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April 14, 2025 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
33:09
REAL ID = Real Tyranny!

Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem announced Friday that the the notorious PATRIOT Act-era REAL ID scheme would go into effect at the end of the month. REAL ID is one of the greatest threats to Americans' civil liberties in decades. Also today: The State Department knew before arresting a foreign Tufts student that she was not involved in terrorist or antisemitic activities. So why did they do it?

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Time Text
Bill's Concerns About Secrecy 00:15:13
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today, we have Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, welcome to the program.
Happy Monday, Dr. Paul.
How are you today?
Doing well, thank you.
Anything going on?
Little bits of things.
So, you know, they're going to be talking about identification.
And I think identification is good.
When we were raising our kids, my wife did a very good job.
She always knew who they were hanging around with.
And her strategy was they shouldn't go out on the streets and do things.
So she said they should come to our place and swim in our swimming pool.
That's a smart move.
So, but ID is very important.
I mean, we interview people.
We work with people.
We make major decisions.
We make major decisions.
When we purchase something, we want to know who the people are.
Are they trustworthy?
And governments, you know, probably have some responsibility on this.
You know, sort of like maybe the people that vote are registered voters or citizens, you know.
And yet now there's a lot of interest into this bill.
It was just concocted a few years ago called a real ID.
This is the real McCoy.
And I was wondering, and you were working with me at the time.
I wonder, I often wondered whether that's because they want to make sure that nobody cheats when they're voting and everybody's a citizen.
But it turns out that's not exactly what they have in mind about making sure this ID.
But it sounds like bad news.
And I don't know what year it was, but I thought it was bad news then.
And the news is not getting any better.
And it looks like when you have an administration that tends to think and agree with you on this particular issue with less government and privacy and these things, that there wouldn't be a challenge.
But it looks to me like they're, you know, reigniting this whole thing.
We need it right away because there might be a terrorist in your backyard.
And we don't want 9-11 to happen again because we could only have had real ID.
You know that story.
So anyway, identification is very important, has to deal with the issue of privacy.
And it's a shame, but I'm not very happy with the direction we're going right now.
It looks like we're going to lose a lot more privacy if this bill gets reopened and made much worse.
And it looks like it can do a lot more damage yet to come.
Exactly.
And I mean, I have to say Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noam is turning into a real disappointment because this is one of a number of things that she's done that really kind of back up what you warned back when they created the department.
It's going to be limiting our liberties, not anyone else's.
We'll put on this first clip.
This is from Newsmax, and they recognize.
So Christy Noam came out on Friday afternoon and she said, I got news for everyone.
We are going to start enforcing Real ID, I think, as of May 1st.
So Newsmax came out today.
Real ID announcement receives wave of pushback on X, which is good, which is good.
And you go to the next one.
Here's what Noam did Friday evening.
Now, that's when they always do something.
They don't want to have any, you know, people noticing it.
She announced a digital ID known as Real ID, which requires a high-resolution digital facial image, would be required by May 7th to fly.
Starting May 7, you will need a real ID to travel by air or to visit federal buildings in the U.S., she said in a video on X.
These IDs keep our country safe because they help prevent fraud and they enhance security.
And as soon as she said that, a backlash ensued on X, including, Dr. Paul, by our great friend Thomas Massey.
Go to the next one.
Massey hit it right on the head.
He called BS on Christy Noam.
He said, Real ID isn't needed and it won't stop terrorists from hijacking planes.
Most of the 9-11 hijackers held Saudi, UAE, Egyptian, or Lebanese passports.
Real ID is a national standard and database of IDs that is primarily a tool for control of Americans.
Trump shouldn't enforce it, he said.
Go on.
In 2000, keep it up there if you can.
So this is the background.
In 2005, go back 2005, President George W. Bush.
Now, here's a kicker.
You remember this, Dr. Paul, signed the Real ID Act into law.
It was authored by Representative James Sensenbrenner, the same author of the Patriot Act.
You remember those times.
Sensenbrenner was going nuts writing all these bills.
Yes, and they portrayed him as a great civil libertarian and working for our privacy.
That's the most insulting thing is what Noam said.
It was issued to make us safe.
