Shouzer

The Senate just passed an $82 billion Iraq Supplemental Spending Bill. While I think that’s laughable (how many times are we going to spend $80+ billion over there? I thought the phrase Bush was spreading was ‘Mission Accomplished’..), that’s not really the point. Attached to the bill as a rider, Real ID was just passed as well.

Real ID is a bill mandating the use of National IDs within three years from now. Basically, that means a few things. First, driver’s licenses will no longer be given by the state. They’ll be handled federally. Second, these new IDs will be linked to a government database that contains every detail about you. Third, if you want to do *anything* that involves the government, you’ll need to show this ID card.

Now while this may not seem like a bad idea at first, I have a few problems with it. My main problem is that it provides a false sense of security. The supposed reasoning behind it is that it will “hamper the ability of terrorist and criminal aliens to move freely throughout our society by requiring that all states require proof of lawful presence in the U.S. for their drivers’ licenses to be accepted as identification for federal purposes such as boarding a commercial airplane, entering a federal building, or a nuclear power plant.” Here’s a quick refutation of that. The fact of the matter is that this wouldn’t have stopped 9/11. Every hijacker had legitimate ID. So the difference with this is what? No we, the citizens, get watched ever more closely by the government.

The second thing that bothers me is that this got passed as a rider. Why? It wasn’t strong enough to get passed on its own? What does this have to do with extra money for Iraq? Basically, from the debate in Congress, there were people who disliked this, but were unwilling to vote against it, because that would mean they ‘voted against the war’. Look what that got Kerry.. He was unpatriotic, didn’t deserve his Vietnam honors, and lost an election. What Congressman wants that on his record? It’s ridiculous that our government has been reduced to this.

Third I have an issue with this part of the bill (from here:

Amends the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA) to authorize the Secretary of Homeland Security (the Secretary), in the Secretary’s sole discretion, to waive all laws as necessary to ensure expeditious construction of certain barriers and roads at the U.S. border. Prohibits courts, administrative agencies, and other entities from reviewing the Secretary’s decision or from ordering relief for damages alleged to have resulted from such decision.

Huh? Prohibits the courts from reviewing the secretary’s decision? Yeah, don’t we all wish we had absolute power. That seems sort of against the Constitution. Or something. What would I know?

Lastly, I have an issue with the fact that this is another thing being handed off to the federal government to handle. Smaller government? Nope. Once again, though, nobody cares.. Had any of you even heard of this issue? I doubt it.