Real ID Rebellion

"REAL ID" - REAL REBELLION BREWING

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 measure—the 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 spies—and 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.