REAL ID: 50 States Citizens Free to Travel; Senators Grill Chertoff for "Bullying" States

This is a good analysis on REAL ID, as there is much posturing going on by the Dept. of Homeland Tyranny (aka Security) as to the results. Bottom line is the States justly rebelled, and the anti-Constitutional Department is compromising, but still pushing. May 11th was the deadline date, but it has been arbitrarily moved, and has no definitive standards. Chertoff s goal is to feign compromise while coercing and gaining increasing conformity.

The Washington Post (linked in clip below) led off their article like this:

Senators Fault DHS Pressure On Real ID

Leahy Alleges Agency 'Bullying'

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee criticized the Department of Homeland Security yesterday for pressuring reluctant states to adopt new federally approved driver's licenses, with one accusing Secretary Michael Chertoff of "bullying" the states into compliance under a threat of blocking citizens' travel...

..."Bullying the states is not the answer, nor is threatening their citizens' rights to travel," Leahy told Chertoff. "From Maine to Montana , states have said no." Seventeen states passed legislation rejecting Real ID, and DHS has given them until May to comply with the law or find that their driver's licenses would no longer be accepted as federal identification...

The Idaho house also joined the senate in rejecting REAL ID in legislation, which the governor Butch Otter will likely sign. That would make 18 States now rejecting formally, and California is leaning the same way.

Meanwhile in West Virginia, despite that all but 3 Senators voted to not participate in REAL ID as a state, Gov. Manchin is playing the puppet to Washington (instead of upholding his constitutional oaths of office, which we witnessed) and the head of DMV appears to be the leading sycophant for state conformity toward this fascist standard under the plea of "necessity". The House was prevented voting up or town as Rep. Hrutkay (D-Logan), heading the Transportation Committee, ensured it got locked in committee, far from the House floor. Is it not clear that this legislation, with broad bi-partisan support, was killed by Manchin and his loyal sycophants? Gov. Manchin does not want West Virginians to be free, but on a REAL ID data-mining Federal leash. Voters should remember this.

The freedom to travel as free citizens should not, and legally cannot, be impeded. To set up a new criteria for just who will be treated like free citizens , instead of criminal suspects, without probable cause or search warrant, on the basis of a national (i.e. federalized state) ID card is unconstitutional.

The source of this article, linked below, called Privacy Revolt, is worth bookmarking and reading as well.

clipped from consumercal.blogspot.com Maine Gets Real ID Extension + Senators Grill Chertoff Citizens of all 50 states are now free to board airplanes using their driver's licenses -- at least unitl 2010, after the final renegade anti-Real ID state -- Maine -- won a time extension Wednesday from deadlines attached to new federal identification rules. That means that Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff can now say more secure identification is on the way, while independence-minded states can honestly say they stuck a thumb in the eye of the federal bureaucracy. The Washington Post reports on Chertoff's visit to the Juciary Committee: "We ought to engage in a fairer, more productive negotiated rule-making with the states," the committee's chairman, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), told Chertoff. "Maybe people want to have a national ID card in their state. In my state, they don't..."Bullying the states is not the answer, nor is threatening their citizens' rights to travel. From Maine to Montana, states have said no."