National ID: The Battle Begins... Again 
 

Last year REAL ID -- the Bush administration's plan to turn state driver's licenses into a national ID card -- was stopped by a heroic grassroots effort. Ultimately, an amazing 23 states enacted anti-REAL ID bills or resolutions, driving a stake into the heart of that monstrous proposal.
 
But a national ID is just too terrible an idea not to appeal to power-hungry government officials, whatever their party.
 
And so the fight is on again. REAL ID is back, under the name PASS ID and with the support of President Obama and the Department of Homeland Security. And like its predecessor, PASS ID is radical Big Brother legislation of the very worst kind.
 
PASS ID, introduced in the Senate on June 15, will create America's first-ever national ID card. Like REAL ID, PASS ID will subject every driver's license applicant to a "mandatory facial image capture" resulting in a holographic photograph readable by face-recognition technology (which opens the possibility of tracking by surveillance cameras). A digital signature and other biometrics are also required.
 
Each driver's license will also contain machine-readable bar codes with unique numbers for each individual, which critics warn could be used to amass databases of citizens who attend gun shows or other "controversial" events.
 
PASS ID further allows the use of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chips to identify and track individuals, though it does not (yet) mandate them. Homeland Security has already worked with some states to develop RFID-chipped licenses which emit signals that can be read as far as twenty feet away.
 
PASS ID requires states to conduct national background checks on all driver's license applicants -- by running their names through federal immigration, Social Security and State Department databases, as well as the driver's license databases of other states.
 
Further, as the ACLU notes: "your driver's license will have to be PASS ID-compliant if you plan on using it to board an airplane or enter any federal facility more critical to homeland security than your local post office." Those attempting to fly without PASS IDs will be subjected to time-consuming and invasive interrogation and searches.
 
Even the name PASS ID, whether intentionally or not, sounds like what it in fact is: a national internal PASSport -- a document required simply to travel within our own borders. Or a national "hall PASS" required by our Homeland Security "school monitors" to go about our business. This is something never before seen in America and a hallmark of tyranny.
 
PASS ID has eliminated some parts of REAL ID that stirred up opposition. But that's just window dressing. PASS ID is just REAL ID with lipstick and a new hairdo: a national ID, posing extreme threats to our freedom.
 
Should it becomes law, it can quickly and easily be expanded to become even more dangerous. As the Cato Institute's Jim Harper notes:
 
"PASS ID places no limits on how the Department of Homeland Security, other agencies, and states could use the national ID to regulate the population. ... A simple law change or amendment to existing regulation would expand those uses to give the federal government control over access to employment, access to credit cards, voting... And these are just the ideas that have already been floated."
 
PASS ID is a nightmare. Americans must urge lawmakers to "PASS up" this wretched proposal.

 
Rhode Island Gov't Explores Legalizing Pot
 
A few weeks ago the Rhode Island General Assembly legalized the sale (through state-licensed dispensaries) of marijuana for medical purposes.
 
Now the Senate has gone further, creating a commission to study marijuana-related issues -- including outright legalization.
 
According to the Providence (Rhode Island) Journal, the commission will explore how much Rhode Island could collect if it made marijuana legal, with a "sin tax" of $35 per ounce.
 
Among the commission's other tasks: explore "[t]he experience of individuals and families sentenced for violating marijuana laws ... The experience of states and European countries, such as California, Massachusetts and the Netherlands, which have decriminalized the sale and use of marijuana."
 
Senator Joshua Miller, one of the sponsors of the initiative, said it was inspired by "a national trend towards decriminalization."
 
He also cited last year's decriminalization in neighboring Massachusetts, overwhelmingly approved by voters, which makes possession of less than an ounce of marijuana punishable only by a civil fine of $100.
 
The panel must report its findings by January 31, 2010.


Food Labeling Even A Libertarian Can Support (Kinda)
 
You're paying way too much for your food, says James Gibney, a reporter for the Atlantic Monthly magazine. And naturally enough, it's the government's fault.
 
Consider breakfast:
 
"Before you start spooning up your next bowl of Frosted Flakes, ponder this: driven partly by the demand for ethanol, the price of the corn in your flakes is about 40 percent higher than it was a few years ago; the sugar easily cost you more than double the world price; and your milk is at least 15 percent more expensive than it would be in many other countries.
 