They always turn it and twist it around.
It's sort of like, we need the Federal Reserve so nobody ever confronts money.
Yeah.
We want the monopoly.
Exactly.
This is what this is, monopoly over control.
The other thing is, if this administration allows that to go, what about states handling the issue of identification?
You know, you have to find out that a nine-year-old isn't playing with the eight-year-olds and getting away with it.
But maybe their local school board or somebody else can deal with that.
But here, here they want this national law.
And it is really, really a dangerous thing.
And I know over the years we've talked about this, but then there was a sort of a law.
And you would think, maybe let it go to sleep.
We have new people up there and they believe in the republic.
They believe in privacy.
And look at what's happening now.
Yeah, it's been sitting around.
It passed in 05 and it's just been sitting around.
No one's done anything to it.
No one has really enforced it.
Now, all of a sudden, Christy Noam wakes up and says, you know what?
I'm going to go ahead and enforce this.
So let's go to a little bit more from the Newsmax article.
Now, the criticism is not coming from the left, it doesn't seem primarily.
Thankfully, it's a lot on the right.
Now, go to that next clip.
In light of the thousands of criticisms Noam's Post received, according to the American Policy Center, and this is a quote.
This is important.
The Real ID Act has, and you'll recognize this, Dr. Paul, the Real ID Act has many tentacles that are each very egregious.
The law, PL 109 slash 13, the Real ID Deed Act of 2005, is not a terribly long law.
And you remember this part, Dr. Paul, but it does have hundreds of pages that were published as part of the rulemaking process.
Remember how they did that?
And among those, go to the next one.
Here's the thing that you worried about at the time.
And in fact, I have the receipts.
I'm going to bring them up in a second.
Among those rules the organization outlined is the risk of losing your second amendment.
Now, here is that conservative group, American Policy Center.
They wrote, you may wrongly believe the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security would never add purchasing a firearm and or ammunition to the official purchase of the Real ID Act of 2005, they wrote.
In fact, Democrats in California have already made a move in that direction.
Now, the attempt failed at the time because all states and commonwealths were not yet certified as being real ID compliant.
Well, we know that's changing.
They continue.
In 2021, the Department of Homeland Security certified all states, Commonwealths, as being real ID compliant.
So there it is, what you said before, that they're going to use it to take away other constitutional rights.
And they said, oh, Ron, stop exaggerating.
California tried to do that exact thing.
Boy, I'll tell you, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
You can never let your guard down.
You know, I often think about what the relationship is currently with Elon Musk and Trump and the administration, because everybody says, well, he's fading out.
He's not involved.
And he's discovering things that maybe we were misleading people a little bit on how many miracles we were going to create.
Because I'd love to know exactly what he thinks about this.
Well, I think he's expressed himself on tariffs.
I think he knows enough about tariffs to understand the evil and terror and all of this thing.
But I would think his instincts, and he's written a couple of things that were almost known to us that he indicated he sort of liked some of the things that we were doing.
But those are the things that makes me curious, but I guess I'll never know unless he keeps up his work.
Well, come on the show.
That's right.
You don't have to do that.
Well, here is a blast from the past.
And I tell you, I was just talking to our friend in the back early before the show started that I can't believe it's been 20 years, but I remember us all working on this.
Norm was working on it.
I was working on it.
We were working together on this.
Go to this next clip.
This is a blast from the past.
February 12th, 2005.
I found it, Dr. Paul.
This is your statement opposing the original Real ID Act.
And unfortunately, I couldn't get the video to work, but it's great.
I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 418, the Real ID Act.
This bill purports to make us safer from terrorists who may sneak into the United States and from other illegal immigrants.
Well, I agree that these issues are of vital importance.
This bill will do very little to make us more secure.
It will not address our real vulnerabilities.
It will, however, make us much less free.
In reality, this bill is a Trojan horse.
It pretends to offer desperately needed border control in order to stampede Americans into sacrificing what is uniquely American, our constitutionally protected liberty.
I'm just going to read a little bit more of it if you don't mind, Dr. Paul, because go to the next one.
You bring up the Second Amendment in this.
The bill could have a chilling effect on the exercise of our constitutionally guaranteed rights.
