ROPE Report

April 11th, the Department of Homeland Security released a short clip of its Trump-appointed head, Kristi Noem, commanding that all Americans must obtain a REAL ID before May 7th, in order to board domestic flights and enter federal buildings. These national ID cards, in her words, “prevent fraud and enhance security. Please do your part to protect our country.” To hear Noem speak like this, utilizing the mummified vernacular of Bush-era neoconservatives, two decades after the REAL ID Act was first passed, brings back a hideous nostalgia. How is anyone still taking this seriously?

REAL ID was passed into law in 2005 amid the hysteria of the War on Terror, a hysteria we’ve long ago emerged from. Despite this, DHS and the TSA are still hellbent on forcing a national ID card upon us. Why? Surely not to “prevent fraud and enhance security”. We’ve done just fine the past twenty years, so why do we need it now? The answer is we don’t. But they, our federal government do. They want all our information compiled in one tidy bundle, linking all state driver’s licenses together in one big database, for their ease in accessing all of our information immediately.

In response to Noem’s announcement and the coming deadline, Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie posted on X:

“Real ID isn’t needed and won’t stop terrorists from hijacking planes. Most of the 9/11 hijackers held Saudi, UAE, Egyptian, or Lebanese passports. Real ID is a national standard and database of IDs that is primarily a tool for control of Americans. Trump shouldn’t enforce it.”

Resistance against REAL ID has been surprisingly vigorous over the past two decades. At one time, 25 states rejected the notion of a mandatory federal ID card, and announced their noncompliance. 15 states had laws on the books prohibiting compliance with the REAL ID Act. But as the years went on, non-compliant states began to lift their ban on REAL ID, including Oklahoma in 2017. It’s mind-boggling that agencies that should have been abolished years ago are bloated and thriving to this day, and wielding a vulgar and unchecked amount of power over the rights and privacy of American citizens.

Noem’s ridiculous announcement that the Trump administration would begin enforcing the REAL ID Act is very alarming. Is Trump’s “Golden Age” ushering in a return of domestic authoritarianism? The DHS and the TSA were products of War on Terror hysteria, and have long outstayed their welcome. The TSA famously has never captured a single terrorist, but has succeeded tremendously in humiliating travelers with strip-searches, while stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in items from luggage from the moment of creation. A quick Google search produces endless news articles of TSA agents pilfering anything and everything from unwitting fliers. If you’re a frequent flier, you know first-hand that the TSA agents aren’t exactly the best and brightest among society. More often than not, they look and behave like thugs, drunk on the power trip they receive from barking commands all day. Despite this, the TSA is now acting as the DHS’ muscle, enforcing REAL ID at our airport gates for domestic flights.

Most Americans have no idea the scope of danger inherent in REAL ID, hence their nonchalant attitude. “Compliance” could mean anything, depending on the year, the political temperature, or whether or not we’ve found ourselves in another national emergency. Personal records required for a REAL ID could, in the future, contain information on gun ownership, vaccination and medical records, employment, wealth, and all manner of biometrics. The list of requirements for compliance will grow steadily each year. Just watch. The list of “checkpoints” throughout the country will only grow. For now, it’s federal buildings and airports. In the near future, it could (and probably will) be the doctor’s office, your job, your children’s school. If we awake to find ourselves in the midst of another pandemic panic, what will DHS do with its power over our ID cards? It doesn’t take much imagination to see that we’d exist at the mercy of the federal government at the merest hint of a national crisis.

REAL ID means the federal government has us by the throat. Failure to comply means a revocation of your Big Brother hall pass that you previously used to navigate Uncle Sam’s panopticon. You will no longer exist as a functioning member of society. In this sense, REAL ID makes an American social credit system much more a possibility than before. A central bank digital currency moves much closer to reality as well. The type of control that the federal government is striving for can’t have the loopholes or exit ramps that the cash economy provides.

Trump’s victory has lulled many conservatives into indifference over privacy-obliterating legislation like REAL ID. If Biden had been re-elected, their tune might be different, but because their team is in control, there’s no need to worry. Let’s hope that conservatives reawaken to these very real issues of privacy and freedom before its too late.

Ask yourself: does our government care more about protecting us, or controlling us? This is rhetorical. The sole reason for the REAL ID is to enhance our government’s ability to monitor and compel obedience from every American citizen. REAL ID makes us less safe, because it dramatically diminishes our freedom, exposing us to the whims and insane ideologies of anyone who gains power in the future. The Constitution exists to prevent this sort of thing, do you think Kristi Noem’s heard of it?