ID card outright, to a frightened public, in the wake of 9/11. Instead they now insist the states individually comply with precise federal standards (standards yet to be fully developed by the Dept. of Homeland Security) for driver licensing. These will probably include the requirement that residents produce birth certificates upon renewal, plus the collection of biometric data. Then, that state DMV database has to able to be accessed not only by the feds, but all the other states. This is supposed to help us fight terrorism, somehow, because the 19 hijackers had driver’s licenses.

States like Maine protested that not only was this law an unwarranted intrusion on the privacy rights of their residents, but it was a de facto national ID card in its own right, yet another foot in the door towards a totalitarian police state. The costs of implementation would be too high, projected to be in the tens of millions in each state, and would have to be passed on to the citizens somehow.

As usual, there was no federal “carrot” with such legislation, only a “stick.” The stick, in this case, was that residents of states who failed to comply would either have to show a passport in order to fly, or they simply would not fly. This reminder was delivered, again, on Dobb’s show, by a sneering angry sycophant from DHS.

But this is standard operating procedure. The feds levy high taxes on the residents of the states, make sweeping, unfunded policy edicts, then enforce them by warning the state governments that failure to comply fully will result in those states not getting their own residents’ tax dollars returned to them (minus a cut) in the form of various subsidies.

But take heart – history has shown us that resistance is not futile. From 1973 to 1988 we were saddled by a particularly egregious and corrupting federal edict demanding that speed limits on highways be reduced to 55mph, ostensibly as a fuel-saving initiative. It was corrupt in that it was a total failure – non-compliance was legion, especially in western states with lots of wide-open spaces, low traffic, and too few cops. Car companies that produced vehicles with better gas mileage did more to save fuel than any federal speed law. But the stick remained: failure to enforce the “double-nickel” would result in a loss of federal highway funding.

In early 1987, then Arizona governor Evan Mecham, no stranger to controversy, had finally had enough, and told Washington they could keep their highway funding – he was raising the limits on all AZ roads to 65mph, and he didn’t care what Washington thought about it. Then, as now, feds and media talking heads alike were appalled by the audacity of a lowly state governor standing up for the rights of his state residents against the needs of the federal government. But his action enabled other states – and their residents – to stand up and cry “enough is enough!”

By 1988, 55 was history – Congress bumped it to 65. A few years later, it was bumped again to 75 in Midwest and Western rural areas, and allowed states far greater leeway to set standards that they believed worked best for them. In the late 90’s, Montana went so far as to revive their original “reasonable and prudent” rule for daytime travel – which essentially meant, “whatever speed you felt was safe under the circumstances.” (That was a bit of a rush, believe me, to go 115 mph on a dry, straight, open road, and cops wouldn’t bat an eye – sadly, a federal judge later put a stop to that one.)

Therefore, it’s possible, despite all the posturing by the national-security jackboots in the Congress and DHS, that Maine’s action may have opened the door for other states to follow suit. Similar bills are pending right now in Georgia, Massachusetts, Montana, New Mexico, and Washington state. The question remains whether that door will ultimately become a floodgate.

Thomas Andrew Olson [send him mail] is a technology consultant, writer and speaker in New York City.

Copyright © 2007 LewRockwell.com