It redefines terrorism in broad new terms.
That sounds familiar.
That could and well include members of firearms rights and anti-abortion groups or other such groups as determined by whoever is in power at the time.
There are no prohibitions against including such information in the database as information about a person's exercise of First Amendment rights or a person's appearance on a registry of firearms owners.
You go along to add that these IDs could include things like retina scans, fingerprints, DNA info, and even RFID radio tracking technology, which would mean that other governments would also be able to track our info.
So you said it at the time.
You warned, be careful, conservatives, what you're doing here.
Be careful, Republicans, because this will be used against Americans.
Here we have it.
And you found this in a government record?
I thought it anti-war on colour.
Because I was wondering, I was told it was erased from all government records, you know, subversive ideas like this, defending the Second Amendment and pretending that you might see consequences.
Well, there are consequences, and most of them for politicians, they wish they wouldn't come, but they're unintended as well.
And they surprise themselves how terrible their legislation can be.
And I think we're starting to witness some of that about the consequences of tariff wars.
There's a lot of fuss going on there now.
But if we eliminate this, we talk about loss of privacy.
But I tell the story that a very famous right far conservative libertarian many decades ago said that if you ever have an organization like the, like the CIA, and they take over.
This was after.
Well, it was.
It was back when, I think when the 9-11 thing was happening if you, if you have the CIA or the Kennedy assassination, if you have the CIA taken over, he says, if you have a CIA not not what they do if you have a CIA operation, you cannot have a republic because it's secret government.
Just think, just think of you know, the first time I was a little bit shocked about this.
You know Clinton was running for president yeah, and he was in the campaign and they, they took from years before that records of him saying and and dealing with you know his, his friends and and revealed this.
I said even even they, something like that.
It wasn't president, he was into politics, but they had records of that years before and they already measure everything and technology.
Technology, you know it's a, it's a double its source, like nuclear energy.
It could be a blessing in disguise and and really be beneficial to everyone for energy and whatnot.
And it's also a deadly weapon.
That you know.
We know what the devastation is physically.
But but what about this type of operation?
Uh, I put it in the category of approaching the advice that I got a long time ago, if you have secret organizations and this is it it will destroy the republic.
And this is just more of that, more secrecy, And it's done.
And I guess the worst part are the lies they tell in order to get this passed.
You know, my statement, if you brought a bill to me, I said, you know, Daniel, just look at the title.
I remember you, somebody like you told me, said, you know, some of our, you know, our friends in other departments say, you guys have it easy.
All you have to do is find out if it's anti is against the Constitution.
And then your job is done.
Ron, this is not a constitutional process.
We don't have to read the 20,000 page bill.
Well, I want to thank Comrell 2020.
He kicked in $20 today and he said, don't believe this is not going to be a NEO vax passport, which is possible.
More Secrecy, More Lies 00:02:50
Now, it's not explicit right now, but who's going to stop them from having your vaccine records on it?
But thankfully, someone is carrying the banner that you carried 20 years ago, and that someone is Thomas Massey.
Now, he came out with a bunch of posts on X when Christy Noam made her dumb announcement.
And here's, I've just picked out a couple of the better ones.
Now, this is people will find this radical, but think about it.
He says, as long as the pilot's door is locked and no one has weapons, why do you care that someone who flies has government permission?
Real ID provides no benefit, yet presents a serious risk to freedom.
If a person can't be trusted to fly without weapons, why are they roaming free?
Very good point.
And here's another one where he explains it to people who don't get it.
They don't understand what real ID is.
He says, real ID isn't a database.
It's proof that your physical person matches an entry in the digital database.
Its power and purpose will be realized when everyone complies, but not before.
This is responsive to the, I didn't give them much information.
I've had one for years.
Why worry argument he makes.
So it's not essentially a database in itself.
It is the relationship between that card that you hold and the database that exists already.
And they can add to it.
Remember, we talked about they can add anything they want.
Vax records, gun records, civil liberties, First Amendment records, anything can be added to it.
You know, I keep up with my medical license.
I like the idea that in an emergency, I still want to be a doctor.
Yeah, sure.
You have to have the license.
So you have to play the game.
