"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

I believe we must now speak together with great strength as a united and free people whatever our faith, party or persuasion. We must speak out today against the coming oppression to the liberties of law abiding citizens. If we do not cry now we must forever hold our peace under the oppression of a national identification system which is by any other name a national ID card. No man thinks more highly than I do of patriotism when it is the land of the free and the home of the brave where for the last fifty six years of my life I have enjoyed the blessings of liberty. Should I keep back my opinion at such a time as this, through fear of giving offense to others, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country as any conspirator, and of an act of disloyalty toward the God of Heaven, who I revere above all earthly potentates. On January 25, 2007, a Resolution passed overwhelmingly in the Maine Legislature that refuses implementation of the Real ID Act in that state, and demands Congress repeal the law. "The "common machine-readable technology" required by the REAL ID Act would convert state-issued driver licenses and identification cards into tracking devices, allowing computers to note and record people's whereabouts each time they are identified." On February 16, 2007, Utah unanimously passed a resolution that opposes the REAL ID Act. The resolution states that REAL ID is "in opposition to the Jeffersonian principles of individual liberty, free markets, and limited government." It further states that "the use of identification-based security cannot be justified as part of a 'layered' security system if the costs of the identification 'layer'--in dollars, lost privacy, and lost liberty--are greater than the security the identification provides": I know of no way of judging the future but by the past, and the past reveals national identification leads to national mischief. Is it that insidious smile with which this legislation has been thrust upon us for our personal protection.

If we wish to be free-- if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending for the last two hundred years, then we must be strong, vigilant, and active, against all attempts of tyranny to forge chains upon us and ours whether those chain be domestic or foreign. Our congress has forged future chains of mischief upon us and the clanking is heard from Boston to Salt Lake. Is it not a time for a redress of grievances? Should not every American citizen protest this move against our personal liberties? Should you doubt me of the future mischief of this legislation passed in 2005 by congress you should ask your self why has this been done so quietly, almost in a corner, without a national debate or hearing? I ask you if we refuse to live free, and no longer have the courage to be free, where on this earth will those longing to be free find the hope of freedom? Is it not more than time for every American to tell their state and national representative no real id for me! Live free! Die righteous! Rev. George Burkinshaw