Speaking Tuesday before the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the United States House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations regarding the implementation of REAL ID mandates on travelers, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem displayed succinctly in one sentence her disdain for the right of Americans to travel freely and her support instead for an authoritarian approach to travel.
“But we are telling people that this law will be enforced and it will allow us to know individuals in this country who they are and that they’re authorized to travel,” declared Noem regarding the starting the next day of REAL ID enforcement on travelers. Yet, the right to travel is a fundamental right long recognized by the US government and its courts. And the right to travel is the opposite of travel being allowed only when and to whom the government decides. Further, the right to travel includes the right to travel without showing your papers, updated in the age of mass surveillance to showing your REAL ID. An apparently peaceful person going about his business should be able to continue to do so without having to identify himself to any government agent or provide proof that the government has preapproved his movement from point A to point B. That’s freedom. The Noem approach, in contrast, is authoritarianism.
Adding to the outrageousness of this defense of REAL ID Noem offered is an assertion she made just before in her comments at the subcommittee hearing. Noem said that REAL ID would be imposed on travelers on Wednesday because after years — 17 years in fact — of delay of implementation “the Biden administration chose that it should go into place on May seventh and we intend to follow the law.” Hold on: Noem is really passing the buck to the Biden administration? President Donald Trump and his administration has spent a great amount of effort — via executive orders, regulation changes, and other actions — rescinding many decrees of the Biden administration. Trump and Noem could do the same regarding REAL ID. At a minimum, they could ensure four more years of delay as administration after administration has done before. Instead, they chose to move forward with imposing REAL ID on travelers. They cannot evade any of the responsibility on this. Trump and Noem are choosing to pursue the authoritarian course.
