The national ID movement is now a reality.
Students of
Bible prophecy recognize this as a possible fulfillment of the prophecy found
in the book of Revelation which reveals that the antichrist will be able to
track and control all financial transactions. The scripture says that NO MAN
will be able to buy or sell anything unless he has the mark.
He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark of his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. [Revelation 13:16-17]
Current law puts the government in a position to inappropriately monitor the movements and transactions of every citizen.
Real ID Act
Using the war on terrorism as
an excuse to monitor all Americans, the Real ID Act supported by President Bush
and Republican politicians says that state driver's licenses and other ID cards
must include a digital photograph, anticounterfeiting features and undefined
"machine-readable technology, with defined minimum data elements" that could
include a magnetic strip or RFID tag. The Department of Homeland Security would
be charged with drafting the details of the regulation.
Provisions of
the $82 billion dollar 2005 Real ID Act says that states would be required to
link their DMV databases if they wished to receive federal funds. So rather
than imposing a direct mandate on the states, the federal government is
blackmailing them into complying with federal dictates. The establishment of a
"national" drivers' license makes a mockery of the
10th amendment and the
principles of federalism.
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Under the measure, your new drivers' license will take a lot of
work on your part. And, if you don't get it done, you can forget about flying
on an airplane or boarding a train, opening a bank account, collecting social
security, accessing medical care, national parks, federal courthouses and other
areas controlled by the federal government.
When this is implemented,
American citizens without drivers' licenses that conform to the federal
standards find themselves essentially stripped of their ability to participate
in life as we know it. Americans cannot get a job, open a bank account, apply
for Social Security or Medicare, exercise their
Second Amendment rights, or
even take an airplane flight, unless they can produce a state-issued ID that
conforms to the federal specifications.
As of April 2, 2008, all 50
states have either applied for extensions of the original May 11, 2008
compliance deadline or received unsolicited extensions. With several states
having approved resolutions not to participate in the program and Obama's
selection of Janet Napolitano, a prominent critic of the program, to head the
Department of Homeland Security, the future of the law remains uncertain, and
bills have been introduced into Congress to amend or repeal it.
Big Brother Is
Watching You!
Dr. Richard Sobel, a research fellow at Harvard Law
School said, "What ID numbers do is centralize power, and in a time when
knowledge is power, then centralized information is centralized power. I think
people have a gut sense that this is not a good idea."
Few people
today can trust the IRS, the VA, or any of those alphabet agencies with private
information. National security agencies can barely keep a secret. And insurance
companies are already trading information. If they have your Social Security
number, they can virtually look up the entire gamut of information about you.
This national id card system would just makes things easier for HMO's to get
together and deny claims. Or maybe the information gets back to people in the
town you live. The banker finds out that you had a heart attack and they don't
want to give you a loan because of it. In 1996, a Medicaid clerk in Maryland
tapped into a computerized database and sold patient names to an HMO for as
little as 50 cents each. About one-third of all Fortune 500 companies review
health information before making hiring decisions.
Phyllis Schlafly
points out, "Allowing the government to collect and store personal medical
records, and to track us as we move about in our daily lives, puts awesome
power in the hands of government bureaucrats. It gives them the power to force
us to conform to government health care policy, whether that means mandating
that all children be immunized with an AIDS vaccine when it is put on the
market, or mandating that expensive medical treatment must be withheld from
seniors. Once all medical records are computerized with unique identifiers such
as Social Security numbers, an instant check system will give all government
agencies the power to deny basic services, including daycare, school, college,
access to hospital emergency rooms, health insurance, a driver's license, etc.,
to those who don't conform to government health policies."
While it is
easy to give in to the rhetoric of "protecting" children or some other
defenseless group, we must be cautious that in a rush to provide protection in
the short-term, we do not do permanent damage to our national heritage of
liberty. Benjamin Franklin once
wrote, those who would give up essential liberty for temporary security
deserves neither liberty nor security.
