The Milan News-Leader
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PUBLISHED: April 10, 2008
Support the Great Lakes Compact
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Farmers do care about protecting Michigan water. That's why we support Michigan ratifying the Great Lakes Water Compact and implementing additional protections. However, we see a real problem with the approach that legislation in the Michigan House of Representatives takes for managing large water uses.
The House bills would restrict access to water based on volume thresholds set arbitrarily without any scientific evidence of an environmental benefit.
For instance, the bills could require a farmer planning to install just one new well to water field crops or greenhouse plants or provide water to animals to apply for a water permit and be the subject of a public hearing, all in an effort to determine if the proposed use of water is in the public interest.
Farmers support water conservation, but we believe the system should be fair and produce tangible results.
Agriculture is working to conserve and protect Michigan's water while producing food, an effort we hope you agree is in the public interest. To this end, we're simply seeking a fair and reasonable system in which science is the measuring stick to determine when a water withdrawal is harmful and when it is not.
That's why we're urging our legislators to oppose House Bills 5065-5073 and instead give consideration to passage of the Great Lakes Compact and a science-based water management approach for Michigan that does not unfairly restrict the growth of Michigan's economy.
Kenny E. Siler, President
Washtenaw County Farm Bureau
Manchester
Real ID Act will be real trouble for us
The state of Michigan will soon start issuing a new type of driver's license. The new license is part of the U.S. Real ID Act of 2005, passed by our federal government.
If you have never heard of it, you're not alone. The Real ID Act was hidden in a bill titled the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror and Tsunami Relief, 2005.
As often happens in Congress, approving an appropriations bill is usually considered an emergency. The Real ID Act was quietly added to the bill at the last minute behind closed doors, while in committee.
The Real ID Act affects every single person in the United States. It's hard to imagine that such a far reaching piece of federal legislation could be approved into law without any debate or discussion by our federal legislators.
Now, you may say, "What's the big deal? Having a better ID system will be better for everyone, won't it?" Well, that depends on how much you trust the government and how your new Real ID Card will be used.
First, to get your new Real ID Card/Michigan driver's license, you will now be required to prove that you are a U.S. citizen or a legal U.S. resident. You may have been legally and responsibly driving here in Michigan for the last 50 years, but now you will have to prove that you are in the United Sates legally.
You will have to show your original, sealed birth certificate and an original Social Security card. Well you say, "That's a small price to be safe and keep those illegal aliens from driving around Michigan."
OK, that's fair. Let's think about that for a minute. While law-abiding citizens do their best to try to comply with all the new rules, do you think that a terrorist and the illegal aliens will comply? No they won't. Criminals don't follow the laws. That's why they're criminals.
Just think about birth certificates for a second. Some people have never received one. My wife, for example, was born in a small village and delivered by a midwife. The churches used to keep the only birth records and that was usually a baptismal certificate. Good luck finding the church or the records.
Many folks were born in places or in an era when birth certificate weren't always available. The other problem is that birth certificates are one of the easiest of all documents to falsify or just plain make up. In certain places, you can get a false birth certificate if you pay the right person at the place certificates are issued. Bottom line, birth certificates are not secure or reliable forms of identification.
The other part of the identification requirement is a Social Security card. Many of us are old enough to remember that the Social Security card was never considered a piece of legal identification. It was only the Social Security number that was important.
The number made it possible that your account could get the proper credit from your payroll deductions. There is no law that requires anyone to have a Social Security card.
Some rugged, self-sufficient people have never registered with Social Security Administration and have no card. The card itself is just a simple piece of paper. A good forgery can easily be bought, or recreated on any home computer with a color printer.
But let's not even consider the criminal elements that may use fake documents to get the new Real ID Card because most of the hijackers from the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, could have legally gotten a Real ID Card. Yes the hijackers would have had no problem getting a Real ID Card because they were admitted legally into the United States at some point.
Do you think that those immigrants who are here working illegally will now leave or stop driving and head back to their home country because they can't get a new Real ID Card? I don't think so. They will just keep driving without a card. When or if they ever get pulled over driving, they won't be sent back anyway
So that leaves us, the average law abiding, patriotic citizens and residents of Michigan. We will now have to jump through all these new hoops to prove we are who we say we are. We will comply, the criminals won't. Feel safer yet?
Why do we need this Real ID Card? Well for one, you will not be able to board any commercial airplane to travel anywhere within the United States without your Real ID Card. What about your 3-year-old child or newborn baby? Will he or she need a Real ID Card to travel? They haven't figured it all out yet.
The Real ID Card is our new domestic passport. The use of the Real ID Card has been compared to life at the time of the Third Richt in Nazi Germany. All persons were required to carry documentation to identify themselves.
Remember the phrase, "Let me see your papers?" from the old World War II movies. Americans used to be shocked at the thought of those kinds of restrictions on a citizens right to travel inside their own borders. It always has been a basic freedom. Are we now ready to start giving up on our constitutionally guaranteed right to travel with out restrictions?
You will not be able to enter any federal office building, park, facility or property without your Real ID Card. Basically, you will not be able to conduct any business with the federal government without it.
Electronic surveillance -- are you ready for that? Your new Real ID Card comes with all your information in its memory. Your card will be able to be swiped anytime you use it. Eventually, there is nothing stopping the public and private entities from gathering information on all aspects of your life.
Michigan Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land even has plans to use the Real ID Card every time you vote. Land is so excited that now poll workers will be able to swipe your Real ID Card and keep track of your vote count. How long will it be before you are told that you can't vote because by swiping our Real ID Card through the electronic terminal connected to the central database, has revealed that you have a voter hold for some unpaid parking tickets?
All your information on the Real ID Card will kept on one giant central database that many people in the federal and state government can access. I don't know about you, but with all the stories about identity theft, do you really trust the government with all of your identity?
To add insult to injury, the federal government isn't providing any funding for this new Real ID Card. You will have to pay for the added cost when you get your new driver's license.
Can Michigan refuse to accept and implement the Real ID Act? That answer is yes. Even the federal government realizes that such an assault on your rights can't be mandated on a free people.
Real ID is clearly unconstitutional. So they gave you a choice by making it voluntary. However, if Michigan or any other state doesn't implement the Real ID Card, none of its citizens will be allowed to board an airplane for travel within the country, enter any federal facility (that could even include the Post Office) or generally do any business with the federal government.
What is a driver's license anyway? A driver's license is simply a document that is used to prove that an individual has passed the minimum requirements of his or her state to operate a motor vehicle on the public roadways. The fact that many entities use your driver's license to try to correctly identify you is totally secondary to its intended purpose.
Many independent-minded states have rejected the Federal Real ID Act. Maine became the first state to reject the Real ID in January.
If you agree that the state of Michigan should not share your identity or any other personal information that belongs to you with the federal government as required in the Real ID Act, then contact Michigan Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land, Gov. Jennifer Granholm and your state representative.
Tell them that you think that Michigan should join with the 33 other states that appose the Real ID Act and that you oppose sharing any of your personal information with the federal government.
You have the power to stop the Real ID Card in Michigan.
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