You have a driver's license, this sort of thing.
So I went along with that.
But this year I got a notice and they said, you can't even apply for your license until you are fingerprinted by the FBI.
And I, you know, called in and I said, why do I have to be investigated by the FBI?
And I fingerprinted.
I said, you know, I was in the military for a long time.
I flew on airplanes with nuclear arsenals and I was cleared there.
And I've been a doctor all these years.
And I had this license for 30-some years.
And on and on, I said, even in Congress, I had access to security information.
Of course, I didn't pretend to read it because that was propaganda.
Yeah, mostly was.
So anyway, I had all this.
I said, why do I have to start doing this and getting, and it was, and I flunked the first test.
I went in there and they had me doing, it wasn't, oh, I thought I was going to do this.
One thumbs up.
I had all my fingers and everything.
Silver Lining in Shadow 00:07:50
Side, upside down.
And they called me and said, you didn't pass.
But I finally got it passed.
So I can prescribe medication again.
Or emergency surgery on the set of the livery report.
Well, the next one we want to cover is also disturbing another attack on civil liberties.
And we hate reporting it as much as we hate having to report it and seeing it happen.
Now, this is something our good friend Jim Bovart put up on Facebook this morning and caught my attention immediately.
This is shocking because we've covered this story, Dr. Paul, when they arrested this graduate student from Tufts University.
We showed the video of her being arrested.
You can see that in the lower left.
She was approached in the street by plainclothes people with masks on who put handcuffs on her.
Well, here is something incredible about that arrest, Dr. Paul.
This is the Washington Post.
No evidence linking Tufts student to anti-Semitism or terrorism, the State Department found.
Okay, go to the next one.
Now, they didn't do an investigation afterwards, Dr. Paul.
No.
Days before mass immigration and customs enforcement agents detained Tufts University student, Ramesa Oz Turk, to deport her, the State Department had determined that the Trump administration had not provided, produced any evidence showing that she engaged in anti-Semitic activities or made public statements supporting a terrorist organization as the government had alleged.
They alleged that they arrested her and are kicking her out because of her anti-Semitism and terrorism support.
They knew days before they did it that there was no such thing as that.
They made it up.
But, you know, I'm always looking for the favorable side.
This is good.
In spite of all these horrors that we put up with and they're expanding, that truth breaks through.
Here, there's some individuals.
So we cannot say everybody that works for the government, their intentions are to bring on the revolution and turn it over to Soviet-type communism.
So this to me is so important.
Individuals like this.
So somebody investigating was telling the truth.
But the real crime, the big crime is the refusal to look at it and march on with a policy which is destructive to our whole system to undermine the truth.
I call them nihilists.
They don't want to hear the truth.
Nihilism is alive and well in Washington, especially if they have political power because they have to lie to keep the empire going.
And that's Marco Rubio.
I think he's a nihilist in a way because he's the one behind this.
And he's the one who had to have known.
And I go to the next one from the Post piece.
The finding continued in eight March, contained in a March memo that was described through the Washington Post said, and I highlighted this, Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not have sufficient grounds for revoking Oz Turk's visa under an authority empowering the top U.S. diplomat to safeguard the foreign policy interests of the U.S.
The memo written by an office within the State Department raises doubts about the public accusations made by the Trump administration.
Now go to the next one.
We will refresh your memories.
Why was she arrested?
Did she bang some Jewish students over the head?
No.
She wrote an op, she co-wrote an op-ed last year in the student newspaper criticizing her university's response to the Israel-Gaza war.
Full stop.
That's all she did.
Now go, and this is how, but because of that, she expressed her First Amendment rights, which you have if you're a citizen or not.
If you go to the next one, they originally recommended revocation of her visa under an authority in the Immigration and Nationality Act that allows for the deportation of a foreigner.
If the Secretary of State has reasonable grounds to believe that person's presence or activities has adverse policy consequences for the United States.
Now, that's somewhat troubling, Dr. Paul, because if the person of the Secretary of State has a policy that half of Americans may not agree with it, half of people who are here may not agree with it.
And then they express, you know, I really don't like that policy.
They can be kicked out of the country.
