Yeah for Maine. I hope we can get Illinois to opt out of this big step to a
police state.
D. Mindock
By Steven Yates
February 18, 2007
NewsWithViews.com
Last month, Maine became the first state to pass legislation declining
participation in the national ID system mandated by the Real ID Act of 2005.
State-level legislation either repudiating Real ID, asking Congress to
repeal its worst privacy-violating provisions, or asking for a delay while
states study the issue, exists in various stages (sometimes passed by one
House but not the other), or is being considered, in other states: as of
this writing, the list consists of Arizona, Georgia, Hawaii, Missouri,
Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, Vermont, Washington State, and Wyoming.
In other words, a state-led rebellion against Real ID is brewing. Let's
review the relevant history.
The Real ID Act of 2005 was passed by Congress not on its own (nonexistent)
merits but folded into the larger Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act
for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsumani Relief, 2005 (PL 109-13)
as its Division B. This bill, which included appropriations for the Iraq
War, was considered must-pass by Congress and signed into law by President
Bush on May 11, 2005. This means that the Real ID Act was passed as the
equivalent of a stealth measurethe sort of thing author Claire Wolfe called
land-mine legislation in a classical article. The Real ID Act does not just
federalize our driver's licenses but hand them over to the Department of
Homeland Security. It calls for the creation of mammoth databases of
information on law-abiding U.S. citizens. It places state Departments of
Motor Vehicles (DMVs) in the position of having to become domestic spiesand
it does so without any thought to the resources required, much less the
dangers (e.g., of identity theft). It was signed into law despite the
opposition of dozens of groups all across the political spectrum.
An impact analysis released last September by the National Governors
Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures and the American
Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators is devastating. These groups
show that efforts to implement Real ID will create a massively expensive
logistic and bureaucratic nightmare. State DMVs have neither the technology
nor the manpower to implement this gigantic unfunded federal mandatenor the
legal means to compel compliance from those they must contact to secure
verification of documents. The cost to my state (personal correspondence
from the executive director of South Carolina DMV) could range from $25 to
$28 million, with recurring costs in the $10 million to $11 million range.
The study just cited estimates the total cost of implementing Real ID at
over $11 billion over a five year period, with upfront costs of around $1
billion! The costs to individual U.S. citizens attempting to obtain or renew
a driver's license? Unknown, although I have one estimate at $100!
This analysis overlooks a crucial point: the Real ID Act is
unconstitutional! The Constitution does not give any branch or any agency of
the federal government this kind of power! It should come as no surprise,
however, if no one associated with this thing has read our country's
founding document. Thus, as matters currently stand, unconstitutional or
not, Real ID goes into effect on May 11, 2008. When it goes into effect,
here is what we are looking at: without a Department of Homeland Security
approved conversion of one's driver's license or other personal ID into the
Real ID, law-abiding U.S. citizens will not be able to board an airplane,
open a bank account, collect Social Security, obtain a passport, enter
federal buildings or otherwise do business with the federal government or
other commercial endeavors requiring federally-mandated standards of
personal identification.
Those of us who have been following these matters for close to ten years saw
this coming. There was, after all, a stealth effort to give every American a
national ID card during the Clinton years. That law, also a stealth measure
buried deep inside an omnibus appropriations bill, would have gone into
effect in October 2000. It was thwarted. The post-9/11 era has given us a
political climate more amenable to setting up a surveillance state. The
official line on Real ID, originating with one interpretation of 9/11
Commission recommendations, is that it will hamper illegal immigration and
protect us from terrorism. Obviously, though, if the federal government was
serious about either, they would start enforcing existing immigration laws,
cease imprisoning border patrol agents for doing their jobs, and secure our
border with Mexico. But of course, Real ID is not about immigration, it is
not about border control, and it is not about terrorism. It is about tagging
and monitoring U.S. citizens.
The elites behind this boondoggle may have bitten off more than they can
chew. I recently obtained a document entitled
