Real ID tangles with Constitution

Is the guarantee of state autonomy enshrined in the states rights amendment to the Constitution anything more than a string of hollow words from a bygone era? Are states now mere administrative districts controlled by Washington bureaucrats?

Don't states have an obligation to protect the basic freedoms of citizens from being handed over to federal bureaucrats? Has Congress, by passing the Real ID act, destabilized the system of checks and balances that gives states large discretion within their own borders?

The problem with Real ID, as former lawmaker Bob Barr warns, is that freedoms taken for granted in America are now to hinge on a card controlled by federal bureaucrats. And, by the way, how hard do you think it will be to cause computer glitches that cause political "undesirables" to be improperly penalized without due process of law?

The drive to erode state authority, of course, has been under way for decades, but in the Bush years has reached new levels. An egregious example: various states had used their constitutionally guaranteed right to form interstate compacts in order to promote reductions in greenhouse emissions. But, after Congress passed a law concerning new emission standards, a federal bureaucrat simply announced that he was voiding the state compacts.

Yet, does a state compact necessarily die because Congress passes a law?

If federal bureaucrats can nix state compacts, what chance do you think a lonely dissident will have in the face of federal opposition, especially when the feds have this new citizen control tool?

Obviously the 9/11 attacks are used to justify this police state gimmick, which is likely to degenerate within a few years into an "internal passport" like those used in the old Soviet Union to keep people pinned down. And the Congress that OKd Real ID has also been on the whole highly supportive of playing dumb about the blatant treason that occurred on that fateful day.

So, there's a key. State officials who are really serious about resisting Real ID have got to make the point that Real ID will in fact be controlled by the secret federal agencies that carried out the 9/11 atrocities. This calls for real grit, especially because the major media in every state tend to be under tight control of those with a vested interest in promoting 9/11 coverup.