2008 might just drive me from intellectually fueled frustration to stuttering, incoherent rage at the ongoing trainwreck that is the Bush Administration. In addition to celebrating the fifth anniversary of the Department of Homeland Security, the most bloated addition to the bureaucracy since the TVA, May 2008 is also the stated implementation date of the REAL ID Act, one of the final pieces of the bear trap being laid around the unsuspecting American public in anticipation of closing down our society at the first signs of a “terrorist” attack.

Reading through the Department of Homeland Security’s information Web site on REAL ID is an exercise in Orwellian doublespeak. According the DHS’s Web site, the REAL ID is “not a federal mandate, and states are not required to participate.” However, the same site says that “REAL ID compliant drivers licenses and ID cards will allow you to board a federally-regulated airplane, access a federal facility or a nuclear power plant.” In addition, the site goes on to say, “Beginning May 11, 2008, you will not be able to use your state-issued driver’s license or identification card for an official purpose, such as accessing a federal facility, boarding a federally-regulated commercial aircraft, or entering a nuclear power plant.”

So although the REAL ID is not a federal mandate, it is required to access a federal facility, such as courthouses, where all citizens must go to register their cars, and it is also required to fly on federally regulated airplanes . which refers to any and all airplanes. Rather than “mandating,” which has scary totalitarian overtones, the government has simply suggested that if you would ever like to fly, drive a car, register a boat or contest a ticket that you must have a REAL ID, but they’re not ordering us to get one or anything.

All this suggesting is coming at a heavy price. The cost of implementing REAL ID, because it is not a federal mandate, falls directly to the states, to the estimated tune of $4 billion. But wait! There’s more. REAL ID was voted down once, in the fall of 2004, but it was reintroduced and attached to a piece of legislation regarding the funding of the Occupation of Iraq and Tsunami relief funding, so of course it was a not debated, questioned or probably even read by the our congressional representatives.

I’m reminded of that Simpsons’ episode, “Mr. Spritz Goes to Washington,” in which the Simpsons attach their own special-interest legislation to a “Flags for Orphans” bill and thereby ensure its successful passage.

Further complicating matters is the fact that there is little, if any, evidence that national ID systems actually make people more secure. Security expert Bruce Schneier has written, spoken and blogged extensively about the fallacies of national ID, and he raises some important points and concerns. The REAL ID system claims that in essence it will prevent terrorist and other “nefarious” (their word) types from getting IDs; however, as Schneier points out, many of the 9/11 terrorist and others, such as Tim McVeigh and John Muhammed, the D.C. sniper, had no pre-existing connections to terrorist groups. So, the REAL ID would be useless against those types of people, which seem to be the people most likely to cause harm.

The REAL ID will do little to nothing to prevent further terrorist attacks, but is instead an inward-aiming security device, another trap waiting to be sprung on the unsuspecting and complacent American public. Internal surveillance has gone by many names in the authoritarian regimes of the past: the Gestapo, the NKVD, the Stasi, the KGB. The REAL ID is the beginning of controlling Americans; by limiting where we can go without the appropriate “papers,” the government can begin to control society.

The REAL ID is internal control passed off in the guise of national security. It will not make us safer; it will make us easier to track, watch and contain.

Author Naomi Wolf lists 10 steps that every authoritarian takeover in history has followed. The first four, in order, are: invoke a terrifying internal and external threat, create a system of secret prisons, create a paramilitary group and set up an internal surveillance system. The next steps on her how-to of closing down an open society are harass citizens’ groups and engage in arbitrary detention and release. Only time will tell if our civil liberties will continue to be dismantled and fatally undermined before our very eyes.

– Quincy Miller is a senior in English from Altoona.