"Americans pay much more than they should for their food. Thanks to a thicket of subsidies and tariffs that support American farmers and tilt the growing field against cheaper foreign producers, we get ripped off twice: first as taxpayers who ante up for roughly $25 billion in agricultural subsidies each year ($4 billion for milk alone in 2006); then as consumers who pay higher prices at the checkout counter because we can't take advantage of low-price imports."
 
Gibney goes on to give details about how these outrageous practices harm both American consumers and impoverished farmers abroad.
 
So, what to do about it? Gibney has a fascinating proposal:
 
"Just as food manufacturers now list their products' ingredients and nutritional value, they should also disclose their 'free-market' value.
 
"To wit, every product whose ingredients benefit from a subsidy should include the following language on the label:
 
    'This product has been subsidized by the U.S. government at taxpayer expense. For more information, please visit usda.gov."
 
"And every product that benefits from tariff protection should have the following language on the label:
 
    'This product is protected from foreign competition by U.S. import tariffs. Its price is higher as a result. For more information, please visit usitc.gov.'"
 
Gibney hopes such labeling would send mobs of outraged consumers to those sites. And just maybe those sites would in turn post the phone numbers of Congressional committees in charge of such regulation "--hmmmm, perhaps even their chairs' home phone numbers," he says.
 
Concludes Gibney: "Let the angry 2 a.m. phone calls begin!"
 
(Thanks to the Cato Institute blog)

 
Barak Obama: Tax Cutter?
 
In a dramatic July 11 speech, delivered in Ghana and broadcast across the continent of Africa, President Obama declared:
 
"No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top..."
 
Wow! Has Barack Obama become... a tax reformer?
 
Because a lot of American citizens and businesses would *love* to encounter tax rates of 20%.
 
Consider:
 
* According to Americans For Tax Reform (ATR), under President Obama's budget this year federal spending will account for 28.7% of GDP.
 
* ATR further notes: "The U.S's exorbitant average marginal corporate tax rate of 39.3% is exactly the reason business and investment is fleeing the U.S in droves." That tax rate is the second-highest in the world.
 
* According to The Tax Foundation, this year taxes will eat up 28.2% of our national income. (Other estimates put the total tax burden far higher.)
 
So bring it on, Mr. President -- let's cap personal and corporate taxes at 19% or less. It would at least be a step in the right direction.
 
As The Tax Foundation says: "What's good for Ghana is good for the gander."
 

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Quick Shots...

LET THEM EAT CAKE DEP'T: "You can. Just go work for the federal government." -- Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley's response to a constituent who asked why he couldn't receive the same high-quality health insurance Grassley and other Congress critters enjoy (via our tax dollars, of course). As we reported last issue, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management reports that members of Congress "enjoy the widest selection of health plans in the country."
 

SOTOMAYOR AND THAT PESKY SECOND AMENDMENT: "Is there a constitutional right to self-defense? ... I can't think of one. I could be wrong, but I can't think of one." -- Supreme Court nominee and federal judge Sonia Sotomayor, when asked by Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) whether or not the Constitution guaranteed the right of self-defense. In 2004 Sotomayor signed an opinion stating "the right to possess a gun is clearly not a fundamental right."
 
PEOPLE CAN MAKE THEIR OWN CHOICES: "We should stop treating people as criminals because they smoke marijuana. ... Announcing that the government should mind its own business on marijuana is really not that hard. There's not a lot of complexity here. We should stop treating people as criminals because they smoke marijuana. The problem is the political will. ...there should be a small number of things that the government makes illegal, but the great bulk of human activity ought to be none of the government's business. People can make their own choices."
-- U.S. Representative Barney Frank (D-MA), interviewed in Esquire magazine about his new bill to eliminate federal penalties for personal possession of small amounts of marijuana.
 
CANADIAN HEALTH CARE CRITIC: "People line up for care, some of them die. That's what happens. The more time I spent in the Canadian system, the more I came across people waiting for radiation therapy, waiting for the knee replacement so they could finally walk up to the second floor of their house. 'You want to see your neurologist because of your stress headache? No problem! Just wait six months. You want an MRI? No problem! Free as the air! Just wait six months.'"
-- Canadian doctor David Gratzer, author of the book The Cure, interviewed by ABC's John Stossel.
 
NO DIFFERENCE: "President Obama may mouth very different rhetoric. He may have a more complicated process with members of Congress. But in the end, there is no substantive break from the policies of the Bush administration."
-- Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), on Obama's proposals to continue the Bush doctrine of preventive detention.