*LOCAL HEROES: MAINERS STAND UP AGAINST REAL ID
*
* DOWN EAST MAGAZINE*
<http://www.downeast.com/Down-East-Magazine/April-2008/Your-Papers-Please/>-
Unless someone blinks, after May 11 air travel for Mainers will get a
lot more complicated. So will entering a federal office building or
courthouse. That is the day the Department of Homeland Security
institutes new regulations that will gradually turn drivers' licenses
into national identification cards. . .
"The vote opposing Real ID in the legislature wasn't about the money,"
Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap explains. "Every caucus, Republican
and Democratic, House and Senate, said we don't trust the government to
create databases of personal information and controls on how we move
around."
"Real ID fundamentally undermines Mainers' privacy and security,"
declares Shenna Bellows, executive director of the Maine Civil Liberties
Union. "The federal government is foisting a national identification
card on Americans without any debate on the pros or cons."
Opposition to the new regulations has brought together an unusual
assortment of players, from the MCLU to George Smith of the Sportsman's
Alliance of Maine to legislative leaders of both parties. In truth, it's
difficult to find anyone in Maine who supports the measure outside the
few dozen members of Mainers for a Sensible Immigration Policy, who hope
that Real ID is the solution to the illegal immigration problem. . .
Mainers who cannot produce an acceptable ID after the May 11 deadline -
a passport or a military ID card, for example - will face additional
screening at airport security checkpoints. "There are practical
implications for residents of states that don't participate,"
acknowledges DHS spokesperson Amy Kudwa. "The IDs of states that opt out
are no longer valid for federal purposes. This is the law, and we are
the enforcing agency."
"Even if just Maine stays out of the program, it's going to cause chaos
at the airports in Portland and Bangor," Dunlap says, "and in Chicago
and Boston and Los Angeles, too, because Mainers travel. But it's not
just Maine - Montana, Georgia, New Hampshire, all those other states
have refused to join the program."
"DHS is trying to scare Maine into backing down," warns the MCLU's
Bellows. "What's really going to happen on May 11 is nothing is going to
happen. It's hard to believe that DHS is going to prevent the residents
of all these states from boarding planes unless they go through enhanced
security procedures. It would be a nightmare.". . .
There are other issues with Real ID beyond flight delays. Bellows points
out that Chertoff could end up explaining himself to a federal judge if
citizens are barred from entering a federal courthouse or office
building without showing a Real-ID compliant document. "There are
serious First Amendment problems relating to the right to assemble and
right to petition the government for redress of grievances," she notes.
"If people are forced to show a Real ID license to enter a federal
building, it imposes an unreasonable restriction on their access to
their public servants.". . .
Bellows says barring people who lack approved identification could be
seen as imposing limits on the right of a federal court defendant to
face his or her accuser or the right of a witness to testify. "The
regulations do not address the constitutionality issue at all," Bellows
notes. "We think Real ID is constitutionally unsound, and the Department
of Homeland Security is opening itself to immediate legal challenge."
Dunlap notes that there is already talk of requiring Real ID-compliant
identification for voters. "The Carter-Baker Commission on Federal
Election Reform included it in their final recommendations," he says. If
that happens, the state will not be allowed to charge a fee for a
driver's license, because it would be interpreted as a poll tax, which
is illegal.
George Smith, executive director of the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine,
has some experience with that issue. He fears that Real ID is a foot in
the door to increasing government surveillance of citizens. "Look what
happened with our Social Security numbers," he says. Many older Mainers
have Social Security cards from their youth that say prominently "Not to
be used for identification." Now the number is required for all sorts of
things.
"I was refused a fishing license in Florida and a pheasant hunting
license in North Dakota because I refused to give them my Social
Security number," Smith recalls. To him Real ID "smacks of needing a
passport to travel in your own country."
---
avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean.
Virus Database (VPS): 080322-0, 03/22/2008
Tested on: 3/22/2008 4:12:59 PM
avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2008 ALWIL Software.
http://www.avast.com
_______________________________________________
Futurework mailing list
Futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca
http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
