South Carolina A “No-Fly Zone” For Real ID
GOVERNOR SAYS NO TO FEDERAL EXTENSION ON CONTROVERSIAL SECURITY LAW
FITSNews – March 31, 2008 – South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford will not ask the federal government for more time to comply with its controversial Real ID law, according to the website SC Politics Today. In a five-page letter to U.S. Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff, Sanford lays out numerous objections to the federal program, which is designed to enhance “identification security” in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
“I cannot authorize the implementation of REAL ID or confirm our state’s compliance with its requirements in the future,” Sanford said in his letter to Chertoff. “As you know, South Carolina has enacted legislation that prevents the state from complying with REAL ID, and I am duty bound to comply with the laws of our state.”
Of course, this whole thing has become a huge political charade as states that refuse to request extensions like Montana and New Hampshire have ended up getting them anyway. That way the feds can claim that they’ve fully implemented the law and the states can claim that they stood up to the big bad bullies in Washington.
Maine is the only other state waiting to file a request for an extension, which it will likely do today seeing as the federal government has threatened to keep residents of states that don’t get extensions from boarding airplanes or entering federal buildings with only their drivers’ licenses starting May 11.
Comments
By Silence Dogood on March 31st, 2008 at 12:16 pm
This is just a punitive measure against S.C., practically no states are in compliance yet – NOR WILL BE FOR YEARS – yet S.C. citizens, because they didn’t kow tow to big brother, will have to use Passports, that also don’t comply with REAL ID, in order to fly on planes now (or actually just face tougher screening), logic? Not needed, this is the federal government we talking about here.
By truthseeker on March 31st, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Is our wonderfully efficient federal government issuing these real ID”s to the hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens pouring across our borders each year?
I didn’t think so.
By george on March 31st, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Fact is that there is no law Federal or otherwise requiring presentation of ID to board a flight within the United States.
You may be subject to additional screening by TSA.
Refuse to present ID and take your chances. This may be the only hope to stop DHS and TSA.
By Liberty on March 31st, 2008 at 2:38 pm
“our greatest homeland security is liberty”
- Mark Sanford
By pandakahn on March 31st, 2008 at 3:14 pm
I work in high school. The first time I saw one of the new ID’s was when two kids were arguing over if they could be faked. After the kid showed that they could do the new ones much easier than the old ones I had to laugh. The old ID’s had a hologram and plastic seal that showed immediately if tampered with. The new ID’s can be printed of on any standard ID printing machine, mush like the machines in use in every high school and middle school in my district.
While I am sure that DHS doesn’t want to force us to have a national security card, and only wants to protect us, I for one would feel better if we got rid of DHS and TSA and found something that made me feel secure, not just annoyed. Anyone else feel that DHS and TSA are nothing more than a way for the current administration to reward their buddies with no bid contracts?
MPK
By bird on March 31st, 2008 at 4:03 pm
The Proverbial Bottom Line:
Anything Jake Knotts is hawking — whether in snippets he must pay dearly to get in the paper, or on Channel Two “All Lexington, All the time” — is best left on the cold, hard altar of Federal Bluffing.
By truthseeker on March 31st, 2008 at 4:07 pm
I like the idea of simply letting each airline enforce their own rules as to protecting their own passengers and doing away with TSA and DHS.
If one airline has hijackers/terrorists and has a catastrophe- I can assure you their stock price will fall rapidly enough for them to fix the problem.
Where in the Constitution does it state the federal government is supposed to protect all airline passengers from hijackers?
By Wondering on March 31st, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Why not ask for an extension, and file suit the same day?
Truth is Mark Sanford would rather be seen as a “principled man fighting the system” than as a man actually getting something done.
He could care less if it bothers us “little people”. For todays announcement he got cheers from every right winger in the country…and to hell with us in SC!
His every effort is to be seen as a hero…a fighter…but in reality he is a self-interested politican looking out for himself.
By bird on March 31st, 2008 at 5:29 pm
YOU said it Wondering…and I quote:
“To hell WITH [ya]”
Get over your envy — if he was just a self-interested politician, he would be as fat as Jake Knotts. He has restraint and a grasp of “THE BIGGER PICTURE.”
The Way I See It, 3/31/2008.
By Wondering on March 31st, 2008 at 6:41 pm
bird…
Envy? hahaha.
I can not imagine respecting anyone less. Self-interested, self-promoting smucks like your hero Mark Sanford hurt REAL people everyday…just so they can look good.
Sanford is incapable of allowing for the feelings of others. That, to me, is low…very low.
By bird on March 31st, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Wondering,
Are you in the empathy phase of therapy? To even think about the feelings of others is progress. Godspeed, there dude.
…cooooooooo [happy bird sound]
By Hmmmm.... on April 1st, 2008 at 7:27 am
Bird,
I’m a little guy, and far from a right-winger, and I applaud the governor. I was even hoping that Homeland Security wouldn’t grant the extension just so we could say bring that shit on.
By bird on April 1st, 2008 at 4:45 pm
I hope along the same lines as you do, Hmmmm.
Do you think we are innately combative? My husband says so of me. Little guys count — in a BIG way! Just between you and me, all these big crooked bastards around here are driving me to drink. Willie has special name for it though — he just calls it “getting real still.”