National ID Cards – Almost Here!
By: Elizabeth Joyce
Published 2002 – New Visions Magazine – Philadelphia, P
Let’s go back a few thousand years—just for a second. Let’s employ the wisdom of one of the wisest human beings who ever walked the earth. Mr. Lao Tzu.
“Who is that,” you say?
He was a great Yogi from Tibet – (author of The Third Eye)
Well, he wrote another book called the Tao Te Ching, often referred to as the text of natural rhythm. The second chapter of Tao Te Ching which is paraphrased here reads “…the greatest ruler is the one who causes legislation to occur in such a way that the citizens all proclaim that they are so proud that they thought up such a good law.”
Once Americans have all clamored for a National ID Card they will have killed the last drop of spirit left in this country. Within a short time after you have blissfully put this card in your wallet or purse — the card that Karl Malden will remind you is now illegal to leave home without — the card you had hoped would protect you from terrorism — you will have literally locked your prison door. Within a very short time after that point — you will see the disappearance of cash and you will only be able to use your National ID Card to purchase everything at which point you will become traceable at any moment that you essentially burp, gargle or snore.
This is YOUR choice. It rests upon America’s vote. If you don’t help get this point across to everyone – EVERYONE you know and don’t know — freedom will be JUST ANOTHER WORD. This event — The National ID Card — was predicted in scripture more than two thousand years ago, as well as by several seers and spiritual leaders of many world religions, as a warning of the end of freedom.
It’ll help stop terrorism and illegal immigration.
If you hold this view about national ID, for the sake of your own future I hope you’ll reconsider.
Sure it’s obnoxious. But get real; we already have a national ID system. It’s called our driver’s license or the Social Security card. What the government is talking about now is just a technical refinement.
If you hold that view, you’re right — as far as it goes. But things are going to go a lot farther. If we accept national ID, we’ll all have a problem. We won’t be one bit safer from violence, and we will have crossed a crucial line that forever divides the free from the un-free.
Until now, Americans have always said no to being forced to show “Your papers, please!” on demand. But since the catastrophe of September 11, polls say as many as 87 percent of us may be willing to submit to a nationwide, biometric ID system.
At first the cards wouldn’t be mandatory. But even in the “voluntary” system, anyone who “chose” not to present a national ID card and submit to biometric scans on demand would be subject to invasive body searches at airports and extensive, humiliating, time-consuming questioning at checkpoints about his identity, plans, motives, and activities. Everyone without approved ID would, in short, be treated as a criminal suspect. If the system became legally mandatory, those refusing to cooperate could also be arrested, jailed and fined.
The American Association of Motor Vehicles Authority announced in November 2001, that it was “working closely” with the new Office of Homeland Security to implement a mandatory biometric system through state licensing agencies. And this system would be mandatory.
Why is this a problem? The United States isn’t Nazi Germany — which used a computerized national ID system to round up Jews and other “undesirables” and send them to slave labor and death. So what’s the big deal? The very big deal is “mission creep.” When Social Security numbers were introduced in the 1930’s, the system was “voluntary.” Citizens who worried about the biblical number of the Beast (Rev. 13: 16-18) or more mundane forms of tyranny were assured that, by law, the Social Security number would never – ever — be used for ID.
In the tradition of nearly every limited, temporary, or voluntary government program our Social Security number eventually became our universal identifier. No law requires you to get a Social Security number, even today. But try functioning in the everyday world of work, banking, credit, schooling, home-buying, or even video rental without one.
If national ID becomes U.S. law, five years from now you won’t be able to do any of these things without submitting to various biometric scans. But that’s barely the beginning. Where did the government acquire the authority to freely inspect your life? What legitimate law enforcement or security purpose is served by surveying the innocent? The question isn’t what do you have to hide but why is the government so persistently determined to find out everything about you.
The third big deal is that national ID violates your rights.
When you have to prove your identity to government agents on demand, you’re being treated as a criminal — and your Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights are being trashed.
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If you must give information that could get you prosecuted (for instance, the information that you’re not carrying your national ID), you’re being forced to provide evidence against yourself, a Fifth Amendment violation.
- If your religion forbids universal numbering your First Amendment rights are being broken by having the National ID forced on you. By extending its authority into areas forbidden to it by the Constitution, the federal government violates the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
Is it worth it to you, to gain national ID and lose all these historic protections?
Worse. Your loss of freedom won’t do anything to make you safe
National ID? It won’t stop a determined enemy for a moment. But future failures of the “foolproof” National ID system will be the justification for the implanted subcutaneous chip and perpetual satellite tracking — which in turn will be compromised by criminals, terrorists, and rogue governments. Violence will actually increase. One day, Americans will wake up to discover that all their freedoms have been destroyed in the name of “saving freedom.” They’re going to be furious, but it will be too late.
In all probability, the ID system will be imposed gradually — either one state at a time under quiet federal mandate, or nationally but “voluntarily.” That way, Congresspeople can more easily say, “National ID? Don’t be silly; we don’t have National ID! We’re just enhancing identity protection to make America safe.” And millions of Americans will simply yawn and change the channel.
Prepare to resist — and prepare for the consequences of resistance. It will be the job of truly patriotic, not just flag-waving patriotic Americans to break any national ID system thrust upon us. If national ID and tracking is imposed, people who value freedom will need to ensure that the databases are full of such garbage that the system can’t function usefully and that the scanners are constantly non-operative. The more flamboyant among us will need to stage public confrontations (anything from sit-down strikes to surround the scanners, to wearing of Groucho glasses and chemical defacing of fingerprints, to playful acts of public-protest theater, as many groups now perform in front of street side facial-recognition cameras).
Ultimately, millions will need to refuse to accept the card, even if it means loss of jobs, travel restrictions, jail, or worse. Right now, few have that strength of will. If enough understand the long-term consequences of national ID, and some of us might, resistance is our only hope. Americans need to develop the courage that comes from history, knowledge and understanding. We feel the events of September 11 have made this country unsafe. What happened to all of us isn’t nice. It isn’t safe. But if you want to see something really ugly and really dangerous, stand by and give the federal government the means to control your daily life
