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."
This map drawn up by the Department of Homeland Security shows that all states have been granted extensions until the end of 2009 to begin reconfiguring their driver's licenses to comply with Real ID. Some senators still want to kill Real ID before that mandate kicks in.
(Credit: U.S. Department of Homeland Security)WASHINGTON--Democratic and Republican senators alike on Tuesday once again piled criticism upon forthcoming Real ID requirements, with some renewing calls to repeal the law for which many of them voted years ago.
It's a familiar refrain for the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, whose members made similar remarks at a hearing around this time last year.
Senators Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) and George Voinovich (R-Ohio), who presided over a Tuesday subcommittee hearing revisiting the topic, said they remain particularly troubled by Real ID's multibillion-dollar price tag for state governments. Akaka and others also voiced worries about the mandate's privacy and civil liberties implications.
"The massive amounts of personal information that would be stored in state databases that are to be shared electronically with all other states, as well as the unencrypted data on the Real ID card itself, could provide one-stop shopping for identity thieves," Akaka said at the hearing, where senators heard from Homeland Security assistant policy secretary Stewart Baker, state government representatives, and civil liberties activists.
Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii)
(Credit: U.S. Senate)Akaka, for his part, said he will continue to push for passage of the Identification Security Enhancement Act, which he introduced last Feburary. That bill 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. Republicans John Sununu and Lamar Alexander and Democrats Patrick Leahy, Jon Tester, and Max Baucus also support the bill, as do influential state officials and civil liberties groups, but it's unclear whether it has the momentum to go anywhere this year.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security has pushed ahead in its defense of Real ID, as necessary to prevent terrorists, criminals, and illegal immigrants from successfully obtaining and using fraudulent driver's licenses.
But the department effectively delayed obligations to begin complying with its rules until at least the end of 2009, granting all 50 states--even those that had passed legislation rejecting the federal mandate--and the District of Columbia initial deadline extensions. Without those extensions, residents of states without Real ID compliant licenses would have encountered difficulties boarding airplanes and entering federal buildings come May 11.
"While these extensions have averted a near-term crisis, they do not resolve other problems with Real ID," said Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
Who who protects the data, and who pays?
Baker endured repeated questions about the cost of the program, particularly from committee Republicans. He said "hundreds of millions of dollars have been made available" already for Real ID conversion projects, which, under Homeland Security's revised estimates, are expected to cost about $4 billion over the next decade. But a number of senators said they didn't think that funding was sufficient.
Donna Stone, a Delaware state representative and president of the National Conference of State Legislatures, and David Quam, a lobbyist for the National Governors Association, cast doubt on Homeland Security's cost estimates. They said that because of lingering uncertainties surrounding Real ID's requirements, the true costs are difficult to project but likely exceed Homeland Security's estimates.
Homeland Security put states in a tough spot by dangling the prospect of a May deadline that might inconvenience their residents, Quam said. The position of state governors is that "Real ID has to be fixed, it has to be workable, it has to be cost-effective, it actually has to increase the security of driver's license systems, and it has to be funded" by the federal government, he said.
Perhaps the most blistering critique of Real ID on Tuesday came from Tester, who called the program "the worst kind of Washington, D.C., boondoggle." He suggested it was curious that his home state had been granted a deadline extension, even though its attorney general had told Homeland Security that state law did not authorize Montana to implement Real ID, and the state legislature won't even meet again until next January.
"I am pleased that Montanans were not arbitrarily penalized under the law, truthfully," he told Baker, "but I really fail to see what this exercise actually accomplished other than to leave the details of Real ID to the next administration."
Baker said Homeland Security has tried to be flexible by giving extensions to states like Maine and Montana that said they're implementing certain security features in their driver's licenses "without insisting on some kind of pledge of allegiance to Real ID."
Baker also encountered questions, mainly from Democrats, about the lack of detailed security rules under Real ID.
Akaka asked why Homeland Security didn't set out specific security requirements for the databases that states will share. Baker said the agency is requiring states to have "security plans" for their data but wanted to "leave room for states to make choices (about) what works for them."
Tester inquired about why the administration isn't requiring the information encoded on the Real ID cards' bar codes to be encrypted. Baker said Homeland Security decided on that approach because police were concerned about an inability to read the information off cards rapidly during traffic stops.
