If states can opt out of REAL ID, the whole thing becomes an exercise in futility. Sounds to me like the program might as well be scrapped because it obviously can't do what it is supposed to do.

Unless the program is really supposed to direct dollars into certain people's pockets, in which case its effectiveness is irrelevant. Who exactly will get the roughly $20bn that REAL ID is expected to cost (if I understood the article correctly)?

Everytime I hear about one of these programs it reminds me of that scene in the old movie where the train comes into the station and the heroine tenses up as the well uniformed authorities check everyone's papers. Will she be flagged and taken away, or will the officer hand back her papers and move on. It's that moment of terror that then collapses as the papers pass inspection and the guards move to the next train card.

I understand the need for security, but what is happening to our country? Think I'll go home, make a V&T and watch BRAZIL.

/c

In the blogosphere every one is an expert, so no one is an expert.

"I'm sorry, I can't even begin to process your driver's licence application without a 27b/6 from DHS"

I agree with all the dire predictions of chaos if this ill-conceived program is implemented. The equally poorly planned rules requiring passports for travel to Mexico, Canada and the Caribbean increased the volume of applications to the point that the passport office is admitting to delays of 10-12 weeks for passport applications and renewal. It is well past 13 weeks since I submitted my renewal, and I'm still waiting.

I remember with dread the DMV lines in New York, in the days when all license plates expired every December 31. This current system is very likely to be déja vu all over again.

I'm not sure about this, but from what I read when this was passed the birth certificate passport aspect of this would apply only to first time applicants. Everyone else might get off with just showing an existing valid US drivers license and a social security card. Or at least it would work this way in states that are already verifying social security numbers at the DMV. All states are required to collect SS#s, not because of terrorism, but because of laws on delinquent child support. About half the states verify the numbers (match name to number via the SSA, which is fairly instantaneous, unless there's a no match), and I know, for example, that OH and FL do this, as I have lived and had driver licenses in both states. So you would not necessarily go through the whole rigamarole everytime you renewed, in fact you might never go through it all. Still, it's going to be a huge hassle at least for the states and the DMVs to validate birth certificates as the original poster pointed out, and it may not be doable. Even the Passport Office recognizes this and does not insist on a birth certificate, but will allow other sorst of documents to substitute when necessary. This is huge unfunded mandate, dreamed up by a certain Congressman Sensenbrenner, a man with notably fascistic tendencies (and that is a word I use but rarely). It should be dumped. If someone can convince me that we need a national ID card, fine, then let the federal government undertake the hassle and expense of creating one.

Complaints about Real ID might be taken seriously if the same people complaining weren't also strong supporters of illegal immigration.

If you want to oppose Real ID and be taken seriously, couple it with (real) opposition to illegal immigration.

I agree with you, rb6. From a purely logistical standpoint, leaving political and privacy considerations aside entirely, a federally based infrastrusture tied to Social Security, the IRS, and the immigration agencies in DHS would be vastly more efficient and effective. But that whole national id concept seems too big-brotherish to be politically feasible. The conservatives pushing for this stuff can't even contemplate doing it at anything other than the state level, what with their devolution orientation and all. That said, a lot of libertarians have been among the most forceful opponents of REAL ID, along civil libertarians on the left.--Greg

This must vary by region or how it's done because I submitted my renewal 10 days ago and received it yesterday, as did my husband. I used express mail and note "expedited" on outside of package, and enclosed prepaid express mail package for sending document back. So I don't know what's going on.

rb6, Read the article I linked to from Governing magazine under the subheading "The Holdouts." There it explains that the standards for passports are less stringent because they don't try to verify birth
certificates. The double standard is yet another aspect that's pissing off the states.--Greg

But the guys in marketing say that the Global War on Traffic strikes out with focus groups.

Re: There it explains that the standards for passports are less stringent because they don't try to verify birth
certificates.

You're kidding! I guess I always assumed that the reason it took a while to get a passport (even before the current rush) was because someone somewhere was checking on the documents you submitted with the application and making sure they were genuine. Instead they're just twiddling their thumbs and playing WoW on their PCs at the Passport Office?
By the way, if someone has money to burn they ought sue Colorado for this as it's a clear violation of the US Constitution requiring states to recognize each other's public acts and rulings. I also can't believe it's constitutional for a state to reject a federal ID document like a passport (which are extremely hard to forge and would be easy to validate, presumably, with a quick call to the right office).

In the last analysis this is nothing but a smokescreen for the U.S. government to establish a national tracking system of it's citizens, a way to track down anyone at anytime.

Re: Wow. if that is indeed the case (only first-time applications need the extra ID) that would be the stupidest thing in the known universe.

That's pretty much true then: nothing in the act makes us safer. After all, the 9-11 hijackers had valid drivers licenses, not fakes. And they were not fraudulent licenses; they gave their real names, etc. The only part of Real ID that might have deterred a couple of them is a clause that requires temporary resident licenses to expire when the visa does. But otherwise had this bill been in effect in 2001, most of the 9-11 guys would have gotten on those airplanes just as easily as they did in fact.
By the way, a number of states (a majority?) already verify SS#'s with driver licenses and this has not proven to be burdensome (except in occasional cases where there are errors in the SSA database). That alone prevents people from just making up a fictitious name and SS number and getting a license in that identity. Seems to me that simply making this requirement general to all states (and requiring reasonably counterfeit-proof licenses) would solve much of the fake ID problem. Sure, someone can always get a license in another person's name if they also have their SS#, as ID thieves very often do, but nothing in Real ID prevents that; it just forces an ID thief to take the extra step of ordering a copy of their victim's birth cerificate, hardly a major roadblock.

Thanks. I should have been more careful in my comment. I meant to suggest that traditional insanely long DMV lines should be avoidable. But the proposed security changes may be too cumbersome, intrusive, and expensive.

The national ID requirement to get a job is by itself sufficient reason to deep-six the immigration bill.

National ID - NO!

Guest worker program - NO and NO!

The weasel word in your analysis is "illegal" immigration. The reason we restrict immigration so severely is that we are Eurocentric Anglophiles. If we weren't so afraid that we might run into someone not quite as pure as ourselves, we could "oppose" illegal immigration by not making it so damned hard to be an immigrant.

Your guess is wrong.

The 'hire more people', 'charge more' approach also did not work with passports, a system already in place and up and running. When you consider that REAL ID requirements would be more stringent than passports, and the sheer volume of all the driver's licenses compared to passports is substantial, there is reason to think REAL ID implementation would be even worse than the current passport fiasco. The key here is that the feds don't want passports for domestic flights really, they would have to process them. By making it the drivers licenses, they pass the law and leave the state's to administer and pay for it.

The other side of that coin is that REAL ID might be taken more seriously if we had a border fence, adequate patrols, visa laws that were also enforced, etc. But DHS is pushing for REAL ID at the same time they have talked the talk but not walked the walk on border security. Its because they don't really want it. Something like REAL ID is a last ditch effort for when other methods fail. It is hard to support when first we don't even really try to lock the door.

Some of these older folks were born at home, I'm not sure if they ever got a birth certificate from a hospital. Even if we have biometric cards, the birth certificates aren't biometric (unless you count imprints of baby feet). If REAL ID is all premised on having to supply birth certificates, it seems they can be easily faked as well. ID is only as good as its source documents, and ultimately you would have to start at birth to ensure anything. Are fingerprints even fully formed at that time? Biometric pictures would certainly not work at that age.