It's more than just ID Cards.

[athelind]

From various sources:

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REAL ID removes the right of judicial review -- including habeas corpus - for people fleeing persecution, undermines the privacy rights of even native-born Americans, burdens the states with complex and unfunded ID requirements, makes it harder for battered women to hide from their abusers, scapegoats the immigrant community and does nothing to address the actual problem of border security and enforcement in the United States.

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The new law is also retroactive, so people can be deported today for things they did or said lawfully years ago.

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Congress has crafted a completely unprecedented provision that guts the principle of judicial review by granting the DHS secretary complete and total immunity from the courts when it comes to the construction of "barriers and roads" in this one specific geographical region... As the present bill stands, if DHS built a road through an endangered wetland and committed four murders in the process, nobody could take the government to court over it. Is this the kind of unchecked power that we want Congress to have?

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Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George W. Bush...
...may profit by their example.

If this be terrorism, make the most of it.

Comments

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

I'm really surprised Kos et al. aren't alight with this thing. Response has been more vigorous from the hard-right and libertarian types and the gun groups (who, amazingly, are managing to blame the UN and gun-control advocates for the bill). REAL ID is every paranoid rightwinger's fantasy come to life, and they're starting -- starting -- to think Lord Bush might not have their best interests at heart.

If the Democrats realized what a giant fucking gift they've been given by REAL ID to splinter off small-government libertarians and gun people from the Republicans, then.. uh.. they wouldn't be the Democratic Party we know. :P Also, the dem senators voted for this fucker too anyways, so it's hard for them to come out swinging. But if I was a dem campaign strategist I'd be hanging this around the neck of Sensenbrenner and Bush as hard as I possibly could.

[richardf8]

I hereby declare Godwin's Law irrelevant to this administration. Comparisons to the Nazis can hardly be described as hyperbole when we are following their path.

Indeed, I would say that we are now in a place where Godwin's Law is downright dangerous, because it imagines the evil of the third reich as unique and aberrant, and allows us the luxury of imagining that what the Nazis did is unrepeatable.

This administration is demonstrating that nothing could be farther from the truth.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

:applaud:

[kynn.livejournal.com]

Someone should register repealgodwinslaw.com

[taral.livejournal.com]

Done. Got content?

[araquan.livejournal.com]

I second this motion. Call for a vote?

[jirris-midvale.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a Libertarian bastard, I believe this gives me the right to buy lots of guns and spam and hide in the woods around here.

Seriously though, I told everyone around here I know to write their representive and such. I'm sad that it did nothing. I can understand why people get cynical about politics. This is another baby-step towards the united states of russia and it makes me very sad indeed.

On the up side, I expect the united states economy to implode in 20 years or so. Hopefully this won't be a problem for too long.

Gah, it makes me very very sad that I said that the country of my birth falling appart is a good thing. I love this country and I want to see it prosper and be glorious -- it just seems that everyone with power in this country wants to see the opposite.