History shows that when
government gains the power to monitor the actions of the people, it eventually
uses that power to impose totalitarian controls on the populace.
Liberty vs. Totalitarianism, Clinton-Style ,The Phyllis Schlafly Report, July 1998
Bill Clinton first proposed a national
medical identification card in 1993 as part of his ill-fated plan to provide
universal health insurance. After the failure of his health system plans,
however, the government has incrementally been achieving his plan one piece at
a time. Sometimes the bills are presented as "for the kids" (e.g., the 1997
Kidcare bill) and sometimes as "stop the fraud" (e.g., the 1996 Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act known as Kennedy-Kassebaum), or
"thwarting terrorists" (2005 Real ID Act), but the bottom line is to require
computerized reporting and to gather more and more information about American
citizens on government databases.
The "cradle to grave" aspect was
originally started with the 1993 Comprehensive Child Immunization Act which
authorized the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) "to establish state
registry systems to monitor the immunization status of all children." HHS has
since sent millions of taxpayers' money to the states to put children on state
databases, often without their parents' knowledge or consent.
The
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 which was
intended to stem the tide of illegal aliens coming into our nation, prohibits
the use of state driver's licenses after Oct. 1, 2000 unless they contain
Social Security numbers as the unique numeric identifier "that can be read
visually or by electronic means." The Act authorized the federal Department of
Transportation to establish national requirements for birth certificates and
drivers' licenses... in essence, transforming state drivers licenses into
national ID cards.
Further, the Immigration Act ordered the
development of a smart card that "shall employ technologies that provide
security features, such as magnetic stripes, holograms, and integrated
circuits." This magnetic stripe is expected soon to contain a digitized
fingerprint, retina scan, voice print, and other biometric identifiers, and it
will leave an electronic trail every time you use it.
The Welfare
Reform Act requires that, in order to receive federal welfare funds, states
must collect Social Security numbers from "commercial driver's license"
applicants. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997, under the pretense of making
"technical corrections" to the welfare act, deleted the word "commercial,"
thereby applying the requirement to all driver's license applicants.
The 1998 Child Support Performance and Incentive Act (known as Deadbeat Dads),
established a federal "instant check" new-hires directory. Employers are now
required to "screen" every new employee or job applicant against the new
government database of child support order obligees.
National Health Identity Card
Insurance companies and public health researchers, say the
advantages to a national health identity card would outweigh the disadvantages.
Doctors and hospitals would be able to monitor the health of patients as they
switch from one insurance plan to the next. Patients would not have to wade
through a cumbersome bureaucracy to obtain old records. Billing would be
streamlined, saving money. A national disease database could be created,
offering unlimited opportunities for scientific study.
One advantage
mentioned is that if we had a streamlined system like what's being proposed, it
could decrease the cost of health care delivery or reduce the cost of
insurance. Does anyone honestly believe they would receive that benefit? I
contend that if a savings were realized, it would be the insurance companies
that reaped greater profits and the patient would get nothing. Much of the high
price of health care delivery now is caused by bureaucracy and greed of the
insurance industry.
Privacy advocates and some doctors' groups warn that sensitive health
information might be linked to financial data or criminal records and that
already tenuous privacy protections would be further weakened as existing
managed care databases, for example, are linked. They say that trust in
doctors, already eroded by managed care, would deteriorate further, with
patients growing reluctant to share intimate details. And in a world where
computer hackers can penetrate the Pentagon's computer system, they ask, will
anyone's medical records be safe?
A.G. Breitenstein, director of the
Health Law Institute, an advocacy group based in Boston, said: "That
information will be irrevocably integrated into a cradle-to-grave medical
record to which insurers, employers, government and law enforcement will have
access is, to me, exactly what privacy is not. People are not going to feel
comfortable going to the doctor, because now you are going to have a permanent
record that will follow you around for the rest of your life that says you had
syphilis, or depression, or an abortion or whatever else."
Congress's Secret Plans to Get Our Medical Records