That is disturbing, even if people are saying in the audience right now, I'm sure, well, they were guests here.
That's fine.
They came here because they love our system.
They love our constitution and they want to share in it.
And what are they getting?
Kicked in the teeth.
But, you know, they will punish the individual if they can, kick him out or whatever.
But the other thing they do is we're going to really punish you because your college campuses, your university are permitting them to say these things.
How dare they?
Permitting them to criticize our foreign policy.
So we have to stop that.
If anybody comes in, the stomping of it, the clarification and giving us our freedom again is that what we have to do is take the money away from the university because it's a weapon.
So all this funding is usually just something that they can remove.
I think there was a story today about Trump.
He was taking, oh, he says, they're lying.
They're saying these things and they said, and they, and he says, we need to take away that license.
But that, of course, is an argument for not having licensures, you know.
But that was started a long time ago.
And for a long, long time, they were that technology has really helped, you know, competition and not having having a license.
Even I don't think I should say it too loud, but you and I don't believe we have to have a license for this.
I just have to have it for medical care.
Call Christy Noah, maybe she'll make us get one.
You know, the fact is that anti-Semitism is a very ugly thing.
It's the expression of very ugly views.
My person, my religion is considered a serious sin.
However, according to our First Amendment, you're allowed to be anti-Semitic or even express anti-Semitic thoughts as long as you don't take action to harm people.
So the fact that she wasn't found having anti-Semitic thoughts was good.
It's nice.
However, that shouldn't be grounds either because we have a First Amendment, as you always say, not to talk about the weather.
But here's a little bit of a good news.
Here's a little bit, in my opinion, of a silver lining in the shadow.
Because while the government was grabbing this woman and deporting her, the students on campus who were disgusted by what she said and disagreed with her, nevertheless stood up for her.
This is from the same Washington Post article.
And I'm going to read it because we need a little bit of dose of good news that the young people, as you always say, the young people get it.
Put this next clip on video of Oz Turk nabbed on the streets of suburban Boston by plainclothes agents, drew international attention to her case and sparked widespread debate about suppression of speech by the Trump administration.
At Tufts, Oz Turk's arrest drew intense criticism, including from a pro-Israel group on campus and the Tufts Republicans.
Here's a quote: We strongly oppose the content of the op-ed that Oz Turk co-authored last year, read an op-ed by Tufts Friends of Israel.
But restricting freedom of speech is flat out undemocratic and anti-American.
Freedom of speech in a democracy is sacred.
It ensures that dissent is heard and that people can express themselves.
It is the best tool we have to fight tyranny.
Right now, our freedom of speech is under attack.
Hats off to the Tufts Friends of Israel for that great statement.
What they're using is the principle of pointing out hypocrisy.
People will wake up and they have an instinct.
Freedom Of Speech Under Attack 00:07:05
I think everybody has it.
It's available to them if they want the instinct of being honest and upfront.
So if they come in and find out that they're saying one thing and doing something else and they're punishing them, and then they end this point, this happened with COVID.
Remember when the people who were arresting people and saying you can't do this?
And they loved all the authority at the local level.
It didn't even take the UN to do this.
It took just local school boards and everything else.
They love this and they wouldn't want to punish them.
But the hypocrisy is what made people angry.
Remember Nancy Pelosi and a few others?
They were out partying.
At the time, they were saying, you can't even leave your house.
And if you go down to the beach, you better wear your mask.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Well, I think our last little bit, this will be a short one because we're running short on time, but I think we're talking about it because it's related.
Because the rest of the world is seeing plain clothes, masked people grabbing people off the streets, throwing them into jail, and then deporting them from the country.
Well, what is the rest of the world going to say?
I'm not going there.
Go to this next one now.
This is what we're seeing it now in the numbers.
European travel to the U.S. dropped 17% amid Trump backlash and worries about the treatment of foreigners.
Now go to the next one.
So it's way down.
People aren't coming here.
But listen to this, Dr. Paul.
People aren't merely opting not to visit the U.S. More foreigners are canceling the trips that they've already booked.
The cancellation rate leapt 17% in the first quarter compared to last year.
The cancellation rate among French, German, and British would-be visitors soaring 40%.
