Current law puts the government in a position to inappropriately
monitor the movements and transactions of every citizen. 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]
Real ID
Act
The Real ID Act, supported by Republican politicians and backed
by President Bush says that 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.
Under the measure, your new drivers' license — the one
you'll be required to get starting in 2008 — 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.
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
More video about the
New World
Order and
Real ID Act
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
