State Real ID rebellion: Here to stay?

WASHINGTON--Politicians from states opposed to the U.S. government's Real ID plan had one message on Wednesday: It's not too late to turn this ship around.

Democratic Senator Jon Tester

(Credit: U.S. Senate)

Mark Sanford, the Republican governor of South Carolina, and Jon Tester, a Democratic U.S. senator from Montana, on Wednesday delivered a now-familiar bruising to the controversial national driver's license standards, which they criticized as an unfunded mandate that passed with no formal debate in Congress, posing threats to U.S. citizens' privacy and states' authority.

Now that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has extended deadlines for all 50 states and the District of Columbia, the rules have essentially been punted to the next administration. That "baton passing" stage is a key opportunity to continue rebelling against the rules, the two politicians told a packed auditorium at an event sponsored by the Cato Institute, a free-market think tank that opposes Real ID.

"With a broad-based group, we can make some changes, but you need to be active, you need to be vocal, you need to be talking to your folks," Tester said.

Tester is one of the sponsors of Identification Security Enhancement Act, which would yank Real ID and replace it with a "negotiated" rulemaking process that was proposed before Real ID was glued onto an emergency Iraq war spending bill that passed unanimously in 2005. At a hearing last week, some senators indicated they'd be pushing for that proposal's enactment into law, although a timeline is unclear.

Sanford, for his part, is worried that many people are "sleeping through" the debate and urged opponents to help awaken them to the problems that he and other state officials see with Real ID. He charged that the plan is "the mother of all unfunded mandates" (with an estimated $116 million price tag for his small state), will force his state's residents to endure long waits at the Department of Motor Vehicles, meddles in states' governing powers, and requires interlinked databases that could offer "one-stop shopping for every computer hacker around the world."

Homeland Security, for its part, argues that more secure driver's licenses and identification documents are necessary to prevent terrorists, identity thieves, and illegal immigrants from committing wrongdoing, and it views Real ID as a pathway to that end.

The department has always characterized Real ID as voluntary, but when the rules kick in, state residents won't be able to board airplanes or enter federal buildings unless they present without a compliant identification card, driver's license, or U.S. passport. The first wave of requirements were originally supposed to kick in May 11, but any potential airport chaos has been postponed until at least the end of next year: The agency has since opted all 50 states and the District of Columbia deadline extensions for beginning to come into compliance with Real ID--whether they requested them or not.

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford

(Credit: South Carolina Governor's Office)

South Carolina is one of eight states that has passed legislation prohibiting implementation of Real ID--and it also falls into the category of states that vowed to stick by that position, Sanford said. (Ten other states have passed resolutions opposing Real ID, and two more--Arizona and Alaska--may be joining the rebellion soon.)

In late March, Sanford sent a letter (PDF) to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, in which he said he could not authorize the state to comply with Real ID and outlining a list of concerns with the policy. The governor recounted receiving a "bizarre" response: an effectively unsolicited deadline extension.

Sanford suggested he'll continue to uphold his state's law rejecting Real ID and indicated Homeland Security's behavior is nothing more than politics as usual. "There's a real tendency in the political process to kick the can," he said. "Everyone wants to have a reasonably good day. The idea of having a meltdown on a policy or proposal that you're responsible for is not exactly an idea of a good day."

[Solaris_User]

I think they should just make good on their threats.

1. Not being able to enter federal buildings. GREAT! Nothing good could ever come from you entering one of those places.

2. Ban the air travel. See how long it is before the elected body removes the federal agents at the airport. As it has been shown in court a County Sheriff has the authority to remove any federal law enforcement officials from his jurisdiction at any time, so its reasonable to believe that would apply to the TSA. Get rid of them, we don't want them, arm the pilots with handguns and go back to air port security searches.

[Solaris_User]

I think they should just make good on their threats.

1. Not being able to enter federal buildings. GREAT! Nothing good could ever come from you entering one of those places.

2. Ban the air travel. See how long it is before the elected body removes the federal agents at the airport. As it has been shown in court a County Sheriff has the authority to remove any federal law enforcement officials from his jurisdiction at any time, so its reasonable to believe that would apply to the TSA. Get rid of them, we don't want them, arm the pilots with handguns and go back to air port security searches.

[ajbright]

Alternatively they could use a passport. But here's a thing, you think making all this personal information accessible to anyone working at any DMV or federal department is fine and dandy right? Great, so when someone wanting to track down your personal information walks into a backwater DMV with $50 and buys it from the hick behind the counter - you'll be fine with that?

The great news is security couldn't actually get any worse. In the great tradition of typos and keying in information incorrectly into databases, the latest victims of the "It says you're on the no fly list, so you can't board the plane" are in fact Federal Air Marshals. Not one, not three, but hundreds.

And this is the crowd you want to trust with your personal information. Tell me, if they can't figure out that a Federal Air Marshal isn't a terrorist with all the background checks and other hoops such personnel have to jump through, what do you think the odds are for someone with a driver's license, whose data was entered by a minimum wage employee, bored crapless by entering millions of names and addresses into databases?

But don't worry, because the names in most cases weren't actual matches, they just sounded like the names on the list. Definitely a good enough reason to prevent a Federal Air Marshal from boarding a plane.

The biggest con is of course that such things as biometric ids in some way protect us. In fact what they do is put us at greater risk, because everyone that has such an ID, or something that looks convincingly like one, will be assumed to be ok and waved through.

Tell me this. If Microsoft and all their billions can't make a secure web browser or word processor, what makes you think a crony-run business in charge of creating the most complex database system ever conceived will make that secure from malware, keyloggers, trojans or hackers? Explain to me why someone only interested in how much money they can make from building such a system would even care to invest more in security than the richest company outside of the oil industry.

[Leria]

Well, the right term at the end instead of hackers would be crackers, but I agree with everything else that you said.

[kiasta]

Actually Microsoft can build a secure web-browser and word processor, they just choose not to since they are bribed by the Antivirus/Spyware/Adware companies. Why would Microsoft actually make anything secure? I mean people are stupid and for some reason enjoy wasting their money on ridiculous A/V software. But I understand what you are saying.

[HiF|yer]

"Real ID" is a $Billion$Dollar$ boondoggle. People better wake up and start calling their elected officials state and national saying NO NO NO to Real ID or soon it will be here with its waiting lines and expensive sign-up getting shoved up your gazunga.

[benjaminstraight]

benjamin straight writes: State sovereignty will overtake federal mandate on such issues. The Real ID won't float without a HUGE amount of fight.