Posted on 05/05/2006 7:21:22 AM PDT by churchillbuff
Is the national ID card the next step toward the imposition of the biblical "mark of the beast" Christians believe will be required to buy and sell during the Last Days?
That's the contention of a growing group of believers who are working to turn back the approval of the Real ID Act by Congress last year. Public Law 109-13 requires the national ID portion of the plan go into effect by May 2008.
"There is a prophecy in the Bible that foretells a time when every person will be required to have a mark or a number, without which he or she will not be able to participate in the economy," states the Christian website NoNationalID.com. "The prophecy is 2,000 years old, but it has been impossible for it to come to pass until now. With the invention of the computer and the Internet, this prophecy of buying and selling, using a number, can now be implemented at any time. Has the time for the fulfillment of this prophecy arrived?"
The site asks visitors to sign an online petition vowing not to vote for any candidate who does not commit to repealing the Real ID Act.
The goal, states the site, which is sponsored by Endtime Ministries, is to get 100,000 signatures on the petition.
On the site is a link to purchase a DVD entitled "666 – How Close? Will the National ID Become the Mark of the Beast?"
Americans choosing not to carry a national ID, the site warns, will be prohibited from driving a car, boarding a plane, train or bus, entering any federal building, opening a bank account, or possibly from holding a job.
"This is probably our last chance to head off the mechanism before it is actually implemented as the mark," states the site in the FAQ section. "It truly may be now or never."
The Real ID Act requires states to participate in a federal data-sharing program when issuing driver's licenses, making those licenses de facto national ID cards.
Touted as a tool of the war on terrorism, the ID card provision of the law, which also includes border-security measures, has attracted the most negative attention.
After May 11, 2008, "a federal agency may not accept, for any official purpose, a driver's license or identification card issued by a State to any person unless the State is meeting the requirements" specified in the Real ID Act. While states can issue non-federal ID cards, they would not be accepted by the Transportation Security Administration for travel purposes, grounding those who don't carry federally approved cards.
The data required to be included in each card are, among other things, the person's full legal name, date of birth, gender, driver's license number, a digital photo, the person's address and machine-readable technology so the information can be ready easily by government or banking personnel.
Each state must agree to share the data on the cards with every other state.
Supporters of the law say it does not require a "national" ID card because each state issues its own cards, not the federal government. But detractors note the cards are virtual national IDs since the federal law has dictated what data must be included and that each state must share its database with the others.
The New Hampshire Senate yesterday voted to reject a bill to rebel against the Real ID system and not participate in a pilot program for which the state had been tapped. The state House of Representatives passed the measure last month, but the Senate instead voted to study the driver's license requirements.
U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., is urging his home state to give Real ID a try, saying it's needed to keep terrorists and illegal aliens from entering the country.
According to the Manchester Union Leader, Gregg argues that New Hampshire residents will find it difficult to get on airplanes or enter federal buildings if New Hampshire doesn't embrace Real ID.
Groups opposed to the Real ID Act are making strange bedfellows, with Christians like those running NoNationalID.com fighting on the same side with the American Civil Liberties Union, which sponsors the website RealNightmare.org.
The ACLU site decries the fact that a motor vehicles department staff person will be required to ask for immigration-status papers from those applying for driver's licenses.
"REAL ID will inevitably cause discrimination against U.S. citizens who may 'look' or 'sound' foreign to a DMV bureaucrat," states the site. "REAL ID requires DMV employees to decide whether someone is a citizen or foreigner before issuing a driver's license. The law demands that DMV bureaucrats distinguish among citizens, permanent resident immigrants and other non-citizens in deciding who is eligible for a license and what type of license may be issued.
"Based on past experience when similar requirements were imposed on employers, widespread discrimination resulted against citizens who 'looked' or 'sounded' foreign."
The civil-liberties group also slams a requirement of the law that some immigrants be issued a temporary "tier-two" license that has a prominent expiration date.
U.S. governors also have come out against the law, saying it is a huge unfunded mandate imposed on the nation's states.
The National Conference of State Legislatures is equally opposed to the Real ID Act, saying, "Federal legislators and rule makers are negating state driver's license security efforts, imposing difficult-to-comply-with mandates and limiting their flexibility to address new concerns as they arise. In other words, decades of state experience is being substituted for a 'command and control regime' from a level of government that has no driver's license regulatory experience."
Endtime Ministries' Irvin Baxter, a radio host, believes the national ID is a precursor to the forced embedding of radio-frequency chips under the skin.
