Of course, the Homeland Security Act explicitly BANS the creation of a National ID Card.
No wonder you hate that Act so much...
Of course, the Homeland Security Act explicitly BANS the creation of a National ID Card.
No wonder you hate that Act so much...
Of course, the Homeland Security Act explicitly BANS the creation of a National ID Card. No wonder you hate that Act so much...
That would be great, if it was retroactive and would eliminate our currently existing de-facto National ID Card, the Social Security Card. Adding that little piece of fluff to the HSA was a placebo, that was tossed out there like a bone to a watchdog, to divert attention away from the 30 pages of Title II and parts of 17 pages in Title VIII of the Homeland Fatherland Security Act, that virtually shreds the 4th Amendment and bores holes through six other Amendments in the Bill of Rights.
In case you haven't noticed, it authorizes and funds a mammoth database that will become a depository for every piece of personal information about you and every other American. The data that will be collected will include, but not be limited to, every credit card purchase that you make, every bank deposit that you make, every check that you write, every web site that you visit, every email address that you send to or receive from, every travel reservation that you make, every toll plaza that you pass through, every magazine subscription that you take, every complaint against you from nosy neighbors and if you have OnStar in your car, the location of your car at certain times of day.
With all that to draw from, why waste money developing a National ID Card. They'll be able to follow your every move without it. Buy some ammo with a credit card and you are identified as a "gun nut". Write a check for a significant amount to your church and you're a "religious wacko". Visit FreeRepublic.com (not even posting) and you're a "right-wing fanatic". Within a few months of that system becoming active, they'll have you ID'ed and categorized (in all likelihood, categorized wrong).
Do anything that is not within the accepted norm and you will find yourself investigated. How long do you think you will keep your job or your clients after the feds show up and start asking questions about you, all because you bought gas in a town 200 miles from your home too often and for no apparent reason, even though you were doing nothing more subversive than visiting your ailing aunt. Of course, what is considered the accepted norm will change from administration to administration. If you are politically active enough to post here, then sooner or later, you'll be the subject of an investigation.
Then there is the problem of having all that information about you made public. Read Title II, Sec. 214(1)(D). Information collected about you "shall not, without the written consent of the person or entity submitting such information, be used or disclosed by any officer or employee of the United States..." Notice that it does not require your consent, but that of the submitter. Furthermore, under the HSA, the submitter is protected from civil suit for granting that permission.
Of the 475 pages of the HSA, only about 60 actually contain provisions that could be considered useful in homeland defense. Most of the rest is fluff that sounds good, but serves no more purpose than to enrich some congressman's district. That much is normal - unfortunate, but normal. It is the 47 pages that covers the Information Awareness Office and their ominous database that more than negates the little good that is in the rest of the act. In those 47 pages, they completely gut the 4th Amendment. Nicolai Ceausescu would be proud.
One of the reasons that I most often vote for Republicans, to prevent this sort of infringement on our rights. But, it seems that now that they are in power, they are proving to be even worse than the Democrats, when it comes to stripping us of our rights.
The time has come to replace most of them in the next primary. Even one of my favorite Senators, Kay Bailey Hutchison, has lost my vote on this one. There is no excuse for such a blatant attack on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, especially since this database does nothing to fight terrorism.