The Real ID Act of 2005 should be repealed

As my opponent did, I shall make my final refutations of his points and then give my closing. Again, a reminder on numeration, the relevant, controversial points begin at #3, so the first two have been excluded from discussion, but retain their places in the numeration. 3. First, a couple quick corrections on the Constitutional analogy that my opponent is drawing. At no point in the Constitution is there any mention of exceptions with regard to the right to bear arms, nor the right to free speech. Furthermore, the right to assemble is never asserted in the Constitution, only the right to peacefully assemble, and at no point in the Constitution is that right qualified or been stated as conditional. It is merely my opponent's interpretation of the Constitution to exclude certain activities that makes this analogy make any sense at all, an interpretation which, I might note, gains no support from the text of the Constitution. But, of course, all this is fairly irrelevant to the challenge I gave to my opponent. As I stated previously, I did not ask him to prove that the right to privacy was *protected* in the United States, but rather to establish its legitimacy in the first place. He is merely twisting my words when he claims that I have changed my challenge from an is to an ought, for I said the following: "a general right to privacy must be established on its own merits." Every relevant definition of the word "establish" ("To cause to be recognized and accepted"; "To prove the validity or truth of" http://www.bartleby.com...) would support the fact that I had asked for proof that a general right to privacy ought to exist, not for proof that a general right to privacy does exist. My opponent either misunderstood the contextual meaning of the word, or is being purposefully dishonest in an attempt to paint my contention as a shifting one. In my opponent's attempt to address my contention, he falls into circular reasoning. He says because governments are supposed to protect rights, and government has said that privacy is a right it will protect, that governments should protect privacy. Anything could function in that manner. Consider the following: governments are supposed to protect rights, and government has said that rape is a right, so then governments should protect rape. Simply asserting that because the government has decreed something worthy of protection, governments must protect it is the height of absurdity and, actually, does little for my opponent's case. I will point out that the supporters of the Real ID Act could quickly give some story about how Real ID is protecting the citizenry's rights against terrorism, illegal immigration, and so on. My opponent needs a much better case for why the right to privacy ought exist at all if he is to use that as a reason why we ought repeal the Real ID Act. 4. I grant that government protection of its computer systems is not perfect, but surely my opponent would grant that neither is the case with anyone's protection? Surely we have learned through the recent episode with Sarah Palin's email account being hacked that it is a very simple affair to hack most private systems, and compared to the combined resources of the government network protection services, most private systems are far from up to snuff. Was it not the case that Palin was told repeatedly to get a government-provided email account to prevent such things from occurring? Identity theft is a rising problem in America and this is the result of the hacking of private systems, not government ones. It seems that my opponent has not even come close to making the case that the government network protection will be less effective than that of the vast majority of private computers. 5. But what relevance is this point? Yes, it has more resources. But the states have a burden proportionally smaller (roughly) to their resources. Thus, they could just as easily shift around resources to meet these needs without new taxes. I agree it is unlikely they will do so, but I contend that with the federal government it is even more unlikely that this will be the method of funding. Unlike the states, the federal government can raise taxes invisibly through inflation, making it, politically, much easier to fund the increase via higher taxes. Since no government agency likes to see its budget cut, it would seem that the most likely case, no matter what level of government the Real ID is funded at, taxes will be raised to cover the expenses. But it is by far the most likely at the federal level where incumbent politicians are almost never defeated and tax increases can be done without a single vote on the issue by the Federal Reserve. 6. Does the likelihood of a demagogue rising up to exploit the situation really seem high enough to warrant concern? The type of people who are most opposed to the Real ID are the anti-authoritarians, the limited government types who are already concerned with and oppose the rise of dangerous demagogues, and, indeed, are often against powerful leaders in general. It seems absolutely ridiculous to worry that such types will be struck with a sudden urge to follow a self-centered, power-hungry leader. My opponent then asserts that "The Real ID is not on the same level of these types of laws," and by this, he means the outdated laws which remain on the books, but are not enforced. He says it is less likely that such laws will be enforced than the Real ID. But this is completely circular. In attempting to prove that the Real ID is different from those types of laws, he merely asserts that the Real ID is different from those types of laws. My very point was that we ought to start treating the Real ID Act like those laws and ignore it, that this is the correct solution to the problem, rather than repealing it. My opponent, then makes a completely false analogy, by bringing up the issue of slavery in American history. He states that by not repealing the act now, we are simply delaying it for a future generation to deal with, as happened with slavery. But this is not the case at all. As I have contended from the beginning, the greatest part of the Real ID Act's continued existence as a law is that so many people, and so many types of groups, oppose it that we have an opportunity to do something about it now, by ignoring it, while also sending a message to the government that its silly laws hold no traction in society and to drum up additional distrust of government so that this is not a one-time victory, but rather the beginning of a great many victories for advocates of liberty and limited government. This is very different from America's experience with slavery, namely in that many people actually oppose the Real ID. For most of America's history, up to and including during the Civil War, very few abolitionists existed in the United States. Slavery was accepted and supported by the vast, vast majority of Americans. Conclusion: My opponent continues to assert that his position has not been touched by my arguments, but quite the opposite is the case. He has not been able to offer a persuasive or full answer to any of my points, points which undermine the very basis of his case. He has not offered a theoretical ground for supporting the right to privacy, he has only given appeals to current policy and circular reasoning. He has not shown how government networks are more vulnerable to attack than private networks. He has not provided any reasoning for his irrational belief that the federal government is more likely to be fiscally responsible than the states when implementing the Real ID. And, most damning of all, he has not provided any critique of my proposal that the Real ID Act is best challenged by the people, using the time-tested method of civil disobedience, other than it has the potential to lead to "demagoguery," a charge which I have shown to be illusory, and irrelevant.