Oppose the Read ID act in NY!
The Real ID Act of 2005 would turn our state driver’s licenses into a genuine national identity card and impose numerous new burdens on taxpayers, citizens, immigrants, and state governments – while doing nothing to protect against terrorism.
Oppose the Read ID act in NY!
Contact your NY State Senator - urge them to support Senate Bill J 2096, urging the NYS Congressional delegation to support measures to repeal the Real ID Act of 2005.
Contact your NY State Assemblyman to support Assembly Bill K 648, urging the NYS Congressional delegation to support measures to repeal the Real ID Act of 2005.
Take Action! (http://www.realnightmare.org/states/58/)
All Other States - Read about and oppose the Real ID Act!
Governor of Washington signing a bill to opt her state out of the Real ID act passed by the federal government in 2005 (goes into effect by May 2008). Let's have New York opt out of this fascist law!
***************ACLU Press Release*******************
"Real ID is dead in the water, and it is clear that no amount of money can save it," said ACLU Legislative Counsel Tim Sparapani. "The only solution to Real ID is to scrap and replace it, and Congress has caught on. With seventeen states opposed to this program and the U.S. Senate standing behind them, this is the beginning of the end of Real ID. $300 million does not even come close to covering the costs of the program, and it is not enough to lure Americans to give up their privacy."
Real ID poses serious privacy threats. The federally mandated IDs would hold machine-readable data of every American. That information would be stored in a national database available to government employees at all levels, putting every American at risk of identity theft and security breaches.
Ultimately, Real ID could pave the way for a society that tracks Americans’ movements and warehouses personal information in centralized databases that are rife with errors and highly enticing to identity thieves. Because Real ID promises to be such an integral part of our lives, from boarding a plane to opening a bank account to verifying your eligibility to work, a small glitch could have disastrous consequences.
Seventeen state legislatures have passed laws rejecting the program, with seven of those states passing binding legislation refusing to implement it. Never before in modern history has a federal mandate been so vehemently rejected by the states.
"The American people are not suckers and they won’t be duped by attempts to dress up a bad proposal with a little federal funding," said Director of the ACLU Technology and Liberty Program Barry Steinhardt. "Throwing money at Real ID will not fix anything because the program is fundamentally flawed and fundamentally unworkable. There are only two options: Scrap Real ID altogether, or replace it with something that works. Americans don’t want a national ID, and they shouldn’t be forced to pay for one."
Full article here