REAL ID - ACTION Alert - Contact your Governor!

[Terre]

OK everybody. Let's not panic. We all know, or if you don't, the Real ID bill passed in the Senate today.

As I mentioned over at lala-rawraw's thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3633012

it's not yet doomsday. Many Governors are against this bill and for good reason. Some of those reasons are spelled out in this AP article:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050510/ap_on_go_co/immigration_driver_s_licenses

Excerpts:

Several states fear the new rules will be costly, provide little protection against invasions of privacy and identity theft, and make getting a driver's license a bigger headache for Americans.

<snip>

(Lamar) Alexander (R-TN) and other lawmakers said the rules established in the REAL ID Act will have unintended consequences. Driver's license examiners trained to decide whether a person can parallel park will have to determine whether an applicant is an al-Qaida terrorist, he said.

"It's possible that some governor may look at this and say, 'Wait a minute. Who are these people in Washington telling us what to do with our driver's licenses and making us pay for them, too?'" Alexander said.

Some states have threatened to challenge the new driver's license orders in court and even disobey them.

Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, vice chairman of the National Governors Association, has said "if more than half of the governors agree we're not going down without a fight on this, Congress will have to consider changing" the rules. Huckabee also is a Republican.

There is still time to nip this in the bud, but we all need to get going and write a letter to our Govenor and ask them to oppose this new bill and it's implementation.

Ask them to get into contact with the Chairman of the National Governors Association.

I don't know about any of you, but I'm gonna start drafting my letter tonight and send it off tomorrow, and if you have the time, I think a snail-mailed, hand-written (typed) letter would carry a little more weight.

I hate to keep asking this, but this is a thread that we need to keep at the top - at least for 24 hours?

[NVMojo]

1. frightening, why was it passed????

[Terre]

3. Because the Repugs are sneaky

and Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis, slipped it into the bill for U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I think Tsunami relief.

Considering the fact the we're the minority, we couldn't exactly get it out.

[TahitiNut]

4. Purportedly because fake drivers licenses can get a terrorist on a plane.

The TSA ("your travel papers, please") wants more reliable ID so they can have more reliable "Don't Fly" lists.

At the same time, we have the "Illegal Aliens" brouhaha. Many would like to make it more difficult for them to obtain a domestic drivers license. (Anything to keep from enforcing illegal aliens at the employer level. The 'cheap labor' neocons are running out of exportable jobs and want the benefits of cheap labor anyway.)

[nickgutierrez]

7. It was attached to the emergency funding bill..

...for Iraq and Afghanistan, and for the tsunami disasters in SE Asia.

[atommom]

2. Kicking it up! Thanks. I think our Governor might be one of the

sympathetic ones. She's a Dem, and seems to have a good head on her shoulders...

[kcass1954]

5. I'll give it my best shot, but... Jebbie's my govenor.

I think I'm fucked! The only thing he's had the balls to stand up to Junior about is that offshore drilling is off-limits.

[Todd B]

6. Argh!

Argh, I hate having Bush-lite, Romney as my governor. There is about a snowballs chance in hell that he'll every do anything contrary to Bush. It's worth a try though - assuming that he actually stays in the state for more then two seconds to read it. :)

I will be contacting Kennedy and Kerry tommorrow, however, because I can't believe that they would have the nerve to support this trash - I don't even care about defence spending bills. Call me callous, but we have spend nearly 300 billion dollars for the military (and this "war") and what have we shown for it? Thousands of dead, innocent Iraqi civilians, that's what.

Sorry, if I went off on a tangent - I don't know if I can take this government much longer. Europe is looking mighty nice right about now! *g*

[genius]

8. Michael Chertoff now has the legal authority to assassinate all governors

who oppose him. If Michael goes on TV and announces plans to assassinate all governors who oppose him, no one can do anything but wait for it to happen. Section 102 gives Michael the authority to do all that. He also now has the authority to go into hospitals and shoot newborns. Great country.

[BanzaiBonnie]

9. I called Senator Patty Murray's office

about this yesterday. Her Vancouver office rep said that Murray would have to vote against the bill to get the Real ID thing out and she wasn't going to do that. It would be political suicide.

The Senate has no ability to line item veto. Why not? This is how they all pad budgets with pork. When will someone have the gonads to do something about this kind of abuse of power?