Now, I'm sure some of those people hate Trump.
They don't like his policies.
They don't like his views on a number of things.
But you can't discount this possibility that people are genuinely frightened to come in the country.
And here's a very graphic representation of travel to the U.S.
Now, go to that next one.
Here's that chart.
I'm sure you saw that chart, Dr. Paul, on Zero Hedge.
But bam, look at that.
Everyone, everyone across the board.
And I said it to you this morning and I used the word unintended consequences on the subject line because this is going to hurt us.
You know, those charts are so dramatic.
And it doesn't come from the efficiency of government, even when they want to crack down on people.
They say, don't do this, don't do this.
This comes from the people making their decision and they had access to some information.
And that's why this age of information is so valuable, even though it's a weapon too.
It can be used against us.
But because there's outside the three major networks, people get to hear about this and they will react.
The other thing that people forget, and I don't mention it often enough, because they talk about, you know, tariffs.
Is it going to help the businessman?
Is it going to help this company?
Or, you know, on and on.
It will help labor.
What's it going to do?
And I was taught, and I happen to accept the principle that the market freedom protects only one group.
The whole goal is the consumer.
Yes.
The people who buy and sell.
And when they're satisfied, they vote.
Every dollar is a vote.
And that's pure democracy.
The only type of democracy I really like.
So I think that this is what we're seeing now.
When you see this, people acted.
I mean, this is worldwide.
How many 10, 15 countries?
Yeah.
So they're voting with their dollar, like you said.
There's no privacy in that.
That's good.
But anyway, it just incentivizes the government.
They just work harder.
Oh, well, we don't have a good enough stuff.
We need a real ID.
So they march on and never quit.
Yeah.
We'll put this last clip on.
This is because I wanted to find out what are we talking about in dollars?
Who's it going to hurt?
It's going to hurt the economy.
Find that last one on.
Similarly, CEO of French tour operator Voyager Dumont told CNN that U.S. bookings since Trump's inauguration have fallen 20%.
Now, again, we could say that a lot of people just don't like Trump.
They hate Trump.
Whatever.
That's part of it.
But he said, in the 30 years I've been in this business, I have never seen anything like this for any destination.
It's huge.
And then here's the interesting part that I highlighted.
Tourism represents 2.5 percent of America's economy, and international travelers spent 253 billion dollars on U.S. trips last year.
If they stop coming because they don't want to get nabbed on the street, it's going to be a real shock to the U.S. economy.
You know, I would suggest that if people looked at how much hostility is directed toward China, and they deserve criticism of all that stuff, but they, why do they have these edges?
It's because we vote, we buy their stuff.
They didn't come over here with a gun.
They didn't invade us and say, we're going to take over your gold mines or coal mines and take over your business.
They make stuff.
Oh, yeah, but their labor is cheaper.
Well, you know, the consumer, if you look after the consumer, the consumer gets the advantages of freedom.
And unfortunately, everybody puts in the category.
Labor gets divided up, business people come up.
And what does it do?
It turns out that the best investment the businessman can make now is hiring a real smart lobbyist or a powerful lobbyist, a ruthless lobbyist to go and demand what he wants.
So that is tragic.
Did you have another statement?
No, no, I'm just going to close out and just thank everyone for watching the show and hit that thumbs up or the like button if you can and get our show spread around.
We appreciate it very much.
And over to you, Dr. Paul.
Okay, and I'll close out too as well because I want to express my deep appreciation for all of you who have too did.
And we are going to continue this effort because we believe that we're making headway.
A lot of times the news won't tell us how many people are there.
But some of these statistics we talked about today, people will be rallied.
They rally against the nonsense of COVID lockdowns.
So as long as we can speak out, I consider the First Amendment vital.
And I truly despise it when I see the government coming in and they have the club.
Give everybody some money.
If they don't say what we want, we take away their money.
And it's a use of force and intimidation.
But maybe it'll help when we run out of money and the money doesn't work.
Maybe we'll have to work on a different operation.
But in the meantime, we will continue to fight for liberty and for free markets.
And on that occasion, I would say if we're looking for peace and prosperity, that's the best way to go.
I want to thank you for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.
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