Right now, we really need you to raise your voice again, to spread the truth and to ask Congress to defund Real ID.

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Our economy and government are going through tremendous strains from financial and budgetary shortfalls.  In the past, this has worked to slow implementation of the deeply flawed Real ID program.  Real ID, like many federal programs, are headed for budget cuts. This would stop federal subsidies to develop local Real ID database hub infrastructure; which would be both insecure, damaging to privacy and civil liberty.  

Many of you have been committed to actions which helped to combat a dangerous national ID card program in the US. Right now, we really need you to raise your voice again, to spread the truth and to ask Congress to defund Real ID. 

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) issued an opinion editorial to drive support for post 9-11 Commission recommendations, including increased enforcement of the Real ID Act.  Rep. Smith made an attempt to connect the adequately foiled terror plot of 20 year old Khalid Ali M Alswsari in Texas as reason to sustain the Real ID Act.  

In this instance, the alleged plot was stopped cold by FBI agents simply doing their jobs. Smith is simply trying to drive scared people to ask Congress to continue the Real ID program and to create funding for it before the prospect of a government shutdown in March. 

He also has the ideological support of the Heritage Foundation, a neo-conservative  policy firm, who is responsible for propagating the following myth.

Myth: Real ID will keep illegal aliens or terrorists from getting a license.

Fact: Illegal aliens have always found a way to get a license. In 2009, a ring in South Florida was arrested that included several driver license examiners that were bribed to issue licenses to those that were ineligible. It's worth noting this case was made via old-fashioned police work without anyone's rights being violated. The REAL ID Act does not require people to submit anything with a photo on it (except a passport used in lieu of a birth certificate), so if you borrow or steal someone else's papers, you can obtain a REAL ID compliant license.

Source: Floridians Against Real ID

Do not let your friends and neighbors be misled into support for a national ID card program. If Congress votes for budgetary support for the Real ID Act in 2011, it would further establish infrastructure for the US surveillance state. 

Please send this notice to your friends and contact your Congressional leaders asking them to please defund the Real ID Act.

Your effort contact may be the one that makes the most difference.

Here is a suggestion of what you could write. 

Authors Website: http://www.511Campaign.org

Authors Bio:
Sheila Dean is the blog editor for BeatTheChip.org and speaks for the 5-11 Campaign, an anti-national ID advocacy campaign.

Sheila promotes American Bill of Rights retention and deliverance from the federal banking system. She also produces podcasts featured at Beat The Chip.org . She openly supports trans-partisan and grassroots movements with aims to rise above 2 party deadlocks in Washington. Her priorities are: war reform, monetary reform, ecological conservation, civil & human rights, civil liberty and truth in reporting.

Some of the organizations she has helped are: World Can't Wait, The Los Angeles National Impeachment Center, Dennis Kucinich, 9-11 Truth, Author Michael Weinstein, David Swanson, Ron Paul, and Focus The Nation.

She currently lives in the Seattle Metro are with her partner, John P. Edwards, a VFX supervisor.