Baker also noted that the machine-readable zone will contain little more than a person's name, address, and date of birth. "That's information that's very hard to hide in an Internet age," he told the committee. "The notion that somehow because it's on a machine readable zone it'll become more available to identity thieves, I think, is pretty speculative."
WASHINGTON--One of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's most prominent Real ID cheerleaders made a more timid than usual push on Tuesday for states to adopt the controversial identification card standards.
Stewart Baker, the department's assistant secretary for policy, has touted what he perceives as the privacy-protective, identity theft-preventive features of the congressionally mandated Real ID driver's license regime during the past year.
But, clearly fearing criticism during a Tuesday morning speech at the spring meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General, he saved any mention of the program until the tail end of a 20-minute speech about the perils of identity theft.
"One thing I will say," Baker said, almost couching his imminent pitch as something of an afterthought. "One of the key ways to catch identity thieves is better security for driver's licenses."
The former National Security Agency general counsel then launched into a kinder, gentler defense of Real ID, first acknowledging he expected "to get a little pushback on this."
"Real ID has a bad bumper sticker reputation," Baker said, "but what it boils down to is a set of standards for obtaining driver's licenses, so it's harder to obtain fraudulent driver's licenses."
Baker and other proponents argue that the scheme, which was passed as part of an emergency spending bill by Congress in 2005, is necessary to prevent terrorists, criminals, and illegal immigrants from successfully obtaining and using fraudulent driver's licenses. (For that reason, it's a "pro-consumer" and "antiterrorism" measure, Baker said Tuesday.) Privacy and civil liberties advocates, however, say the regime doesn't have enough checks built in to prevent abuse of information encoded on the licenses, and a number of states have balked at the cost of the mandate.
Homeland Security is pushing states "pretty hard" to come into compliance with Real ID requirements over the next 18 months and has gotten a "decent" response so far, Baker said. According to an agency-produced map, 45 states and the District of Columbia have already received deadline extensions, which means their driver's licenses will continue to be accepted for boarding airplanes and entering federal buildings come May 11, 2008, when the new rules kick in. But another five states--Maine, Montana, South Carolina, New Hampshire, and Delaware--have said they will not comply. (See related story.)
Baker, for his part, characterized that continued resistance as "ideological and, in my opinion, based on misconceptions." Citing fake driver's licenses used by Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and September 11 hijackers, he suggested the Real ID plan's requirements were something of an inevitability, even if they may be a bit costly.
"That's my proposal," Baker said at the close of his speech. "If you've got better ideas, then I'd really like to hear it."
None of the two dozen or so attorneys general present at the meeting raised their hands with questions or comments.
"It must be really early in the morning if Real ID doesn't get a bite," he quipped with a chuckle, before being handed a medallion as a "token of appreciation" from his hosts.
Editor's note: A May deadline looms as just one flash point in a political showdown between Homeland Security, privacy advocates, and states that oppose Real ID demands. Friday's story follows a four-part series that we published earlier this week.
Every year, about 1,000 domestic violence victims legally change their Social Security numbers in an attempt to elude people who may pose threats, and many more change their legal names, according to figures compiled by advocacy groups.
But hiding from stalkers may become more difficult under a federal law called the Real ID Act that's scheduled to take effect on May 11.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's new regulations mandate specific standards for what personal information states must print on the face of Real ID drivers licenses and encode on their machine-readable zones. Although there's some consideration for people who qualify for special confidentiality treatment, critics argue the protections don't go far enough.
"The statute is troubling because it's trying very much to identify people who are dangerous, such as terrorists, and at the same time, how do you do that in a way that keeps everyday citizens and victims safe?" Cindy Southworth, technology project director for the National Network to End Domestic Violence, said of the Real ID Act, which Congress passed nearly three years ago. "I think inherently there's a conundrum there."
Homeland Security did weigh some of the concerns voiced by domestic violence prevention groups, as well as existing laws like the Violence Against Women Act, before issuing its final rules.
Currently, 19 states have confidentiality programs for domestic violence survivors, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The agency's final rule appears to preserve that, saying: "A DMV may apply an alternate address on a driver's license or identification card if the individual's address is entitled to be suppressed under state or federal law or suppressed by a court order including an administrative order issued by a state or federal court."
