How Does a National I.D. Card Protect Our Borders?

Congressman Ron Paul (R TX) sometimes gets a critical rap for being "against" so many Congressional initiatives. It shouldn't be surprising. Rep. Paul is a strict Constitutionalist and adheres to the Constitution probably more than any other U.S. Congressman. When the rare politician and his constituents stand strictly and unwaveringly for the Constitution, they are often subjected to nominal name calling, at the very least (the term "extremist" or "whacked out extremist" come to mind), but then being right usually doesn't elicit the praise of populists.

Rep. Paul is currently expressing concern for HR 418-- A National ID Bill Masquerading as Immigration Reform. Here are a couple of problems he has with the bill:

This bill establishes a massive, centrally-coordinated database of highly personal information about American citizens: at a minimum their name, date of birth, place of residence, Social Security number, and physical and possibly other characteristics. What is even more disturbing is that, by mandating that states participate in the “Drivers License Agreement,” this bill creates a massive database of sensitive information on American citizens that will be shared with Canada and Mexico!

This bill could have a chilling effect on the exercise of our constitutionally guaranteed rights. It re-defines "terrorism" in broad new terms that could well include members of firearms rights and anti-abortion groups, or other such groups as determined by whoever is in power at the time. There are no prohibitions against including such information in the database as information about a person’s exercise of First Amendment rights or about a person’s appearance on a registry of firearms owners.

This legislation gives authority to the Secretary of Homeland Security to expand required information on driver’s licenses, potentially including such biometric information as retina scans, finger prints, DNA information, and even Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) radio tracking technology. Including such technology as RFID would mean that the federal government, as well as the governments of Canada and Mexico, would know where Americans are at all time of the day and night.

Be sure to read the rest of his commentary. It's not lengthy. Status and summary of HR 418 can be found here.

Ron Paul is chairman of The Liberty Committee where more information regarding HR 418 can be found.

Democracy Is Not Freedom is a recent piece by Rep. Paul you won't want to miss.