Baxter told the Concord, N.H., Monitor: "That's where we are headed right now. The prophecy states that you will have to receive a mark on your hand or in your forehead."
Democracy functions as a check and balance in our constitutional representative republic.
The only thing you bring to this is your opposition based on emotion of potential what if's.
Calling names over and over and over is also a trait of a leftist isn't it? How many times have you labeled me now?
Other words have other meansings, that is what makes your assumption so wrong and why I did not say what you claimed I said.
The constitution is a guide for applying that common sense ins situations that were not ( and could not realistically be) forseen. Hence our SCOTUS relies upon INTEPRATATIONS of the constitution in our system of RULE of LAW.
You have to change my words so you can change my meaning. that says alot about you. In reality what you have done is lie. You have claimed I said something I did not say. that would be a lie. Eat your words now OK!
disallowing ID impedes law enforcment. Sanctuary cities are a GREAT example of that. One in fact that you cannot dispute.
Not at all...the common sense that is applied by scotus when they ponder and rule on interpratations of that document.
You , like others spin and it makes you dizzy. Dizzy people fall down.
Why is it necessary to bring a bunch of endtimes drivel into the need for a national ID that is the only way voting fraud will be eliminated?
If it is no guideline then please explain to me how SCOTUS rules.......indeed it is a guideline and scotus interperates on a case by case basis with the constitution AND stari decisis (SP?)germain to the case. Care to disagree with that statement?
You did not answer the question I posed.
rattrap cities cannot supercede the federal governhemtn in the area of international treaties and immigrations IS ABSOLUTELY international.
Care to show me where that is inaccurate?
Sanctuary cities are outside the rights of the states to establish as that is not their constitutional authority to rule. Care to show me where the states have the power to make international immigration policy?
I am all for biometrics being a part of the ID.
When reliable ID is established there is no need to go any further with it. Not when the debate is about reliable ID and its application towards holding people accountable under the rule of law.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,...snip, snip
After being required to have a National ID, what's next? The National ID will be similar to our new military id's that have a chip on them. What is on those chips? I can't even get on my computer at work without inserting my id (CAC) into my keyboard's card reader. They limit structures you can enter, and keep track of you medical history. You cannot buy anthing or rent anything on base without this ID.
Imagine the same thing on a civilian level. They won't tell people they cannot buy commercial goods without their ID. They will tell businesses that they cannot sale to those without ID's.
I see nothing in the bill of rights that states you have the right to avoid accurate ID. Care to point it out?
protections from abuses of it is one thing....the ID itself is another. Be clear now to demonstrate where the ID itself is prohibited and please do not spin into the seperate area of abuse of that ID.
So they are not stopping prosecution legally, you agree with me. Federal law supercedes state law in the case of immigration, a national ID card doesn't change that. They could prosecute the illegals now with no national ID card, how is a national ID card going to assist in enforcing laws that are already not enforced?
You are not advocating rule of law, you are advocating a national ID card. Outlaws, by defenition, do not obey the law. A national ID card is only useful for keeping tabs on law abiding citizens.
As I have posted thru example earlier and ID is very much a part of being secure. Refressher of that example: Duke student accused of rape where his ID thru ATM card and camera showed him not to be where his accuser said he was...and thus he could not have done what he was accused of.
AGAIN, the ID itself and how it is used are two very different things.
I do not oppose prosecuting abuses, in fact I offer that proper ID facilitates prosecution of such things.
Why don't you refuse the ID you have at work? You do have that right correct?
And you insist on changing the meaning of what the Founders wrote. Rewriting history is a favorite tactic among enemies of liberty. Again, do some actual reading before spouting off nonsense. 
no, I said there would be no need for improvement or augmentation as your examples show because in the context I have been pointing out( that being ID and not the abuse of it) there would be no need for it.
In another context, that is to say augment, that is another thing alltogether.
When proper accurate ID is established how exactly do you imrpove it? See you don't because you have already attained that which was saught. That being ID.
Use of it is not the same thing as the ID itself. I cannot see where people do not understand the difference.
ID'ing you properly in a traffic stop is not the same as tracking your movements thru wal mart to sears to the bank and back home.....unless of course you are a convicted felon on house arrest.....
I would say that taking it to a level of tracking is falsely labeled as an imrpovement. I would call that something else all together.
I don't have that right. I am in the military.
Identification purposes alone are a fine use for an ID card. However, when the government begins to use this ID as a way to track you, or prevent you from buying/ selling, I have a problem with that.
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