That "alternate address"--which in many cases is a dummy address created by the government that forwards to someone's real address--is also the only address required to be encoded on the two-dimensional bar code. That means that if convenience store clerks or police officers swipe the unencrypted card, they'll in theory only gain access to limited information.
Still, victims-rights and privacy advocates remain concerned about one important Real ID requirement, which dictates that state DMVs interlink their databases and make all their drivers' records and identity documents available.
The final rule says that both an individual's "full legal name" and "true address" must be stored in the DMV database, regardless of what's displayed on the card and encoded on its bar code. It also requires that motor vehicle departments scan and store "source documents," such as birth certificates, to verify a driver's license applicant's identity.
Homeland Security hasn't yet stipulated what information must be exchanged among the state-to-state databases, saying only that it will be "limited," nor has it specified exactly how the database linking will work, leaving lingering worries among privacy and victim advocates.
All it would take is a determined, persuasive stalker--many have tricks, like saying an ex-spouse is suicidal or otherwise in need of help--and a gullible or corrupt DMV employee, and a victim's identity could be divulged, Southworth said.
"Given that there are less than six degrees of separation between most abusers and a friend or relative who works for the DMV, we are concerned about victims' location information housed in state databases that could be searched nationally," Southworth said. "Prior to national search ability, a victim could move to a different state and increase her safety and privacy, but national search functionality could place countless victims at risk."
In response to privacy groups' concerns about DMV employees' access to the databases, Homeland Security opted to require states to devise their own "security plans" for Real ID. That plan is supposed to include, among other things, "procedures to prevent unauthorized access, use, or dissemination of applicant information and images of source documents retained pursuant to the act" and background checks for some, though not all, DMV employees.
The final rule has offered little comfort, however, to some privacy advocates.
"We still have this problem of the backbone of this system, which is that we're creating this nationwide system of databases, all interlinked," said Guilherme Roschke, an Electronic Privacy Information Center fellow who focuses on domestic violence privacy issues. "A breach in one is a breach in all of them."
WASHINGTON--Could a Real ID-compliant license be required in the future to buy certain over-the-counter medicines at your local drugstore?
A top Homeland Security official indicated Wednesday that the answer may be yes.
In a presentation aimed at promoting the final identification requirements released Friday,
Baker cited
"If you have a good ID...it would make it much harder for meth labs to function in this country," Baker said in a morning presentation here at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that supports Real ID.
Under the final Real ID rule, starting on May 11 (unless states request waivers, which many are expected to do), Americans will be expected to present compliant licenses for "federal purposes," which have so far focused on boarding a commercial aircraft and entering a federal building or nuclear facility. If granted extensions, states will have until 2017 to begin issuing the cards to all their residents.
Baker's comments on Wednesday hinted that the government envisions other uses for the documents. In addition to the methamphetamine issue, he also suggested Real ID could be valuable for employers trying to avoid hiring illegal immigrants who present falsified identification cards.
Supporters believe the Real ID requirements are necessary because all but one of the hijackers in the September 11 attacks relied on government-issued drivers' licenses, obtained through false pretenses, to remain in the country illegally. They also argue the forthcoming new checks on an applicant's identity before a license is issued will help to stave off identity theft.
The Real ID Act says compliant licenses must contain information typically on a driver's license--that is, a person's name, address, signature, date of birth, gender, photograph, and license number. They must also contain physical anti-counterfeiting features and use a "common, machine-readable technology," which Homeland Security decided would be a two-dimensional bar code.
The law also requires states to verify the authenticity of Real ID applicants' identity documents, such as birth certificates and Social Security cards, against databases operated by the government agency that issued them. They must also be able to access other states motor vehicle department databases to determine whether the applicant already holds a license elsewhere.
By creating a federalized identification card and by linking government databases with sensitive information about American citizens and residents, the Real ID law has raised a wealth of privacy concerns. Some
Echoing
Update 1:03 p.m. PST: This story was updated to add reactions from Congress and additional information about the privacy and security aspects of the Real ID rules.
WASHINGTON--If the Bush administration gets its way, all Americans will be required to present Real ID-compliant identification documents--or risk facing "inconveniences" at airports and federal buildings--by 2017.
DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff
(Credit: U.S. Department of Homeland Security)In a matter-of-fact outline of the final rules governing the controversial program, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Friday vowed to counteract the naysayers and defend what he called a "more secure form of identification that will serve both our homeland security and our individual concerns about personal privacy."
Only three categories of people need be "disappointed" by the forthcoming identification cards, the Homeland Security chief told attendees at a midday press conference here: terrorists, illegal immigrants, and con-men.
The nearly 300 pages worth of guidelines for states put forth Friday came after the agency reviewed some 21,000 comments responding to draft regulations from last March.
The Real ID Act, which Congress passed as part of an emergency spending bill in 2005, is the result of recommendations from the 9/11 Commission. Chertoff reiterated Friday that the program is necessary in part because all but one of the hijackers in the September 11 attacks carried government-issued identification cards that helped them remain in the country illegally. Another goal is to prevent illegal immigrants from "pretending to be American citizens so they can work illegally in this country."
To that end, under the new rules, motor vehicle offices will be required to take photographs of driver's license applicants at the beginning of the application process and keep those images on file for five years. The idea is to help catch applicants who forge their identities--and fail to fool employees into issuing them cards--if they try to pull off a repeat attempt.
Whether the final rule will hold up through the decadelong implementation process remains to be seen. Prominent Democrats in Congress were quick to attack the approach.
"While fulfilling this 9/11 Recommendation is vital to our national security, I believe that the Final Rule still requires a great deal of work by the Department of Homeland Security," Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, said in a letter Friday.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that he would continue to push for passage of a bill that would repeal the Real ID Act. That mandate would be replaced with what supporters say is a more "flexible" approach, in which states, privacy groups, the federal government, and other interested parties would devise a mutually beneficial approach to improving driver's license security.
New timeline
Arguably the biggest change in the final rule is the timeline. States will generally have a larger chunk of time, broken into "milestones," to become compliant with the new standards. Earlier in the planning process, Homeland Security had envisioned requiring the IDs to be in place starting on May 11, 2008--and no later than 2013--unless states had applied for an extension.
The final rule dictates that by the end of 2009, states will have to complete certain checks on all residents who apply for driver's licenses, such as verifying against Homeland Security databases that the cardholders have legal immigration status and ensuring that the Social Security number provided matches with Social Security Administration records. States will also have to conduct background checks on motor vehicles employees "to ensure licenses are not issued by corrupt insiders."
By May 11, 2011, states are expected to have methods in place to verify that the identity documents provided by driver's license applicants, such as birth certificates, are valid. They'll also be expected to start issuing Real ID-compliant licenses by then, if not sooner.
By Dec. 1, 2014, all Americans under the age of 50 will be expected to present Real ID-compliant licenses when boarding airplanes and entering federal buildings. Exactly three years later, all Americans, regardless of age, will have to meet those requirements.
Opponents of the Real ID plan said the deadline extensions do nothing to change their view that the requirements are unworkable.
"What the Department of Homeland Security has done is to kick the can down the road to the next administration, and probably not just to the next administration, but conceivably two to three administrations from now," Barry Steinhardt, an ACLU attorney, said on a conference call with reporters.
One key part of the timeline, however, remains unchanged, which may create a new dilemma for states that have opposed or outright rejected implementation of Real ID.
If states haven't asked the federal government for an extension for implementing the identification card program by 60 days after the final rule is formally published, which has not yet happened, then their residents will no longer be able to use driver's licenses or state-issued ID cards to board airplanes or enter federal buildings. Instead, they'll have to present one of the alternative acceptable forms of identification, such as a State Department-issued passport.
"There's no question the law creates a very powerful incentive for states getting on board with this process," Chertoff said Friday. "Convenience and common sense strongly counsel in favor of getting on the path toward secure identification."
According to Chertoff, 40 percent of the U.S. population live in states that have already begun the process of moving forward with Real ID. But 17 states have passed legislation registering their opposition to the regulations, of which six of those--Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Washington--expressly prohibit compliance with Real ID.
In the ACLU's view, the threat of "inconvenience" to state residents who don't sign onto the plan is largely empty since alternative forms of ID will be accepted.
"This is an avoidable train wreck," Steinhardt said.
The states that have voiced resistance to Real ID have done so largely because of the hefty price tag, which Homeland Security initially estimated at $23 billion total, of which $14.6 billion would fall on state governments to pay.
