Passports within the US

[johnridley]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/16/real.id/index.html

Apparently there's this idea that if you live in a state that's dared to not jump in bed with the federal government on RealID, you'll need a passport to visit federal areas, possibly including national parks.

I found this very interesting quote in the Slashdot discussion on the matter:

"What happened was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to be governed by surprise, to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believe that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security. " ~ an anonymous German Professor from 'They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1939-1945', by Milton Mayer

Comments

[madtechie2718.livejournal.com]

Interesting - especially with regard to national parks and such public places frequented by tourists.

So, as a foreigner entering a state park without RealID, will I have to submit to some extra indignity such that your federal government is trying to hasten the demise of (currency-bearing) foreign tourist traffic to the USA?

The existing measures are already having an impact - look to the dramatic fall in the housing market in the 'touristy' areas of Florida. Local newspapers in the UK are littered with adverts either trying to sell holiday villas in Florida at a discount there or exchange them for ones in Spain. In the last couple of months I've seen 3 adverts like that on the staff noticeboards at work.

I've had plenty of my American friends poke fun at me for enduring a government that presides over a country with the highest rate of CCTV systems in the world (and denies its citizens private ownsership of guns) but at least I can go for a walk in the park without a passport.

For the moment, at anyrate.

I'll never understand American politics (and the whole left-right description seems to have become so fragmented as to be of no real value) but is it not the case that self-proclaimed gun-owning freedom-seeking citizens are a bug chunk of supporters of the party of government?

I suspect, however, that America will find that the worst has yet to come - it'll be just the same under Democrats.

Why do I say this? Simple, it is your civil service that, having tasted more real power than ever before, will never want to give it up - same as here. Same as the whole bloated bureaucracy of the EU.

OK, at home it is fashionable to place the blame on Blair (and I have enjoyed doing so) for recent erosions in civil liberties, but do I expect *any* future government to roll *any* of this back?

Dream on....


The other problem is that enhanced electronic 'security' can be made so attractive: irritated at how long it takes to get back into our own country, P and I signed up for HM Gov Iris recognition system - cut the delay from up to 15 minutes down to 10 seconds.