http://www.madison.com/tct/mad/local//index.php?ntid=126089 Real ID roils community
Hundreds turn out for rally against looming legislation
By Ben Popper
Correspondent for The Capital Times
There was a sea of colors at Brittingham Park over the weekend, as hundreds of demonstrators gathered to protest the upcoming passage of the Real ID Act.
Families waved homemade banners and flags, both Mexican and American.
Amanda Postel was attending the protest Saturday with her husband, Carlos Rivas, and their two young children, Samantha and Emo. Amanda grew up in Madison, Carlos in Mexico. They have been married for six years.
"I'm here to stand up for all Latinos, who are going to need licenses to do all kinds of things, from driving a car to opening a bank account," Postel said. "This law will further marginalize a group that is already on edge."
Real ID roils community
Photo by Ben Popper
A speaker takes his turn at the bullhorn to address the hundreds who turned out for a rally Saturday at Brittingham Park to protest the Real ID Act, which takes effect April 1.
The Real ID Act, whose Wisconsin incarnation is ACT 126, is scheduled to go into effect April 1. Nationwide resistance to Real ID is growing. So far, Maine and Idaho have passed legislation rejecting participation, and bills have been introduced in a number of other states.
Rivas, who is a student at Madison Area Technical College, sees a quiet discrimination behind the new laws.
"The people who you see here today come to America to work. If you want to fight terrorism, you're barking up the wrong tree," Rivas said.
Many of those attending the rally held similar concerns about labor.
"Real ID will give employers another way to intimidate workers who are already being exploited," said Saul Castillo, president of the Worker's Rights Center here in Madison.
The rally was supported by a number of Wisconsin unions - Locals 1199, 171, 1942, and the South Central Federation of Labor - who see the increase in black-market workers Real ID will create as detrimental to all wages and employees. Other opponents to the act highlight the high cost of its implementation.
All these concerns about Real ID, however, eventually come up against the question of national security, the original argument behind the new law. Real ID will affect everyone from immigrant workers, to Hmong refugees, to elderly citizens, but it was framed as a way of combating terrorists.
"There are a lot of reasons why Real ID is the wrong way to combat terrorism," said Alex Gilles, political secretary for the Immigrant Workers Union and one of the principle organizers behind the march. "For example the 9/11 Commission report says there is no relation whatsoever between identification and terrorism."
Actually, the 9/11 Commission did see a strong correlation between the two. They called on the federal government directly to strengthen standards for the issuance of birth certificates and driver's licenses.
However, the Commission also saw the danger these kinds of increased security measures would pose to civil liberties, especially in the case of immigrants.
"Our border and immigrations system," the report reads, "ought to send a message of welcome, tolerance, and justice to members of immigrant communities in the United States and in their countries of origin."
The 9/11 Commission saw the political and strategic advantages of this approach: "We should reach out to immigrant communities. Good immigration service is one way of doing so that is valuable in every way - including intelligence."
U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Menomonee Falls, says he introduced the legislation behind Real ID to prevent another 9/11-type attack.
"The 9/11 hijackers could have used their passports to board the planes, but only one did," he recently told The Capital Times. "Those murderers chose our driver's licenses and state IDs as their forms of identification because these documents allowed them to blend in and not raise suspicion or concern."
The 9/11 Commission, however, found that it was the failure of agencies to properly communicate and share information that let the terrorists slip through the cracks, not their ability to acquire identification.
Two of the 9/11 hijackers, the Commission noted, acquired California licenses and opened New Jersey bank accounts using their real names. One hijacker, Nawaf al-Hazmi, also registered his car and was in the San Diego telephone book.
"The terrorists who came into this country did so legally," Gilles said.
According to the 9/11 Commission, these men were identified on NSA security watch lists as early as 1999. Because they were linked to al-Qaida, they could have been detained for questioning in relation to the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. What prevented this was a failure of communication and coordination, not easy access to ID.
"The best example I can give you is this," Gilles said. "You want to fight terrorism. If you don't give me an ID, how will you know who I am?"
Published: March 26, 2007
Ok, G-98 here, with a big old WTF for the woman who blabbed this to the reporter:
"I'm here to stand up for all Latinos, who are going to need licenses to do all kinds of things, from driving a car to opening a bank account," Postel said. "This law will further marginalize a group that is already on edge."
Well, duh, you busy ditch! You sorta, kinda, do indeed need a license to drive a car in Wisconsin. You sorta, kinda need to have a driver's license to drive a car in other states, last I heard.
Unless you're telling us that you're driving around sans license and insurance, forcing me to pay more in uninsured motorist premiums.
Jeebus. They want everything BUT citizenship via proper means.