Lingering funding, privacy concerns
Chertoff on Friday touted that under the final rule, the agency was able to cut that estimated cost to $3.9 billion. He also said that, based on dividing that cost by the number of Americans estimated to be applying for such a card, each Real ID-compliant license would cost only $8 (although whether states would actually charge that amount was another story, he added).
That substantial reduction drew skepticism from the ACLU, which claimed the adjusted figure is based on the assumption that one in every four adults "isn't ever going to get a Real ID license."
Another challenge is that Congress still hasn't appropriated anywhere near that amount of money to the states, William Pound, executive director of the National Conference on State Legislatures, said in a statement.
David Quam, a lobbyist for the National Governors Association, said state officials were still reviewing the mountain of regulations but would have some tough decisions to make in the coming weeks. He said it's too early to say whether they'll request additional time to make a decision about whether to comply.
"States and legislators and decision makers are going to have to turn around and make a decision as to what does Real ID mean, what does it bring us, and is it worth it," he said in a telephone interview.
Under the minimum standards set by the Real ID Act, all compliant licenses must contain all of the information typically on a driver's license--that is, a person's name, address, signature, date of birth, gender, photograph, and license number. In addition, they must contain physical security features designed to make them counterfeit-proof and use a "common, machine-readable technology."
That machine-readable requirement--and a lack of requirement that the encoded information be encrypted--has ignited concerns among privacy advocates who worried information could be swiped off the cards and used willy-nilly by bars, clubs, and other outsiders who may swipe the cards' bar code.
Those groups said their worries were hardly assuaged by Friday's final rule. Homeland Security kept the lack of encryption requirement because, in its words, of "law enforcement's need for easy access to the information and the complexities and costs of implementing an encryption infrastructure."
The final rule also leaves states responsible for setting minimum privacy standards for how such information may be used by third parties. That means "if any state in the country has weak or no privacy standards, every other state is going to be subjecting its citizens' information to a weak standard able to be stolen by identity thieves and harvested by people who want to share that information and sell it to other people," said Tim Sparapani, the ACLU's senior legislative counsel.
Melissa Ngo, an Electronic Privacy Information Center representative, said her organization still has major concerns about the Real ID requirements but cited one positive point: The latest rules do not compel states to embed radio-frequency identification chips in the cards. Such a requirement could have created the possibility that outsiders could skim off information more easily without the cardholder's permission.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Friday plans to take the next step in getting its controversial Real ID plan off the ground, despite opposition from numerous states and privacy groups.
At a midday press conference in Washington, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is scheduled to take the wraps off final regulations for the electronic identification card mandate and to make another pitch for the scheme's perceived importance in keeping Americans safe from terrorist threats.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff
(Credit: U.S. Department of Homeland Security)The new rules, which are a few months behind schedule, are supposed to build on a draft version released last March for public comment.
Chertoff himself has been mum on the details ahead of his public appearance Friday. But according to anonymous sources cited by the Associated Press and The Washington Post, the department has made at least one significant change to its earlier plans: pushing back the deadlines by which the new identification cards will be required to board airplanes and enter federal buildings.
Before, Homeland Security had envisioned requiring the IDs to be in place, starting May 11, 2008--and no later than 2013--unless states had applied for an extension.
But under the new rules, Americans won't be expected to present Real ID-compliant identification cards until 2014. Even then, the mandate will apply only to Americans younger than 50 at the time, in an apparent effort to give some disgruntled state motor vehicle departments more time to issue the licenses. The requirements would be broadened to all Americans by 2017.
"We've worked very closely with the states, in terms of developing a plan that I think will be quite inexpensive, reasonable to implement, and produce the results that...are a part of the core recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, which is secure identification when driver's licenses are presented," Chertoff said Thursday, according to a transcript of his remarks, at a meeting of departmental advisers.
Largely because of the price tag, 17 states have already enacted legislation rejecting the Real ID requirements, which Congress passed as part of an emergency spending bill in 2005, and several others were considering such a step, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the most prominent voices against the plan. But according to the AP and the Post, federal officials have somehow devised a way to reduce the expected $14 billion in costs to states to $3.9 billion under the revised rules.
