NoNAIS.org

Walter, would you post on your blog a message about our upcoming meeting in Arkansas for this Sunday? Please and thank you! Press release below:

ARKANSAS ANIMAL PRODUCER’S ASSOCIATION
P.O. Box 368, Bismarck
Arkansas 71929
libertymtn2@yahoo.com
http://arkansasanimalproducers.8k.com

ANIMAL OWNERS TO MEET IN ATKINS TO PRESERVE THEIR RIGHTS

The Arkansas Animal Producer’s Association (ARAPA) will hold a state- wide meeting in Atkins on Sunday, March 2nd from 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM at the Atkins High School Auditorium. The press and the public are encouraged to attend. The key note speaker will be nationally respected speaker and writer Doreen Hannes from Mt. Grove, Missouri. Hannes will utilize current federal documents to explain the national status of the USDA proposed National Animal Identification System (NAIS), nation-wide resistance to NAIS, legislation preventing a mandatory NAIS, and the expense and failure of similar systems in other countries. Under the proposed system animal owners would be required to register their land with the USDA, thus putting their property under federal jurisdiction, if they wanted to sell or take their animals off of their property. Owners, at their expense, would then be required to electronically identify their animals and report within 24 hours to a data base animal births, deaths, ownership transfers, and animal ingress and egress from their land. All animal owners must understand the USDA proposal in order to make appropriate decisions regarding NAIS to preserve their rights. NAIS is not just about farm animals.

Representative Roy Ragland from Marshall will detail efforts in Arkansas to prevent a mandatory NAIS. Representative Ragland, George, Martin, Norton, Green, Pyle, Burris and Senator Whitaker were sponsors of the FREEDOM TO FARM ACT in 2007. Delays prevented the bill from passing. It will be submitted for consideration in 2009. General Assembly members have been invited to attend and candidates for public office are invited to attend, pass out flyers, and campaign.

Documentary film maker Tim Smith from Fayetteville will discuss property rights issues and Agenda 21 which will affect all property owners. Mary Rivera from Gepp will discuss the resolutions against a mandatory NAIS that Quorum Courts are passing. Talk radio host Drew Raines will challenge the audience to be pro-active in preserving freedoms and liberties and the right to produce and sell animals and plants in the traditional manner.

A business meeting will be conducted to evaluate ARAPA, elect the Steering Committee, and make committee appointments. ARAPA is a grass roots, member controlled organization with no paid employees that organized in July of 2006, to provide independent animal owners with the opportunity to work together for their best interests. Preventing a mandatory NAIS was the first task undertaken. Members have presented documented information about NAIS at meetings of animal owners and those who support them across the state, Quorum Court meetings, and county Farm Bureau meetings.

Simple blog note: The web server had serious problems yesterday and then for the past 24 hours my incoming email has been down. If you emailed me and I don’t respond that is why. Incoming mail neither bounced nor got through for that period - they just vanished into the ether. Try again now.

Update 20080301: Problems with the web host continue. Name servers are being updated and that will take time to propagate. I’m working on finding a new host for redundancy as I have become quite dissatisfied with the service I’m getting from VON. They had been excellent for years but underwent great changes for the negative recently - possibly including change of ownership. I’ll keep you all posted as I move to new servers. Until then the site and my incoming email may be very unstable. My apologies.

Good news from the far north:

Senate Bill 202:
“Prohibit State Spending for REAL ID Act”

“An Act relating to expenditures in aid of or to implement the provisions of the federal Real ID Act.”

The “Real ID Act” is a federal mandate that creates America’s first national ID Card. This is a cause for alarm for many Alaskans and Americans, particularly since the federal government is attempting to interfere with the states’ sovereignty, and force the states to implement the program through state-issued driver’s licenses. Senate Bill 202 prohibits the use of state money to implement this program.

Many people are concerned that the “common machine-readable technology” required by the Real ID Act would convert state-issued drivers licenses and identification cards into tracking devices, allowing computers to note and record people’s whereabouts each time they are identified. The Federal government could essentially track citizens’ every movement. This is a major step towards creating a surveillance society.

The requirement that states maintain databases of information about their citizens and residents and then share this personal information with all other states will expose every state to the information security weaknesses of every other state and threatens the privacy of every American. States and local governments that contract with private corporations also allow those private organizations to obtain this information. Moreover, through national agreements with Canada and Mexico, those governments will also have access to every Americans’ identification information. Essentially, every American’s identity will be at risk of substantial threat of ID theft under Real ID.

The concern has also been raised that Real ID will be used as a backdoor attempt to institute a national gun registry. That is why many NRA members oppose Real ID.

The implementation of Real ID is one of the top issues that States all across the country have been addressing. Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington have all passed legislation opposing Real ID. Similar bills are pending in Arizona, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, D.C., West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

It is time for Alaska to join the effort to stand up for state sovereignty and oppose Real ID. I encourage you to support this legislation.
-AKSenate.org

If you are in Alaska then please contact your state senators, and reps, to let them know how you feel. Phone is best. Followup with a paper letter. Follow that up with an email - in that order since that is the power of contacts. It will only take you a few minutes and could make the difference. Start with your own reps and senators from your district. Then do the committee reps. Then if you’re gung-ho, contact them all in some way. If there are hearings then go to them and make your voices heard.

Hat tip to Gisela.