Is Real ID a sign of the apocalypse?

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 Is Real ID a sign of the apocalypse?
Kurk gets high praise for rallying opposition



Rep. Neal Kurk has become a hero to the anti-Real ID set for the rousing, Patrick Henry-style floor speech he delivered last month against the law creating a national ID and database. Kurk's speech not only prompted the House to overturn a 12-1 Transportation Committee recommendation and pass a bill rejecting Real ID in New Hampshire, but it also inspired a movement.

An existing group called NH CASPIAN already opposed Real ID. But Kurk's speech and the House vote gave rise to the Granite State ID Coalition, a network that includes libertarian and progressive groups alike.

It also triggered a rally at the State House and visits to New Hampshire by leaders of the Cato Institute and the American Civil Liberties Union to appeal to the Senate to pass the bill. Before Kurk's speech, few thought the bill had a chance, said Katherine Albrecht, a consumer advocate and leader of the anti-Real ID movement.

A host of websites link to Kurk's speech, and bloggers have lionized the Weare Republican. "It's a thing of beauty. It gave me shivers," a poster at Infowars.com wrote of Kurk's address. "Truly awesome,"another wrote, at Freetalklive.com.

But Kurk - the king of privacy bills in the House - has also attracted worship from a less likely source: conservative Christians who believe Real ID is a sign of the apocalypse.

The anti-Real ID cause has "benefited immensely" from contributions by groups that believe the law is a fulfillment of a biblical prophecy that says people will be numbered and marked before the arrival of the antichrist, the National Journal's Technology Daily reported last week.

Sure enough, Kurk was invited to appear on the syndicated Politics and Religion radio show hosted by Irvin Baxter, the Colorado-based founder and president of Endtime Ministries and Endtime magazine, which filters world events through Bible prophecy. The May-June issue will be devoted to Real ID.

The Real ID Act, which passed Congress and was signed by the president last year, would require all states to conform to national ID standards by 2008. New Hampshire and Kentucky have been invited to serve as the pilot states. The law would require anyone wishing to enter a federal building, fly on an

airplane or open a bank account to have the nationally recognized ID or a passport. It would also put every ID holder in a central database.

Kurk believes Real ID would infringe on privacy and invite hackers to steal personal information without making the country safer from terrorism or deterring illegal immigration.

Baxter believes Real ID is a prelude to embedding radio-frequency chips in human skin, which would just about be the "mark of the beast."

"That's where we are headed right now. The prophecy states that you will have to receive a mark on your hand or in your forehead," he said.

At the end of their 45-minute radio interview, Baxter praised Kurk for taking "a stand for that which is right. We need about 1,000 more like him right now. We certainly will be praying for Rep. Kurk."

Kurk said he was surprised by the religious support for his cause but said it was indicative of the way Real ID had triggered opposition from across the political spectrum.

Albrecht said those who foresee the apocalypse are playing a major role in driving the opposition elsewhere but represent only a small part of the New Hampshire coalition. Instead, it's driven by the "Live Free or Die" ethos captured in Kurk's floor speech, she said.

"(This) is one of the least religious states in the country. If this were happening in Texas or if this were happening in Georgia, I think we would have a very different mix," she said. "I'm a Christian, and I don't like Real ID for a hundred reasons, and that's one of them."

Albrecht, who lives in Nashua, has gained international media attention as the founder of Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (CASPIAN, of which NH CASPIAN is an offshoot). She is working on a doctorate at Harvard and is the author of Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID. She repackaged the book for the Christian marketplace as The Spychips Threat.

Baxter has obtained 10,000 signatures from fellow believers who vowed never to vote for a congressman who supports Real ID, Albrecht said. He wants to gather 100,000, she said.

The speech

If you missed Kurk's "What price liberty?" speech, you can watch the video at NH.gov, to say nothing of the websites that have picked it up. Or you can read "The Courage of their Convictions," a 1,500-word account of what happened written by Joel Winters for the nhcaspian.org site. The narrative begins, "It was a quiet day in March . . ."

Winters hails Rep. Crow Dickinson of Center Conway as the dutiful constitutional defender who pulled the bill off the consent calendar and opened the floor to debate, setting the stage for Kurk. "Now a champion stepped forward," he wrote.

Winters quotes Kurk at length, interspersed with details like "his voice rose" and "as his words died away, applause thundered through the chamber."

Kurk had not seen the account before the Monitor read it to him. "It was a dark and stormy night,"the 10-term legislator said, listening along to the tale. Kurk said he would save it for his children so they could remind future generations "of their forebear's heroism."