It's unclear how the department plans to assuage security and privacy concerns about the cards, including whether data encoded on their two-dimensional bar codes will be encrypted to guard against misuse. The AP reported that states will have a "menu" of security options from which to choose but will not be required to embed "microchips"--ostensibly a reference to radio frequency identification, or RFID, technology, which, depending on the type, could be read either from a distance or close-up.
Update: Click here to read our follow-up story, featuring Secretary Chertoff's remarks about the final rules and reactions from state officials, privacy groups, and members of Congress.
The U.S. government's controversial plan to outfit all Americans with uniform electronic identification cards--officially known as Real ID--may be on its deathbed, opponents of the program charged this week.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has long said that starting as soon as May 2008, and definitely after May 2013, it will deny state citizens the right to board planes or enter federal buildings unless they show Real ID-compliant documents.
But on a recent conference call with state officials from across the country, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Richard Barth gave the impression that the agency doesn't plan to punish states that have rejected the rules, according to Timothy Sparapani, senior legislative counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union, and Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap. Barth also reportedly said Homeland Security may push back the deadline until 2015.
"To me, this signals the real end of the Real ID Act because it prevents the government from having any leverage over the states," Sparapani said in a conference call his group organized with reporters Thursday afternoon.
Homeland Security, for its part, vehemently denied any softening of its policy.
"The ACLU is living in a fantasy world," spokeswoman Laura Keehner said. "They continue to spout off erroneous information to confuse and mislead the public about a core finding of the 9/11 Commission and a mandate from Congress. In this instance, they could not be further from the truth."
The ACLU has been one of the loudest voices attacking the regulations, which were passed as part of an emergency war-spending bill in 2005. They and other critics, including privacy advocates and conservative groups, argue that the federal mandate is overly expensive, potentially invasive to privacy, and ineffective in meeting the government's stated goal, which is rooting out terrorists.
(Credit:
Maine government)
Dunlap, a Democrat, and Missouri state legislator Jim Guest, a Republican, backed up the ACLU's gloom-and-doom assessment on Thursday's conference call, indicating that they believe Real ID was ill-fated all along. Both of their states are among the 17 states that have now passed laws or resolutions opposing Real ID or outright rejecting its implementation.
"They were asked point-blank, 'What will happen to states that don't participate?'" Dunlap said of his conversation with Homeland Security officials. "The response was, 'Nothing will happen. There will be no penalty. You can still get on a plane.'"
'A practical consequence'
Homeland Security's Keehner declined to comment directly on the conversations referenced by the ACLU and Dunlap, but she disputed their interpretations.
"There will be a practical consequence for residents of states whose leadership chooses the status quo and accepts noncompliant licenses," she said. "For example, they will not (be) able to fly on an aircraft or enter a federal building with a noncompliant license."
One possible way of interpreting Barth's alleged remarks to the state officials is this: Real ID-compliant drivers licenses, per se, won't be the only acceptable form of documentation for those activities when the rules take effect. A U.S. Department of State-issued passport, for instance, or forthcoming border-crossing passport cards are among the list of documents that will suffice, as Homeland Security officials have said before. But it's not clear that was the context for the statements related by the ACLU and the state officials.
Meanwhile, Homeland Security continues to defend the Real ID regime as necessary to improve the authenticity and security of identification documents. Their stated goals are to keep rogue individuals sporting fake credentials from doing harm to Americans and to protect Americans from identity theft.
But opponents of Real ID still predict that the mandate won't hold up as-is, particularly as more states move toward enacting anti-Real ID laws. (Not all states are taking that path, however--New York Governor Eliot Spitzer said earlier this week that his state would be working with Homeland Security to come up with a Real ID-compliant "enhanced driver's license," though details remain murky.)
They also point to the fact that Homeland Security still hasn't issued final rules for the program and to recent steps taken by Congress, including rejection this summer of an extra $300 million in federal grants to help states carry out the plan. Homeland Security didn't respond to questions Friday about when the final rules are expected to be ready.
"It has certainly created a hardship on lots of people," Missouri's Guest said of the requirements.
Editors note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff offered states a new deadline of February 2008; this deadline had actually been announced earlier.
WASHINGTON--A controversial plan for national identification cards known as Real ID drew another ringing endorsement from top Bush administration officials on Monday, even as senators continued to question the law's privacy implications and cost.
