The State shall not participate in the implementation of the federal REAL ID Act

 

June 6, 2007 – South Carolina is on the verge of passing one of the nation’s most aggressive opposition laws to the federal REAL ID Act.  S 449 passed the South Carolina Senate earlier this legislative session.  It went to the South Carolina House of Representatives where it passed last week, although state rep Bobtail Bob Walker managed to attach as an amendment - his unrelated aeronautics bill.  Bobtailing is the practice of attaching pieces of legislation onto other pieces of legislation in order to get less pressing or less popular bills passed into law.  By adding the amendment, S 449 had to return to the South Carolina Senate where the state senators correctly and promptly removed the bobtail from S 449, passed S 449 again, and returned it to the house.  There is a strong grassroots effort among patriotic South Carolinians – citizen lobbyists – to compel the SC House to now pass S 449 again without molesting it. 

 

S 449 is as simple as it gets.  It states:

 

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina:

 

SECTION 1. Chapter 1, Title 56 of the 1976 Code is amended by adding:

 

“Section 56-1-85.  The State shall not participate in the implementation of the federal REAL ID Act.”

 

SECTION 2.  This act takes effect upon approval by the Governor. 

 

Plain and simple, is it not?  The State shall not participate in the implementation of the federal REAL ID Act.  It is a beautiful thing!  Now if only South Carolina would issue an appropriate Declaration of Secession…if only the 50 states would dissolve this corporation called the United States of America and reinstitute the long lost original intent of a constitutional republic called the united States of America – then we the people could once again enjoy the freedom and liberty our founding fathers had in mind. 

 

History has a tendency to repeat itself.  As a resident of South Carolina, I have often said that it just might not be South Carolina’s role in our nation’s tapestry to lead it in public education scholastic achievement scores or average annual salary statistics.  South Carolina’s role may once again be to dissolve its relationship with the federal union. 

 

The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue…

 

Some of the motivations behind the April 1852 declaration were clearly wrong.  Slavery was grotesque and abominable. Period. But the principle of withdrawing from the federal union for frequent violations of the Constitution was and remains right!  Don’t ever forget it!  Maybe that’s our answer – to stop trying to institute change at the federal level – and just dissolve the union.  After all, we really have no evidence whatsoever that supports the idea that our vote – our will – actually matters in Washington DC. 

 

Don’t be scared.  Just fathom it.  Our founding fathers fathomed dissolving the union with the King of England.  And so they did.  This is our moment in history.  What will the history books say about our generation and our response to our nation’s distress?  What will history say about you?  The government is using brutal force against us – excessive and lethal force, draconian and victimless crime laws, cops and prosecutors that perjurer themselves every time they take the stand – when will we rise up to meet force with force?  Think about it.  Back to REAL ID…

 

Earlier this year, both the SC house and senate passed H. 3989 – a concurrent resolution to memorialize the U.S. Congress to repeal or decline implementation of the REAL ID ACT of 2005 and to oppose the creation of a federal national identification card.

 

H. 3989 states: 

Whereas, the State of South Carolina recognizes the Constitution of the United States as our most fundamental charter of liberty and the Bill of Rights as affirming the fundamental and inalienable rights of Americans, including freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures and freedom of privacy; and

Whereas, the Constitution of the United States grants to the federal government the ability to make only seven mandates on the states, and that these mandates are the apportionment of troops for military needs, found in Section 8 of Article I; an unapportioned quota of money to balance the budget in times of deficit, found in Section 9 of Article I; an oath of office to support the Constitution, found in Article IV; the full faith and credit for the laws of other states, found in Section 1 of Article IV; the extradition of fugitives, found in Section 2 of Article IV; a republican form of government, found in Section 4 of Article IV; and the right of all qualified citizens to vote, found in Amendments XV, XIV, and XXIV; and that these seven mandates do not support the demands of the Real ID Act of 2005, found at Division B of Public Law 109-13 and signed by President George W. Bush on May 11, 2005; and

Whereas, the citizens of the individual states, having delegated to Congress by means of the Constitution of the United States the power to punish treason, counterfeiting of securities or currency of the United States, piracy or a felony committed on the high seas, and an offense against the law of a nation, but no other crimes; and it is true as a general principle and by an amendment to the Constitution that "powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to it by the states, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people," that the Real ID Act passed by Congress on February 10, 2005, is void and without force; and

Whereas, it is unconscionable for this State to submit to an act of Congress that exceeds the limited grant of power to the federal government and contained in the United States Constitution, especially when the act would infringe on a protected right of this State or its people; and

Whereas, the Real ID Act, by purportedly creating a national system of identification that connects banking, commerce, federal services, and other necessities of American life to the demand for this form of identification is viewed by numerous Americans of diverse Christian faiths as being diametrically opposed to their beliefs in scripture and their doctrines, the act also creates the very real potential for massive civil and religious rebellion, both openly and secretly, to the demand of the federal government for compliance with the Real ID Act; and

