(REAL ID) The Great Free State

Elizabeth Marsh Cupino
The Great Free State

Originally published May 29, 2008

I work up in Pennsylvania these days, and I am the only employee out of 20 who lives below the Mason-Dixon line. I love to brag about our Great Free State of Maryland.

You can just imagine how popular I am at work, but I'm merely providing facts and truth. Maryland kicks Pennsyltucky's Hillary-voting butt in every conceivable way. Maryland is America in miniature -- with ocean beaches, wide bay, rolling farmland, and green mountains east to west, and Charm City, and Fredericktowne, and history that beats the "P" out of Philadelphia.

Maryland was pivotal in the American Revolution. Baltimore was the seat of the Continental Congress for awhile. Frederick's own Catoctin Furnace furnished 100 tons of shells used at Yorktown. The list is as long as your arm. And Maryland was a hub in the Underground Railroad and a major battleground in the Civil War.

O say, can't you see? Maryland is the birthplace of American liberty.

We're still trying. Maryland is one of only five states holding out on compliance with the federal REAL ID program. For the moment, anyway.

It looks like Gov. Martin O'Malley will ultimately cave in, toe the line with the unfunded REAL ID mandate, and retool the system that issues driver's licenses and other IDs. Otherwise, a Maryland ID will not be adequate documentation to get you on a plane to Cancun or into a Smithsonian exhibit.

I have a Real Problem with REAL ID. It's not so much about proof of citizenship. It's about Big Brother.

The Real purpose of REAL ID is to get every American citizen logged into the federal government's big central databases. Don't believe me? Check out Section 203 of the REAL ID Act: "Linking of Databases." Why isn't anybody picketing about this outside Maryland's MVA offices?

I'm not trying to say that the REAL ID program is, like, the Mark of the Beast or anything. I'm just saying it's another tentacle of a giant, radioactive federal surveillance octopus reaching in and attaching its suckers to our private information.

Besides the National Crime Information System and the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (which tracks everyone who's ever had a mental illness, been dishonorably discharged from the armed forces, or been "an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance"), there's a big push by the FBI to get fingerprints and DNA from every person in this country. Congress recently passed legislation to prevent discrimination on the basis of genetic information, but somehow I'm not reassured.

The Bush Administration is establishing nationwide interoperable (shared) electronic medical records. It will be a requirement by 2014. As if giving the IRS all our financial information wasn't enough -- now your bout with Hep C or chronic fatigue syndrome will be captured and catalogued in a federal system.

If I had any confidence in the feds' motives or ability to manage, protect or use our private information in a responsible, ethical way, it might be different. But I don't. (Can you say habeas corpus?)

REAL ID and all these other programs constitute Real infringements on our privacy and our freedom. I think Maryland should hold out as long as possible on REAL ID, if only to make a point. Maryland doesn't take too kindly to being bullied.

I'm sure you all have our state anthem memorized ... so everybody sing! "The despot's heel is on thy shore, Maryland! His torch is at thy temple door, Maryland!"