Cheerleading for the mandate was led by the retiring Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), who called a nationalized ID card a top priority. He asked the four Bush administration officials present to divulge whether they supported the idea, which was recommended by the 9/11 Commission but has sparked rebellion from numerous states and civil liberties advocates concerned about its cost and potential for abuse.
One by one, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, FBI Director Robert Mueller, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and National Counterterrorism Center Director John Redd--said they fully endorsed the idea. Each ranked it as a high priority.
Draft regulations issued earlier this year by the Department of Homeland Security dictate that starting May 11, 2008, residents of all states must begin presenting compliant electronic cards in order to board airplanes or enter federal buildings--that is, unless their respective states file for a reprieve starting October 1 of this year. That deadline, coupled with the compliance costs, is one of the main reasons why individual states are leading something of a Real ID rebellion in opposition to the federal mandate.
But with Homeland Security not expecting to issue its final Real ID rules until October, one Republican politician said he was concerned states won't have enough time to digest the regulations and ask for relief. "How are you going to address that administrative train wreck?" Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.) asked Chertoff at the Senate Homeland Security Committee event, which focused on steps the United States has taken to "confront the terrorist threat" and was pegged to the sixth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Chertoff said the department has indicated that it would be "quite reasonable in terms of extensions," offering states until the end of 2009 to outline how they plan to outfit their residents with the new cards by 2013. He later added that the states will have until February to request deadline extensions for submitting those plans--as opposed to October, which Sununu appeared to believe was the final cutoff.
Sununu also raised privacy concerns, asking Chertoff to explain how the department plans to ensure that data stored on the IDs is adequately protected, particularly since the Real ID regime requires that those fields be shareable among all state motor vehicle departments. (The idea behind that requirement is to help keep the same person from obtaining a drivers license in more than one state.)
Chertoff downplayed the worries, claiming that a new obligation that all motor vehicle employees undergo federal background checks "is going to elevate the level of privacy," and implying such a step would help keep off the payrolls employees who would abuse their access to the databases. (Chertoff recently reiterated that he believes Real ID will actually strengthen Americans' personal privacy, a position with which civil liberties groups vehemently disagree.)
Sununu and another Real ID skeptic, committee ranking member Susan Collins (R-Maine), also told the Homeland Security chief that they're also still concerned about the costs states will have to bear in reworking their drivers license systems. Warner, for his part, said he would try again to seek additional federal dollars for the state-level projects--a move that has failed twice this summer alone.
WASHINGTON--In another attempt to head off privacy advocates' attacks on the Bush administration's Real ID plans, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the national-identification scheme will actually "strengthen" personal privacy by providing added protection against identity theft.
In written testimony Chertoff submitted (PDF) on Wednesday to the U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, he made another pitch for his department's requirements, which generally say that starting on May 11, 2008, Americans will need a federally approved, "machine readable" ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account, collect Social Security payments or take advantage of nearly any government service.
A Real ID-compliant document will be of higher "quality" than existing driver's licenses and other state-issued identification cards, thus helping prevent terrorists and identity thieves alike from committing forgery, Chertoff said in his testimony.
That improved quality will come about, in part, because motor vehicle administrators will be required to link into databases to verify the legitimacy of the underlying identification documents, such as birth certificates, that Americans submit when they apply for Real ID-compliant cards, the Homeland Security chief suggested. Another senior Homeland Security official, Stewart Baker, made similar claims earlier this year.
Opponents of the Real ID plan, meanwhile, have cited numerous privacy and security flaws in the plan. One of their concerns is that the government's failure to require encryption on the cards' two-dimensional bar code could lead to information being swiped and harvested by outsiders for potentially invasive purposes.
Interestingly, not one member of the House committee asked Chertoff about the issue during Wednesday's wide-ranging hearing, which lasted about three hours and covered everything from hurricane preparedness to one Republican's call for more domestically bred bomb- and cadaver-sniffing dogs. (It also touched, albeit briefly, on cybersecurity.)
Perhaps the silence is emblematic of the increasing controversy the plan has generated over the past year, with numerous states endorsing legal measures attacking or rejecting Real ID and Congress, just before breaking for its August recess, rejecting an extra $300 million in grants for states to implement the mandate.
