Identification and Travel Documents

The following was written in April 2014, as part of a response to the Campaign for Liberty's 2012 survey questionnaire for candidates running for federal office.

16. Will you oppose any legislation that requires states and citizens to participate in a National Identification Card program?

     Yes, I will oppose any legislation that requires states and citizens to participate in a National Identification Card program.

     I will vote to repeal the portion of the REAL ID Act of 2005 which established and implemented regulations for the security standards of driver's licenses and identification documents.

     I do not believe that anyone who is born in the United States or becomes a citizen should be required or expected to carry identification or travel documents on them at all times. I will not vote to support any proposed federal laws – nor urge states to adopt laws - that requires businesses to scan individuals' driver's licenses when checking their age to confirm alcohol and tobacco purchases, nor will I support laws providing for requiring travel or identification documents to contain either bar codes, computer chips, or tracking devices. If holograms and embedded ink are good enough for our money, they should be good enough for our identification documents.

     I believe that Americans would be appalled if they discovered that Native Americans are required to carry blood quantum cards due to federal law (the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934). Although tribes accepted this requirement 80 years ago, and the law allows them autonomy over determining quantum laws so as to limit benefits for descendants of Native Americans with low blood quantum, there is no reason that anyone born in the United States should be expected to carry such a document. It is the relic of a regrettable, racist era in American history, and it was not voluntary because it was one of few choices offered to a conquered and besieged people.

     I will oppose federal legislation requiring employers to participate in the e-Verify program - under the Department of Homeland Security's Basic Pilot Program – because such legislation only serves to turn businesses into police departments.

     Additionally, I will oppose federal legislation to require presentation of proof of residency and identification documents in order to vote; these effectively amount to Reconstruction-era poll taxes. I will sponsor federal legislation to abolish such legislation enacted by the states as serious civil rights violations which diminish the freedom of not only members of racial and ethnic minorities but poor and homeless people of all races.

     I believe that any and all federal mandates to purchase and/or carry identification and travel documents should only follow appropriate constitutional amendment (although in that case I will vote against my own amendment) or else invoke a financial obligation on the part of the party making the command, i.e., the pockets of members of Congress themselves.

For more entries on homeland security and terrorism, please visit:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2011/03/911-heres-what-i-think-happened.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-aurora-batman-massacre.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/01/national-defense-authorization-act-for.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/01/september-11th-2001.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/04/jared-lee-loughner-and-gabrielle.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/04/in-response-to-question-about-patriot.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/04/notes-on-osama-bin-ladens-reported-death.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/04/airport-security-and-expectation-of-harm.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-israeli-role-in-911.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-transportation-security.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/05/indefinite-detention-and-2012-ndaa.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/05/wiretaps-searches-and-patriot-act.html

For more entries on the interior and tribal relations please visit:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/01/personal-and-political-connotations-of.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-cherokee-freedmen-controversy.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/02/cascadia-proposal.html

For more entries on transportation, transit, travel, and the automobile industry, please visit:

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/01/sovereignty-and-secrecy-freedoms-of.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/04/spencer-stuart-recruited-executives-for.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/04/questions-about-roads-eminent-domain.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/04/economic-policy-for-2012-us-house.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-transportation-security.html

The Cherokee Freedmen Controversy

     While passing laws requiring that an applicant for tribe membership have at least some blood relation to the tribe in question may help assure that the tribe’s genetic legacy be secured, to pass such laws does not support a tribe’s likelihood to remain united, and in fact these laws may serve to undermine regard for a tribe, but also to diminish its cohesiveness on the basis of culture.

     On one hand, the U.S. federal government has at least some history of allowing Native American tribes to decide for themselves which criteria to use in order to create a basis upon which to choose to either reject or confirm an applicant’s membership in the tribe, and therefore the U.S. should allow any decisions concerning Cherokee Nation membership criteria made by that tribe’s Supreme Court to stand without interference.

     Aside from this fact, although blood quantum laws were originally created by white men in Virginia and served to oppress Natives, their use as a criterion for allowing membership has been accepted by many tribes as a provision of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. Therefore, it should be a right of Native American tribes to require applicants to prove an actual genetic relationship before granting them membership.

     However, since today there are so many members in the various tribes who have very little Indian blood and are only members based on the fact of the presence of that “single drop,” it would be easy for a tribe’s government to create a line in the sand with regard to acceptance, and also very controversial, as some people may consider this discrimination and the denial of civil rights on the basis of ethnicity and race.

     The weakening of cohesion over the past decades has left many Indians displaced and without connections to their relatives, tribes, and customs. Some of those with Native blood seek to re-connect to their cultures through tribal education, including learning native languages, and also through the formation of pan-Indian identity. Due to this situation, the need for individuals to re-discover Indian identity and to establish relationships to the cultures more than to ethnic or racial similarity is likely more crucial to the survival of Indian ideas and customs than any law requiring that a person be ethnically or racially Indian.

Originally written in November 2009 as a college essay

Originally Published on January 3rd, 2014

For more entries on civil rights, slavery, segregation, and discrimination, please visit:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2011/06/title-ii-of-civil-rights-act-of-1964.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2012/02/barry-goldwater-and-conservative.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2013/11/response-to-exposing-racist-history-of.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-role-of-aswpl-and-christian.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/01/slavery-civil-war-and-fifth-amendment.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/02/zionism-images.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/04/on-civil-rights-and-jim-crow-laws.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/04/social-policies-for-2012-us-house.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/04/bundy-cows-better-off-as-slaves.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/04/sen-cliven-bundy-harry-reid-owes-feds.html

For more entries on the interior and tribal relations please visit:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/01/personal-and-political-connotations-of.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/02/cascadia-proposal.html

http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/05/identification-and-travel-documents.html