Constitutional Alliance | September 26, 2009
By Mark Lerner
The Big Question - should government control the people or should the people control government?
Orwell’s prediction of a future big brother government came true. Whether acknowledged or not, Americans now live in a surveillance society.
Most of that American public falls into one of the categories the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) calls “potential threats;” environmentalists, animal lovers, anti-war protestors, pro-lifers, evangelical Christians, observant Jews, Constitutionalists, returning veterans, and third party candidate supporters are all “potential domestic terrorists.”
Just how far is the American public willing to let the government go in order to assure public safety? Do the people want the police on every block, all emails read by the government, phone calls overheard, or every financial transaction monitored? Do the people want sensors placed in cities that detect how much an individual perspires, in order to assess and monitor supposed guilt?
How about computer software programs that decide whether or not the way people walk or dress presents a threat to the government? In Britain citizens are captured on surveillance cameras an average of 300 times a day; does the American public want to be subjected to this level of scrutiny?
The Real ID Act 2005 mandated that facial recognition technology be used for all drivers’ license photos; facial recognition, a biometric, measures distances between facial characteristics - specific parts of the mouth, eyes, nose and so on – and digitizes this information. Using this technology, each citizen would be enrolled into a single global biometric identification system.
No matter where a person is - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma or Paris, France – that person can be identified with the use of facial recognition technology. Closed circuit television cameras/surveillance cameras (CCTV) and linked computer systems make possible remote surveillance and global information sharing.
The “standard” for the digital facial image/photograph in the Real ID compliant driver’s license was contained in the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for the Real ID ACT 2005. This “standard” is from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), an agency of the United Nations.
The Real ID Act 2005 has not yet been implemented - 26 states have rejected this federal law and have said “No” to this act.
The Real ID Act is but one of the many laws, programs and initiatives that have one thing in common: track, surveil, and control. Government tells the people these laws, programs and initiatives are needed “to protect” them and that giving up privacy, freedom and mobility are small prices to pay for security. When did rights become privileges?
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