Pursuant to the 2005 Real ID Act, the United States government is on schedule to prohibit many Americans from domestic flights unless they present US passports or other approved US government IDs in 2016. Expect the sweep of the prohibition to be vast given the US Department of Homeland Security represents that 28 states and all US territories produce IDs noncompliant with Real ID. In a US House of Representatives floor debate on the Real ID Act, then-Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) warned that voting for the bill is voting for a national ID card. “If a state opts out, nobody is going to accept their driver’s license,” said Paul.
Watch Paul’s complete House floor speech here:
Real ID is worse than just an authoritarian mandate for “showing our papers” because, Paul explains, the legislation provides no maximum limit on what, including biometric information and radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips, the US government can require to be included on identification cards.
Paul is the Chairman and Founder of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.
