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Maine Rejects Federally Mandated ID Cards
WebHostingGuy writes "The State of Maine rejected the federally mandated ID cards passed by Congress. In a non-partisan vote the legislature flatly stated that they would not force its citizens to use driver's licenses that comply with digital ID standards, which were established under the 2005 Real ID Act. It also asked Congress to repeal the law."
Nothing, except the federal government doesn't have the authority to enforce the law. The state of Maine refuses to comply not because they disagree with the law, but because they don't recognize the authority of the federal legislature to create such a law, nor of the executive to enforce it. Kinda like a trademark, jurisdiction in a case law precedent system like ours is 'use it or lose it'.
With the Interstate Highway System, the feds provided money to states that wanted it and they could make very good cases for national defense.
With social security, the federal government issues the numbers and the cards. It's wholly a federal matter.
This law is instructing all states to comply with an arbitrary standard. They can't compel the states to do that. They must dangle money as a request.
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
Requiring a National ID "to fight terrorism" is like punishing everyone for the offense of one. Many corporations are like that, the military is like that, and too many governments are adopting that practise. One person (or a small number) does something wrong, and suddenly there are procedures made that everyone must follow "to prevent the acts" of the few (look at the airports).
How about punishing those who commit the offenses in such a way as to eliminate the desire of those, who would follow them, to commit the offense?
In the USA, States need to fight for the States' Rights as Maine just did, and as Wisconsin did by outlawing mandatory chipping of people.
This "pervasive" form of governing, or ruling, seems to becoming more and more "invasive". Some would argue, "...if you have nothing to hide, then what are you afraid of?" , of which my argument is, "I am a good civilian, so leave me alone."
Of course, all of my comments are IMHO.
If Congress refuses to significantly change the Real ID Act, then rebellion is the way to make it fail. The Act is built on a flimsy deck of cards. If a few of the most populated states like CA, NY, IL, MI, TX decide to blow it off. The Federal Gov't would be in a bind. On one hand, if they enforce it, it will kill the airline industry. On the other hand, if they don't enforce it, they are disobeying the law that Congress passed.
It needs to be completely repealed. It was passed without discussion, without debate. It became law as a "rider" on a must-pass piece of legislation. With the Democrat Congress, its demise is more likely. We should contact Contact Congress and ask the law be repealed completely concerning the driver's license provisions.
Let's see the other 49 states stand up for themselves, too.
1 in 4 Maine children in struggle with hunger.
"Why not?" should never be the standard for anything that enhances government power and/or limits individual liberty. How does a national ID standard limit liberty any more that the existing standard set by the state of Maine or any of the other 49 states? How does an ID database with your name prevent you from doing anything that you can do today. (not to mention that you are already in a Federal database, probably several like Social Security, IRS and so on)
I hate put on my pointy hat, but in this day and age anything that takes away one shred of my privacy, I don't want to do. It could also be argued that privacy=liberty.
The standard should be "Why should we?". Because it will be harder for Abu Mohammed to fake.
I don't buy this argument. Given enough time and resources ANY document can be faked. And with a single ID standard, in order to update the protection scheme, I have to update 300,000,000 or so IDs
And no, "We have to keep you safe." is not an adequate reason. Uh, yeah it is. We have speed limits to keep me safe. I have to wear a seatbelt to keep me safe. I can't drink and drive to keep me (and you) safe... How is this any different?
I think you are mistaken here as well. The federally bribed speed limits were actually put in place to reduce pollution. Seatbelt laws are designed to save states money by reducing injuries for people who do not have insurance. DWI is a different story, there is a great potential to injure someone other than you self. They are not trying to protect you in this case. They are trying to protect people from you.
Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels.
It'd be interesting to see a state respond by saying "OK, if the Federal government doesn't want to pay for it's Interstate highways, it can have them back. Oh, and it can also have back all responsibility for maintaining them, enforcing the laws on them, clearing snow off them in the winter, the lot. We wish them luck with it, and if anyone finds the conditions deteriorating they know where they can call the owners.".
Just like the federal government doesn't require the drinking age to be 21--they just won't release highway funds if a state doesn't have a 21 or older drinking age.
Guess what happens. All the states set the same driking age....curious.
It's a way to force states to behave a certain way when the federal government has no authority to make such a rule itself. If the federal government actually had the authority, it would have just passed the law requiring the ID standards without tying it to highway funding.
If Maine wins, it could potentially undo all kinds of federal encroachment into areas it has no business to be in.
A few years ago in Wisconsin--a bit of a beer state--the governor was considering lowering the drinking age for lower alocohol content drinks like beer and challenge the federal highway funding policies. Of course, then one of the UW campuses had a drunken riot in favor of lowering the drinking age--that killed that! Hmmm....maybe 21 is a better drinking age.
Speaking as someone who was an exchange student in the US (from the UK) the average american student gets to university, goes to a party, has large (for them) amounts of beer for the first time and cann't handle it.
The average brit on the other hand has probably been drinking beer since about the age of 12 (younger if you count shandy) the amounts will have increased over the years, they have probably been really ill once on holiday and after enduring their parents laughing at them and talking very loudly the next morning they tend to have a much better idea when to stop.
I remember one party where I drank 4 frat boys under the table - what was scarey was it was sequential not parallel!! But then the beer there is in 330ml cans and only 3 or 4 percent!! Me I'm a real ale person - 6-8% and in pints (yes it comes in pints) or yards...
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1. Frequent shopper cards from grocery stores so that they get 25cents off a loaf of bread. In return they let their grocery shop+pharmacy uniquely brand them with a number and track all their purchases, from birth control pills to diapers.
2. Use credit cards even after they send them a year end profile of expenses, making it a no secret how much data they collect and retain
3. are least bothered by the extensive data collection by their banks and their "partners" who pelt them with "new and exciting products".
Come on guys. The private sector is a bigger threat to your privacy and well being than US Govt is. You have some semblance of control over US govt, whereas you have none over the private sector. The interests of US Govt coincides with the interests of people lot more than the interests of private sector overlapping the interests of people.
But if you want mod points and build your karma, you have to blast the govt.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact