Blackmoor Vituperative

Americans may need passports to board domestic flights or to picnic in a national park next year if they live in one of the states defying the federal Real ID Act.

The act, signed in 2005 as part of an emergency military spending and tsunami relief bill, aims to weave driver’s licenses and state ID cards into a sort of national identification system by May 2008. The law sets baseline criteria for how driver’s licenses will be issued and what information they must contain.

The Department of Homeland Security insists Real ID is an essential weapon in the war on terror, but privacy and civil liberties watchdogs are calling the initiative an overly intrusive measure that smacks of Big Brother.

(from CNN.com, Federal ID plan raises privacy concerns)

“Big Brother”? Please. Cameras on every damned streetcorner — that is Big Brother. Having to show “papers” in order to travel or go on a picnic, now, that’s more like the Soviet Union.

Hey, wait… weren’t they the bad guys?