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Real ID Won’t Really Be Enforced, DHS Gives Maine Real ID Extension - Via ACLU - Privacy:
WASHINGTON DC – Earlier today, in response to the Department of Homeland Security denying Maine an extension to comply with the federal Real ID law, Governor John Baldacci agreed to propose changes in state law that currently allows undocumented people to obtain drivers’ licenses. Whether those changes are actually enacted into law is now in the hands of the Maine legislature, which last year overwhelmingly rejected Maine’s participation in the program.
“The Department of Homeland Security, so desperate for a victory around Real ID, has agreed to give Maine an extension based on nothing more than Governor Baldacci’s assurance that he will introduce legislation to bring Maine into compliance,” said Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU Technology and Liberty Program. “The fact is that all 50 states, including those that have said they cannot commit to implement the law, have now received extensions, signaling DHS’s continued determination never actually to enforce Real ID. It has nearly perfected the practice of kicking the can down the road.”
DHS gave the state of Maine only two days to respond to five additional measures the department said needed to be fulfilled in order to be granted the extension, some of which will require the Maine legislature to adopt. In January 2007, Governor Baldacci signed into law an anti-Real ID bill that was passed unanimously in the Maine Senate and by a vote of 137 to 4 in the House.
Tim Sparapani, ACLU senior legislative counsel added, “In today’s DHS oversight hearing, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont put it best when addressing Secretary Chertoff, saying ‘Congress should repeal Real ID.’ The anti-Real ID movement is now revived, not only in Maine and Idaho, but also in the halls of Congress. State houses across the country have rejected a national identification system and that opposition is coming to a head. DHS can only fill the cracks in Real ID with bubblegum for so long; eventually, those cracks will cause the entire law to come crashing down.”
(Read Original Article - Via ACLU - Privacy.)
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Comments
Ummm....Yeah, Right.
"...signaling DHS’s continued determination never actually to enforce Real ID. It has nearly perfected the practice of kicking the can down the road.”
Don't bet on it. The very fact that they have succeeded in getting the Real ID Act passed into law, in the first place, let alone gotten all fifty states to promise to comply with it at a future date means they now effectively have the "consent" of the entire country to go ahead with implementing it. That's how they've been establishing the NAFTA Superhighway and the NAU, also; by rewriting our laws and making new ones without any approval from Congress or the people, and then forcing them upon us whether we want them or not. The same has been done in the EU, though it took fifty years to do it. The timetable has been greatly accelerated now and they are trying to bring about the basic structure of a world government by 2010 or 2012. Their original deadline was 2010, but that's become unattainable, so they've moved the date back two years. Nevertheless, these people (the CFR, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderbergers and their predecessors) have been patiently (and openly) pursuing a world government for at least a century. I don't think "kicking the can down the road" is going to stop them.