A state with balls?

Maine lawmakers pass resolution against Real ID Act

The Associated Press
Friday, January 26, 2007
AUGUSTA, Maine
The Maine Legislature registered nearly unanimous opposition Thursday to the federal Real ID Act, which requires states to change their drivers' licenses so they can be used as national identification cards linked to a central database.

Supporters of a nonbinding resolution say the program would cost Maine taxpayers $185 million (â?¬143.4 million) over the first five years and invite identity theft.

The resolution asks Congress to repeal the law, which takes effect next year, and says "the Maine Legislature refuses to implement the Real ID Act of 2005." It passed 34-0 in the Senate and 137-4 in the House of Representatives.

Copies were to be sent to President George W. Bush, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and other federal and state officials.

The resolution had the support of diverse advocacy groups, including the Maine Civil Liberties Union and the libertarian Cato Institute.

Jim Harper of the Cato Institute warned that negative consequences of a national ID card would be "profound."

"Lawful trade and travel would be disrupted for ID checks, at a substantial cost to both liberty and commerce. What little benefits we'd reap would not be worth the price," said Harper.

Shenna Bellows of the MCLU derided Real IDs as "a one-stop shop for identity thieves" because they would have to include coded addresses that could be read by someone with a scanner. Bellows said several other states are considering following Maine's example.

"I think there's going to be a huge snowball of these" resolutions, she said.

The New Hampshire House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly last year to reject a $3 million (â?¬2.33 million) grant for a Real ID pilot program.

Members of the National Conference of State Legislatures voted during an annual meeting in August to approve a resolution to demand that Congress either find a way to pay for the Real ID Act or repeal it by the end of 2007. The law is due to take effect in 2008.

At the time, Chertoff sought to ease worries about the law, saying there was no intent to create "a Big Brother" approach or create a federal database of drivers' personal information.

The law was motivated by the Sept. 11 terrorists who used legitimate driver's licenses before the 2001 attacks. It seeks to unify the patchwork of state licensing rules and make it harder to obtain a card fraudulently. Now, Chertoff said, hundreds of kinds of IDs are used to allow people to cross borders.

I have mixed feelings on this. The Illegals need to be Identified and shipped back to their land of origin, but being in a national registry scares the hell out of me, especially if they put a chip in it that can be tracked by satellite. The mark of the beast, well not quite, but it's awful close, being 65 I might slip out of here before I have to get a chip installed in my body, I feel for my offspring that will have to deal with the Mark, when you'll need it to eat, the choice seems pretty narrow. I think a Benevolent God would see this as a human weakness to be forgiven.