But Kurk doesn't consider himself a hero: "I have a sense of doing what every representative does, and that is speaking as persuasively as he can to the House to try to persuade them that the vision for a better New Hampshire that he has is a vision they should share."

Tepid support

On his Thursday visit to Concord, former vice presidential nominee John Edwards offered less than wholehearted support for the state's first-in-the-nation primary.

He said the state should play a key role in the nominating because "you can't buy New Hampshire."But he also said he supports having more diverse states play an earlier role, and he reserved judgment on plans being weighed by the Democratic National Committee to insert states between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.

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State Sen. Lou D'Allesandro, who served as chairman of the Edwards campaign during the last primary, interpreted it as a message of support.

"He thinks we should be No. 1,"he said. "He supports our primary, and that statement indicates that. (But) we'll hopefully get him to be stronger for the New Hampshire primary."

The Manchester Democrat, who is courted by presidential aspirants every primary cycle, said he thought Edwards would be a great candidate in 2008 should he choose to run again.

"I'm looking for a winner in 2008, because we need a Democrat, badly," he said.

But D'Allesandro's main focus right now is on protecting the primary, not picking a candidate: "It's worked well for 50 years. If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Bitter fruit

Sen. Robert Boyce, an Alton Republican, was the only senator Thursday to vote against making the pumpkin the state fruit. He had no soft spot in his heart for the elementary-school students from Harrisville who proposed the idea and championed the bill through both houses of the Legislature.

The children received a warm reception from the Senate Banks and Insurance Committee earlier this month. They were invited to sit in the Senate chamber when their bill came up last week. Some commended the students for learning the legislative process and becoming engaged citizens. The governor promised to come to Harrisville to sign the bill.

But Boyce told the kids he thought they'd been spending too much time at the State House and that the senators and the students had better things to do. Besides, Boyce said, the strawberry would make a better state fruit.

That morning, Boyce also voted down allocating money for kindergarten construction and school breakfasts. He was the sole dissenter on a bill regulating gas pipe fitters. The parents of a woman killed in a gas explosion were in the chamber advocating for it.

Boyce was unmoved, if not entirely pessimistic.

"I am trying to find something in this calendar I can vote yes on," he told the Senate.

The son also rises

Time magazine named Sen. John Sununu as one of five "Up-and-Comers" in the U.S. Senate, along with Illinois Democrat Barack Obama, South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham, New York Democrat Hillary Clintonand Arkansas Democrat Mark Pryor.

"Only 41 years old, the New Hampshire Republican is the youngest member of the Senate, but that hasn't limited his reach,"the magazine said, citing Sununu's fiscal-conservative credentials and the important roles he played on lobbying-reform legislation and on securing changes to the Patriot Act before its renewal.

If you missed it, Sununu also earned a compliment from colleague John McCain when the Arizona senator visited Concord earlier this month. "The smartest person in the United States Senate, and he knows it, is John Sununu,"said McCain. "Thank God he had his mother's temperament."

McCain added: "I can't tell you what a bright star John Sununu is."He called Sununu "the next generation of leadership" in the Senate.

A new era

Speaking of Sununu, his father, John H., ushered state government into the digital age as governor two decades ago. But the state's computer system for processing the budget and finances hasn't changed much since then, said Don Hill, commissioner of the Department of Administrative Services.

Hill spent the last four years researching and developing plans for a new system, securing money from the Legislature and soliciting vendors. Last week, the Executive Council approved contracts totaling $20.6 million to purchase, install, implement and troubleshoot a comprehensive software suite known as an enterprise resource planning system.

The software will cover accounting, budgeting, payroll and purchasing, among other services, and it will bring a range of benefits. It will let the state issue the preferred electronic payments to vendors instead of New Hampshire's current paper checks, and it will allow state officials to close the books at the end of each fiscal year in days instead of months. It will provide powerful models to the governor and lawmakers for planning future budgets.

The public will see considerable changes. Instead of having to mail resumes to apply for state jobs or fill out paperwork for various licenses or board certifications, those processes will all be available online, Hill said. "You're really talking about redefining the way the state does business," he said.

Lawson Software of Minnesota received a 10-year, $7.5 million contract for the software licenses, maintenance and support. CIBER Inc. of Colorado partnered with Lawson and received a three-year, $13.1 million contract to implement the system.

The implementation could take 18 months to two years. In addition to the CIBER support, the state will hire its own project manager to coordinate the effort, Hill said.