The Senate voted today to kill the immigration bill, so Real ID remains intact and unchanged. And, more importantly, unexpanded. There's a good argument -- that John makes below and I do in my News.com article -- that the Real ID flap was what killed the broader immigration bill: http://news.com.com/2100-7348_3-6193916.html So the police state Doomsday Clock moves one minute further from midnight. Previous Politech message: http://www.politechbot.com/2007/06/28/senate-backs-away/ -Declan -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [Politech] Senate backs away from Real ID Act [priv] Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 17:12:15 -0700 From: John Gilmore <gnu@private> To: Declan McCullagh <declan@private> CC: politech@private References: <4683661C.4090803@private> The interesting part is that the Bush Administration wouldn't take out the Real National ID stuff in order to let immigration reform, their most very favorite pet project, survive. The control freaks want that big federal database of every person in the country, badly. They want it despite the massive opposition to it in state legislatures and among ordinary people. What motivated the two Montana Senators (Baucus and Tester) to remove Real National ID from the bill is that Montana's state legislature and governor had just voted overwhelmingly to refuse to implement Real National ID in Montana state drivers' licenses. For those who didn't read the immigration bill, it would not have been a big deal to yank the "Real ID" requirement from it. The Montana Senators' language would do it without trouble. Even without Real National ID, the bill would still contain a new requirement that every employer check in a database and get an affirmative "OK" back from the feds when hiring each person (or fire them within 10 to 30 days). Personally I think that goes beyond the enumerated powers of the federal government; I think every citizen has a right to work for a living, with or without the permission of the feds. That database check requirement was to be enforced by having the Social Security Administration turn over all the employment records they receive quarterly (with payroll taxes) to the Gestapo. DHS would then compare the payroll records against the records of who's been vetted for employment, to catch the employers who declined to participate in this little federal power grab. To escape the federal net as an employer, you'd not only have to skip the federal scan on your workers, you'd have to skip the whole federal tax collection and reporting on them (and state taxes too, or the feds would catch you by comparing federal to state records). While this might have been a good thing in the long run, by encouraging employers to opt entirely out of feeding money to the Washington kleptocracy, it would raise the risks for everybody. Especially for the law-abiding sheep whose every move would be tracked for later fleecing. An immigration bill that didn't eliminate Americans' right to work at any job they please, with or without federal permission, was not acceptable to Bush and his cronies. Apparently, every policy change is a chance to bring us closer to the ideal police state. If you can't get the police state, well, never mind the policy change after all. John Gilmore PS: The attempt to force a process of "get federal permission to hire FIRST" on the country is eerily parallel to the DHS proposal to require airlines to "get federal permission to transport FIRST". Today, airlines can bring you to the US without permission, but they are liable for the cost of carrying you elsewhere if the US won't admit you. This naturally limits their willingness to bring random people -- but allows people to come and apply for asylum, for example. The Gestapo announced months ago that they plan to change this to require each passenger's info to be submitted long before the plane takes off, getting an affirmative "OK", or else the passenger would not be allowed on board at all. As with other federal watchlist checks, this would come with zero due process protection for the passenger, and zero accountability for the government. If they mysteriously keep saying "No", there's nothing that you as a citizen could do to get back into your own country. They wouldn't even have to jail or detain you, such that a lawyer could go to court with some urgency to spring you. No, YOU would have to sue THEM, and it would take years in the courts. It's the same in the immigration bill if the Feds refuse hiring permission. They have impunity and you have no rights. It's the underlying Bush Administration, or should I merely say Federal, philosophy. _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
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