If you have a "Real ID" compliant driver's license then your facial biometrics have already been converted to a numeric code. You can now be tracked by facial recognition using any of the thousands of cameras already installed all across the United States. The tragedy on 9/11/2001 has been used by our leadership to implement a surveillance society in the United States. With the recent revelations of the broad spectrum of surveillance that is being carried out by the CIA and the NSA against American citizens, these matters are no longer the stuff of fringe conspiracy theories. They are verified fact.
But how did we get this way in such a short time? And where will the this trend toward government control take us in the future? The article below gives us some of the answers.
How the U.S. Government Forged a Surveillance Society (Real Id)
On September 12, 2001, President George
W. Bush invited members of Congress and the media for a meeting in
the cabinet room of the White House. The mood was understandably
anxious, somber: The World Trade Center lay in rubble, the Pentagon
had a hole gouged into it and shock and awe had settled over the
United States. One of the most extraordinary periods of American
history – what would come to be known as the “Post 9-11 Era” –
was beginning.
The president gravely laid out the
situation and the steps his administration would take to secure the
homeland, but during the course of the meeting he also made this
significant declaration: “We will not allow this enemy to win the
war by changing our way of life or restricting our freedoms.”
Those were heroic words of principle
and patriotism in a traumatic time, but history would show that
government’s reaction to the terrorist threat was the exact
opposite than the protection of freedoms. Instead, government rushed
in with a massive plan to create a surveillance society, intending to
watch and document every action by the American people as a means of
ultimate security.
First, Congress passed the Patriot Act,
giving law enforcement powers to circumvent many Constitutional
guarantees to personal privacy and home security. Then Congress
created the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The department
immediately became an army of more than 170,000 employees by
combining twenty two existing federal agencies, including the
Border Patrol, Coast Guard, Secret
Service, FEMA, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Customs
Service, Animal and Plant Health Inspection, Federal Protective
Service, FBI’s Computer Incident Response Center and several more
lesser agencies of the same type. In the middle of this rush for
security, Congress created the Transportation Security Agency (TSA).
Also born in this Post 9/11 era were state fusion centers with the
intention of combining federal, state and local law enforcement
agencies into instant response teams, intending to eliminate
bureaucratic overlap and red tape, in case of another terrorist
attack or Hurricane Katrina-type disasters.
Finally, Congress passed the REAL ID
Act, promoted as an attempt to standardize the process and format for
creation of all state drivers’ licenses to achieve increased
security. Proponents argued that, under REAL ID, we will know that
anyone carrying a drivers’ license is legal in this country and
therefore not a threat.
What most Americans do not know is that
the blue print for REAL ID did not originate in the United States,
but in the backrooms of a United Nations organization called the
International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). That organization
is tasked with the goal of creating a once-size fits all
international identification system using massive data banks that
contain individual biometric information on nearly everyone in the
world. Biometrics is defined as measurement of the body. One might
correctly think of fingerprinting, iris scans and facial recognition
as biometrics.
In compliance to this goal, REAL ID
mandates a certain picture quality for all drivers’ licenses. Those
photos are to comply with the ICAO’s Document 9303 biometric
format. Your photo taken by a local DMV is run through special
software which measures and analyzes the unique identifiable
characteristics of your face. The process results in a unique numeric
code which identifies a person according to facial measurements. In
other words, under REAL ID, using the adopted standard of the ICAO,
your face is reduced to a number code, a number which is read by a
computer and be tracked by surveillance cameras worldwide.
Why would the United States agree to
implement such a system? What happened to the promise that we would
not let the terrorists change our way of life? How did the United
States move from a free society, bent on preserving our freedoms in a
dangerous terrorist-driven world to one of total surveillance over
the actions of every citizen? What was the unseen hand that led to
such decisions?
The international focus on drivers’
licenses through REAL ID came as a result of plans for international
biometric passports. Passports, of course, are a control device of
travelers both coming and going through US borders. Discussion
regarding the use of E-Passports started soon after 9/11. It was not
until the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002
that our federal government put in place the framework for the
issuance of E-Passports. E-Passports utilize both biometric
technology and RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology.
Focusing on passports, however, was
about to create an international problem for the US government that
would force it to accelerate and expand its surveillance plans,
leading to a global surveillance system beyond what most in Congress
intended.
Using the excuse that the US government
wanted to learn as much about Al- Qaeda as possible, the US began to
dictate to foreign governments that they also needed to implement
E-Passports. Without them, said the US, their citizens would not be
able to enter the US. In addition, the US wanted those nations to
provide all information they had on Al-Qaeda members.
Meanwhile, the United Nations set up a
committee named simply “Al-Qaeda”. Again, the stated goal was for
all nations to cooperate in an Al-Qaeda clearing house of
information. Each government was to provide the names of the members
of Al-Qaeda that the respective governments were aware of.
What became obvious to many in our
government was, if we expected information about citizens of other
countries our government was also going to have to “ante up” and
provide information about our citizens to the other nations. This is
when things started to get out of control. Global information sharing
was seen as a necessity. All “chips” were on the table. For the
system to work the personal and sensitive information, including the
biometrics of all citizens in all countries, had to be made available
to intelligence and law enforcement people around the world.
Other nations resented the United
States telling them that they must supply information about their
citizens if the US wasn’t willing to do the same. The US was forced
to comply with its own dictates. And so the drive was on for the
creation of an international surveillance system. REAL ID, while not
recommended by the 9/11 Commission, became the center piece for the
drive to document each and every American and placed their biometric
records in international data bases.
The Real ID Act of 2005 was signed into
law in May, 2005. The rulemaking process took roughly 2 1⁄2 years
to be completed. During that 2 1⁄2 years over six hundred groups
and organizations came out against the law for a variety of reasons.
These groups covered a broad political spectrum from the far right to
the far left. Religious organizations representing all major
religions spoke out against the Real ID Act.
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