DHS says nearly 1/2 of the country is Real ID compliant.
Original article first appeared in The Foundry:
At the end of February, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) certified that another six states are REAL ID compliant. Nearly eight years after Congress first passed the REAL ID Act—which calls on the states to implement minimum security standards in issuing driver’s licenses and state ID's.
In 2004, the 9/11 Commission released its final report, citing the fact that 18 of the 9/11 terrorists had a total of 30 driver’s licenses and state IDs between them, six of which were used to board planes on the morning of the attack. The finding not only startled many throughout the country, but also inspired Congress to take action to help ensure that bad actors would never again be able to so grossly abuse our state IDs. Less than a year later the REAL ID Act would become law.
When it comes to REAL ID there is a lot of misinformation out there. In reality, the facts are that:
REAL ID is not an unfunded mandate,
REAL ID does not create a national ID card or federal database, and
REAL ID does reduce fraud and identity theft.
REAL ID sets voluntary security standards for states to follow in issuing drivers licenses and state IDs. States may choose not to follow REAL ID standards or even decide to implement them in different ways. The rub is simply that after December 1, 2014—almost 10 years after the law was enacted—the majority of non-compliant IDs will not be accepted for “official purposes,” e.g., boarding a commercial plane or entering a federal building. (This is true for those born on or after December 1, 1964. All others will have until December 1, 2017, to obtain a complaint ID or license.)
When REAL ID was first passed, states were given until May 11, 2008, to come into compliance. However, with the final regulations issued by the DHS just a mere four months before this deadline, full compliance was extended until May 11, 2011. Flash forward a few years and the DHS extended the deadline yet again—this time to January 15, 2013.
Testifying before Congress in early 2013, DHS Assistant Secretary David Heyman said that the buck stopped at 2013—DHS would not extend the compliance deadline any further. Come January 15, however, the DHS was singing a different tune, granting 37 states another loosely defined extension.
With the addition of the six most recent states, 19 total states are now deemed compliant with REAL ID by the DHS, and another 26 states have committed to meeting REAL ID standards. It’s time for the DHS to follow suit, offering states the guidance they need and committing to meeting REAL ID requirements once and for all.
http://blog.heritage.org/2013/03/11/its-about-time-nearly-half-of-all-states-now-deemed-compliant-with-real-id/?goback=.gde_1829117_member_224561151
What’s wrong with Real ID:
It’s a national identity system. The standardized national driver’s licenses created by Real ID would become a key part of a system of identity papers, databases, status and identity checks and access control points – an “internal passport” that will increasingly be used to track and control individuals’ movements and activities.
Will not be effective against terrorism. The fact is, identity-based security is not an effective way to stop terrorism. ID documents do not reveal anything about evil intent – and even if they did, determined terrorists will always be able to obtain fraudulent documents (either counterfeit or real documents bought from corrupt officials).
Will be a nightmare for state governments. Real ID requires state governments to remake their driver’s licenses, restructure many of their computer databases and other systems, create an extensive new document-storage system, and – perhaps most difficult of all – verify the “issuance, validity and completeness” of every document presented at DMVs. See Real Burdens.
Will mean higher fees, long lines, and bureaucratic nightmares for individuals. Because Congress ordered but did not pay for these mandates, which will cost states billions of dollars, fees on individuals applying for driver’s licenses will inevitably rise, perhaps steeply. Individuals are also likely to confront slower service, longer lines, and frequent bureaucratic snafus in obtaining these ID cards. Many unlucky individuals will find themselves caught in a bureaucratic nightmare as they run up against the complexities of this law.
Increased security and ID-theft risks. The creation of a single interlinked database as well as the requirement that each DMV store copies of every birth certificate and other documents presented to it will create a one-stop shop for identity thieves.
Will be exploited by the private sector to invade privacy. Real ID would make it easy for anybody in private industry to snap up the data on these IDs. Already, bars often swipe licenses to collect personal data on customers – but that will prove to be just the tip of the iceberg as every convenience store learns to grab that data and sell it to data companies for a dime.
Will expand over time. The Real ID database will inevitably, over time, become the repository for more and more data on individuals, and will be drawn on for an ever-wider set of purposes. Its standardized machine-readable interface will drive its integration into an ever-growing network of identity checks and access control points – each of which will create new data trails that will in turn be linked to that central database or its private-sector shadow equivalent.
Find out more about REAL ID: http://www.realnightmare.org/
Police abuse yet another reason why we need electronic privacy law reform:
One of the reasons civil libertarians want to make sure that law enforcement and state security agencies have sufficient external oversight is because security employees are human beings. They make mistakes and sometimes their actions are even downright abusive.
A story in Courthouse News illustrates that not all police officers can be trusted to act responsibly on the job:
Telling her not to wake up her parents, a sheriff's deputy followed a teen-ager into her bedroom and made her change her clothes while he photographed her, the girl claims in court.
Jane Doe's parents Tabetha and Ricky O'Connor sued Sumner County, Tenn., and its Deputy Sheriff Christopher Cunningham, in Federal Court.
The complaint cites a dozen disciplinary actions against Cunningham, allegedly culminating with his firing after the incidents described in the complaint.
The parents claim that Cunningham stopped Jane, her boyfriend and her brother on the street at 3 a.m. and searched them, then took them back to their house.
The family claims that the kids, who had done nothing wrong, were intimidated by Cunningham's display of authority, and obeyed his orders.
Would you trust that officer with his hands on biometric IDs on your entire family, access to databases containing information about you and everyone you know, or warrantless insight into your communications and travel patterns? The officer was ultimately fired, but "dozens of complaints" were lodged before that happened. What kind of secret snooping could he have done while still on the job?
http://privacysos.org/node/1004