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18 groups call for stopping the 'Pass ID' act - Stopping Big Brother?
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A letter was given today to key lawmakers by 18 civil liberties groups to oppose the Pass ID Act, a bill that intends but failed to fix the flawed Real ID Act of 2005 designed to turn the state driver’s license into a national identity card.
The groups included; Campaign for Liberty, Citizens Against Government Waste, Consumer Action, Cyber Privacy Project, DownsizeDC.org, Inc., Electronic Frontier Foundation, Equal Justice Alliance, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Liberty Coalition, National Immigration Law Center, ACLU, National Network to End Domestic Violence, Privacyactivism, Privacy International, Privacy Journal, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, Rutherford Institute and U.S. Bill of Rights Foundation.
The coalition letter was sent in preparation for a July 15 hearing on the Pass ID Act and includes principles that should guide Congress in repealing, not fixing, the Real ID Act of 2005 so that effective driver’s license policy can be developed. While Pass ID eliminates many of the more costly Real ID requirements for the states, it leaves intact the same fundamental structure created by Real ID.
Many Christians, especially Evangelical Christians feel that the Bible warns of conduct of this nature by governments. It's the "Big Brother" idea for many of them. The book by George Orwell which many consider to be prophetic in its own way, also dealt with similar conduct by governments. Orwell's book "1984" has so many similarities to today's world that it actually makes one wonder about what is going on. The book is still available on Amazon.com
In a Press Release by the ACLU, they noted:
The advocates believe that in the most significant measures the Pass ID Act is the same as the Real ID Act. Beyond creating a National ID, both the bill and the law invade American’s privacy, endanger victims of domestic violence by failing to adequately shield their addresses, raise fees associated with identification cards, expose consumers to identity theft and fail to boost security. Like the privacy groups, many states oppose the de facto national ID as a waste of state tax dollars that will put privacy at risk without any security benefits. Since the Real ID Act passed, 14 states have passed statutes barring participation and 24 states in total have rejected the 2005 law.
Recently there was such a loud outcry over National ID in the UK, that the whole idea was thrown out. In a recent article from the Financial Times it was noted that, "Alan Johnson, home secretary, has ruled out making ID cards compulsory for UK citizens, signaling a significant retreat by the government on its flagship £4.8bn national scheme." People don't want the cards because they are fearful of identity theft along the Big Brother issue, and yes, there are many other reasons why the UK citizens didn't want the cards.
Yet another fear is that the same technology is already in use in "Electronic Passport Cards" . The information on the RFID chip can be read easily with equipment purchased for a few hundred dollars. A recent article in MyWayNews, a man did an experiment with this cheap equipment and read the ID of several Electronic Passport Cards from a distance of 20 feet, even though the cards are only supposed to be able to be read from 4 inches. That's a big difference.
Watch the Video here to find out what the Credit Card companies think about the show Mythbusters (Discovery Channel) wanting to find out how vulnerable these chips really are.
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