So who’s heard of the REAL ID Act of 2005? Because up until a few weeks ago, I sure as heck hadn't.

What if I were to tell you that in as little as 2 years, we’re all going to have to trade in our state-issued driver’s licenses for what is essentially a national ID card? Sounds kind of sudden doesn’t it? You’d think we would have heard more about it on the news or in the paper. Yet here we are, coming up on the new law’s first anniversary in May.

For those unaware of the REAL ID Act (which I’m assuming is a majority of you), it was signed into law on May 11, 2005. Basically, it says that in two years (i.e. May 11, 2008) if a driver’s license is to be used for identification purposes, it must meet a set of standards set forth by the Department of Homeland Security. These standards include such common identifiers like full name, signature, address, and a photograph, but the new law also states that they must all have some kind of unified, machine-readable technology. Although exactly what this technology will be hasn’t been decided, the Department of Homeland Security’s vocal support for RFID (radio frequency identification) seems to almost guarantee what to expect.

But even more frightening is the sharing of state databases that the law will require. Frankly, I can’t see the how linking state driver databases would help deter terrorism as expected. Considering no amount of identification could ever determine evil intent and that any terrorist determined enough will have a way to get his hands on a forgery, I don't see the point in such a system.

And I won’t even get into the possibilities for identity theft associated with a linked and centralized database. Talk about putting all of your eggs into one basket, though.

But you know what? All RFID and conspiracy theory aside, what really bothers me about the REAL ID Act (well, besides the fact that it pretty much passed into law without a second thought) is the more immediate effects it will have on the American citizen. I won’t claim to be some kind of economist, but the system that will need to be set up in order to issue the licenses and then manage the linking of databases must be huge. And I can only imagine the tax and fee increases that will be needed in order to pay for it. Considering Minnesota just remade our license last year, the whole thing seems a bit silly to me.

Even more bothersome than the financial burden this new law creates, and what I find the most frightening of all, is that the bureaucracy of the federal government is about the get a lot bigger. You want to talk about the downfall of western civilization, look no further than a stand in line, wait your turn, red tape, rules for the sake of having rules bureaucracy.

Even though the REAL ID Act of 2005 didn’t receive much press when it was signed in last year, I think we can expect much more discussion when the time comes and it’s up to the states to implement it. Until then, I’m going to do whatever I can to try and get this thing rejected. Because of it all goes through, we walk a slippery slope, indeed.

You can check out the exact wording of the law at the Library of Congress website Here.

"No."

"Oh, well you should get one."

I have this above conversation at least 2 or 3 times a week. Apparently there was an internet revolution that I missed out on, because it feels like I'm the only guy age 18 to 24 without a MySpace page. But, you know what? Lately, I've been priding myself on that fact. For the life of me, I cannot see the appeal in it. What is it about posting a picture of yourself you took in a mirror with a camera-phone and creating a cyberspace network of friends you will probably never meet that is so attractive? Perhaps I'm just don't know what's cool anymore (a prospect I find quite improbable), but I think MySpace is pretty lame. But could it also be dangerous?

Alright, so what exactly is a MySpace? Well, I can tell you what they're not: visually attractive. Have you ever wondered what would happen if the internet was made by a bunch of high school kids without any html or graphic design knowledge? Well, browse through any random MySpace page and you can find out. Granted, I have seen a few clean and attractive pages, but a majority use poor color combinations, a myriad of pointless 'about me' charts, and my biggest pet peeve: background music. But, essentially, a MySpace is the mixture of a blog and a virtual address book. It's a place where groups of friends can network with each other, spread gossip, and do all that other stuff teen groups do.

Sounds pretty harmless, but is it? Despite the obvious dangers of posting personal information on the internet, there may also be a deeper and far more sinister plot at hand.

A brief search of MySpace history reveals that although the site began as an upstart project for a UCLA alumni, it is now under the ownership of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. So wait, could it be that MySpace, a haven for teenage rebels and a 'stick it to the man' mentality is in fact being run by one the world's biggest media conglomerates? Oh snap.

For what Murdoch has in store for MySpace, I turn to documentary filmmaker Alex Jones. For those that follow The K-Files, you'll know that I'm a pretty big Jones fan. Although I may not believe everything he says to be fact, I believe his intentions to be sincere. On the subject of MySpace, Jones believes it to be a "Trojan horse" for internet censorship. He lays it all out in the appropriately titled article, "MySpace Is The Trojan Horse Of Internet Censorship," written by himself and Paul Joseph Watson and posted on Infowars.com. Basically, he goes on to say that with the free-flowing current of information provided by the internet, the media elite needed to create a system that could win back their power. By making MySpace hip and trendy, he argues, they can get a generation of internet users accustomed to the kind of controlled internet hub that has been planned for the Internet 2 project.

In the article, Jones presents a story detailing how a blog posting critical of MySpace was deleted. He then took it a step further by creating his very own MySpace to test it. You can check it out at http://www.myspace.com/alex_infowarrior. He claims that he followed all of the rules outlined in the End User License Agreement, and will continue posting his NWO/conspiracy stories to see if he gets censored. If nothing else, seeing the image he chose for his avatar is worthy of checking it out.

So far, there has been no funny business regarding censorship, so either Jones' has blown this out of proportion (I wouldn't put it past him), or Murdoch and company are leaving him alone in fear of creating a martyr. In either case, I think the danger is still real. MySpace may not be the stepping stone on the path to totalitarianism like some fear, but if it is to be a format for things to come, the internet is indeed in trouble. And, at the least, it's not good to become desensitized to the constant bombardment of invasive (and sometimes hidden) advertising becoming common place on MySpace, as well as our modern world as a whole.