Whereas, no act of Congress should infringe on the rights of conscience for our pious and faithful citizens; and

Whereas, the State of South Carolina denounces terrorism in all forms and condemns all acts of terrorism by a foreign or domestic entity; and

Whereas, security measures designed to protect American citizens from terrorist acts must be designed to enhance the safety of American citizens without infringing on their Constitutionally protected rights and liberties, and without being enacted outside the limited grant of power on Congress; and

Whereas, the Real ID Act purports without Constitutional authority to allow the federal government to create a federal national identification card by mandating federal standards, subject to approval of the United States Department of Homeland Security, for state driver's licenses and other identification cards, and requiring states to share their motor vehicle databases; and

Whereas, the Real ID Act purports to mandate the documents that states must require to issue or renew a state driver's license and purports to require states to place uniform information in a standard, machine-readable format on every driver's license; and

Whereas, the Real ID Act prohibits federal agencies, federally regulated commercial airlines, and federally regulated private banks from accepting a driver's license or other identification card issued by a state that does not fully comply with the act; and

Whereas, the Real ID Act would, if implemented in the State of South Carolina, prove a very costly and long-term endeavor at the expense of the citizens of this State and their liberties; and

Whereas, the Real ID Act purports to require the creation of a massive public sector database that contains information on every citizen of the United States and that is accessible to all motor vehicle department employees and law enforcement officers nationwide, and that can be used to gather and manage information on United States citizens, and that this database is not the Constitutionally sanctioned business or responsibility of state or federal government; and

Whereas, the Real ID Act enables the creation of additional massive private sector databases, combining both transactional information and driver's license information gained from scanning the machine-readable information contained on every driver's license converted to a Real ID; and

Whereas, these public and private databases are likely to contain numerous errors and inadvertently false information, creating hardships for Americans attempting to verify their identities when renewing a driver's license, board a commercial airplane, open an account with federally regulated private banks, or perform the numerous functions required to live a normal life in the United States; and

Whereas, the Federal Trade Commission estimates annually that approximately ten million citizens of the United States are victims of identity theft, and because identity thieves increasingly target motor vehicle departments, the Real ID Act might enable the crime of identity theft by making available from tens of thousands of locations certain personal information of all United States' citizens, including a person's signature, social security number, and birth date; and

Whereas, the Real ID Act requires a driver's license to contain a person's physical home address without an exception for a person without a physical home address, a person in particular danger such as a law enforcement officer, a judicial officer, or a victim of stalking or another form of criminal harassment; and

Whereas, the Real ID Act contains onerous record verification and retention provisions that place unreasonable burdens on motor vehicle division personnel and third parties required to locate and verify records; and

Whereas, the Real ID Act will place motor vehicle department staff on the front lines of immigration enforcement by requiring state employees to determine federal citizenship and immigration status, excessively burdening both foreign-born applicants and motor vehicle department staff; and

Whereas, the Real ID Act did not receive sufficient deliberation on the floors of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives, and did not receive a hearing by a Congressional committee or a vote solely on its own merits, and was passed despite opposition by more than six hundred organizations; and

Whereas, the Real ID Act eliminates a process of negotiated rulemaking initiated under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Act of 2004, which convened federal, state, and local policymakers, privacy advocates, and industry experts to solve the problem of misuse of identity documents; and

Whereas, the Real ID Act provides no new security benefits in the proposed form of identification, and because individual state identification measures comprise fifty distinct types of identification, this new proposal diminishes the individual state identification measures to a single type while simultaneously increasing the amount of personal information contained in it, leaving it even more vulnerable to insider fraud, identification theft, counterfeit documentation, and database failure; and

Whereas, the federal government has intimated the potential loss of funding to a state that refuses to comply with the Real ID Act, the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina will not consider such threats as indicative of the federal government's general disregard for the liberty of the citizens of the United States; and

Whereas, it has also been intimated that the governments of Mexico and Canada would receive access to the databases created as a result of partnerships of our respective national governments under international treaties, consequently placing the personal information of the citizens of the United States at an increased risk of fraud, theft, or other unauthorized and potentially deleterious uses. Now, therefore,

Be it resolved by the House of Representatives, the Senate concurring:

That the members of the South Carolina General Assembly memorialize Congress to repeal or decline implementation of the Real ID Act of 2005 and to oppose the creation of a federal national identification card.

Be it further resolved that a copy of this resolution be forwarded to the President of the United States, the Attorney General of the United States, the United States Congress, and the members of the South Carolina Congressional Delegation.

Governor Mark Sanford is expected to sign H. 3989.  If S. 449 makes it to his desk, it is anticipated that he’ll sign it also.  South Carolinians should be proud.