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March 01, 2009
Radio Chip Coming Soon to Your Driver's License?
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Katherine Albrecht
Radio chip coming soon to your driver's license?
Homeland Security seeks next-generation REAL ID
Privacy advocates are issuing warnings about a new radio chip plan that ultimately could provide electronic identification for every adult in the U.S. and allow agents to compile attendance lists at anti-government rallies simply by walking through the assembly.
The proposal, which has earned the support of Janet Napolitano, the newly chosen chief of the Department of Homeland Security, would embed radio chips in driver's licenses, or "enhanced driver's licenses."
"Enhanced driver's licenses give confidence that the person holding the card is the person who is supposed to be holding the card, and it's less elaborate than REAL ID," Napolitano said in a Washington Times report.
REAL ID is a plan for a federal identification system standardized across the nation that so alarmed governors many states have adopted formal plans to oppose it. However, a privacy advocate today told WND that the EDLs are many times worse.
Radio talk show host and identity chip expert Katherine Albrecht said REAL ID earned the opposition of Christians because of its resemblance to the biblical "mark of the beast," civil libertarians opposed it for its "big brother" connotations and others worried about identity theft issues with the proposed databases.
"We got rid of the REAL ID program, but [this one] is way more insidious," she said.
Enhanced driver's licenses have built-in radio chips providing an identifying number or information that can be accessed by a remote reading unit while the license is inside a wallet or purse.
The technology already had been implemented in Washington state, where it is promoted as an alternative to a passport for traveling to Canada. So far, the program is optional.
But there are other agreements already approved with Michigan, Vermont, New York and Arizona, and plans are under way in other states, including Texas, she said.
Napolitano, as Arizona's governor, was against the REAL ID, Albrecht said. Now, as chief of Homeland Security, she is suggesting the more aggressive electronic ID of Americans.
"She's coming out and saying, 'OK, OK, OK, you win. We won't do REAL ID. But what we probably ought to do is nationwide enhanced driver's licenses,'" Albrecht told WND.
"They're actually talking about issuing every person a spychip driver's license," she said. "That is the potential problem."
Imagine, she said, going to a First Amendment-protected event, a church or a mosque, or even a gun show or a peace rally.
"What happens to all those people when a government operator carrying a reading device makes a circuit of the event?" she asked. "They could download all those unique ID numbers and link them."
Participants could find themselves on "watch" lists or their attendance at protests or rallies added to their government "dossier."
She said even if such license programs are run by states, there's virtually no way that the databases would not be linked and accessible to the federal government.
Albrecht said a hint of what is on the agenda was provided recently by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The state's legislature approved a plan banning the government from using any radio chips in any ID documentation.
Schwarzenegger's veto noted he did not want to interfere with any coming or future federal programs for identifying people.
Albrecht's recent guest on her radio program was Michigan State Rep. Paul Opsommer, who said the government appears to be using a national anti-terrorism plan requiring people to document their identities as they enter the United States to promote the technology.
"The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative was … just about proving you were a citizen, not that you had to do it by any specific kind of technology," Opsommer said.
But he said, "We are close to the point now that if you don't want RFID in any of your documents that you can't leave the country or get back into it."
Opsommer said his own state sought an exception to the growing federal move toward driver's licenses with an electronic ID chip, and he was told that was "unlikely."
He was told, "They were trying to harmonize these standards with Canada and Mexico [so] it had to apply to everybody. I was absolutely dumbfounded."
"This must be nipped in the bud. Enhanced DL's make REAL ID look like a walk in the park," Albrecht said.
"Look, I am all in favor of only giving drivers licenses to U.S. citizens or people that are otherwise here in this country legally," Opsommer said, "But we are already doing that in Michigan. We accomplished that without an EDL, as has virtually every other state via their own state laws.
"But just because we choose to only issue our license to U.S. citizens does not mean that our licenses should somehow then fall under federal control. It's still a state document, we are just controlling who we issue them to. But under the EDL program, the Department of Homeland Security is saying that making sure illegals don't get these is not enough. Now you need the chip to prove your citizenship," he continued.
Opsommer further warned the electronic chips embedded in licenses to confirm identity are just the first step.
"Canadians are also more connected to what is going on in Britain with the expansion of the national ID program there, and have seen the mission creep that occurs with things like gun control first hand … Whatever the reason, as an example, just last week the Canadian government repatriated a database from the U.S. that contained the driver's license data of their citizens," he said.
Wild Thing's comment........
Note from the article that even CA legislature banned this chip and Arnold vetoed the ban. What a total moran he is.
Chipped License and ID cards? Uh...NO! Not just “NO”, but “Hell, NO!”
These jackbooted thugs need to be made to stop these illegal, immoral assaults on the freedoms guaranteed to us by the Constitution.
I fear for the future of this grand experiment.
It’s time to take back the country.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at March 1, 2009 04:44 AM
Comments
Don't they believe in voluntary? I don't want some chip in my drivers license, telling cops everything about me and my personals. But that time is coming when either you take the mark of the beast or you die. Plain and simple. I couldn't stand living in such a world.
But I see those who voted for Obamanation need that control in their lives. They need the government to tell them what to do and how to live.
I don't. I can pick my own path and buy my own dinner, so to speak.
Posted by: Lynn at March 1, 2009 07:59 AM
The next step after this will be to implant a chip in your body. It's sure looking like Revelation, Chapter 13 is starting to take root.
Posted by: BobF at March 1, 2009 09:11 AM
Lynn, your right - it's all about control for these people. "I will rule the WORLD!!!"
Pretty soon they'll "chip" firearms and ammo.
And watch for the gas mileage tax some are calling for - chip your GPS to let them know how many miles you drive.
Did you know that "Atlas Shrugged" is flying off the bookstore shelves?
I am John Galt!!
Posted by: yankeemom at March 1, 2009 10:33 AM
Lynn, AMEN to all you said.
Posted by: Wild Thing at March 1, 2009 01:34 PM
BobF., it sure is. Obama is the first president that has me thinking about the book of Revelation often.
Posted by: Wild Thing at March 1, 2009 01:36 PM
Yankeemom, I saw that about the gas mileage tax. They sure love taxing us to death.
Posted by: Wild Thing at March 1, 2009 01:38 PM
Total control. That is what members of the government want. Technology today can supply that control.
Have you noticed that most of our Federal elected politicians are career politicians! They are the elite. They will be and are exempted from their own rules. I wish we had term limits at the Fed level and could turn over these elitists every 8 or 10 years. Also include Congressional staffers, lobbyists and appointed officials in these limits.
Posted by: TomR at March 1, 2009 02:24 PM
Control for inside the borders but not from without, golly isn't that the way Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Syria, Saudia Arabia and North Korea work?
I've got yo go to work for a bit, here's why.
Posted by: Jack at March 1, 2009 02:55 PM
Just another step closer to a belated 1984. Total control of the masses and everyone knows what Marx said about the masses. This is what the congress thinks of us.
Start remembering to leave the license at home.
Posted by: Mark at March 1, 2009 07:38 PM
Mark,
If we leave our drivers license at home, the government will realize, and no longer will you have 21 to prove you have a license, it will be a primary offense and they will know you don't have it with you. You will be pulled over more and have to pay a LOT more money, so it won't be worth it to leave your license at home anymore! Because what you said is the first thing I thought of, but the government will always find a way to win...
Posted by: RACHAEL at March 3, 2009 10:42 AM
