Real ID

Seen at Threat Level:

Citizens of all 50 states are now free to board airplanes using their driver’s licenses—at least until 2010, after the final renegade anti-Real ID state—Maine—won a time extension Wednesday from deadlines attached to new federal identification rules.[...]

On Wednesday, Maine’s governor agreed to seek legislation to tighten licensing restrictions, including restricting licenses to residents and those who can prove their legal status in the United States. He did not, however, have to promise the changes would happen.

And thus we see that the SEP (Somebody Else’s Problem) field is fully functional at DHS, in these waning days of the Bush Administration.

It looks like the days of some folks being required to show a passport for domestic travel have been postponed. Wired’s Threat Level blog comments on DHS caving on South Carolina’s rebellion:

Despite blasting a defiant last day letter to the Homeland Security Department over pending federal rules Monday, South Carolina Republican governor Mark Sandford secured South Carolinians the right to use their driver’s licenses to board planes without being patted down, at least until 2010.[...]

It’s clear the rebel states won, according to Bill Scannell, a spokesman for the Identity Project which has been fighting against Real ID.

“Montana’s letter smirked,” Scannell said. “New Hampshire’s was down right disrespectful and you could see the scotch tape from where they cut-and-pasted pages from their DMV handbook.”

“But Sanford’s five-page letter was Fort Sumter-quality,” Scannell said, referring to the South Carolina military installation where the Civil War started.

That leaves Maine as the only rogue left rogue, though the state is likely to get its own extension late Monday.

A little while after this Threat Level post was made, the AP noted that Maine had been granted an extension to Wednesday to permit them to finish drafting a response, with approval expected later this week.

So, no internal passports required until at least 2010. A new administration will be in power, so from DHS’s POV, the matter is now for all practical purposes Someone Else’s Problem.

Seen in the New York Times, in a story discussing how Mainers and South Carolinians may have to get passports soon if the feds don’t blink on Real ID:

“There is no wiggle room in South Carolina law in terms of asking for an extension,” Joel Sawyer, the spokesman, said. “If Washington wants a more secure form of ID, then Washington ought to be able to pay for it.”

So do any Republicans at the federal level still remember the Contract With America? You know, that pledge that was signed back in 1994 by Congressional Republicans which included a provision of “no unfunded mandates”?

It’s not fair! 

There are so many things I’d like to blog about, but I have several piles of work (which I’m taking a lunchtime mental health break from) preventing me from doing much more than issuing a round of congratulations:

• Congratulations to folo and Rossmiller for so vigorously discussing the second person plural pronoun, “y’all”.  Having grown up in Memphis and also having spent time in L.A. (Lower Alabama), I feel perfectly comfortable observing: All y’all yankees seem to have a hard time with simple grammar.
   
• Congratulations to John McCain for clinching the GOP nomination to run for President.   And, Congratulations to Huckabee for finally acknowledging the inevitable, doing so very graciously without damaging his prospects to campaign for a kinder, gentler theocracy in the future.
   
• Congratulations to Hillary for winning the Rhode Island, Ohio, and Texas primaries.
   
• Congratulations to Obama for winning the Vermont primary, for likely winning the Texas caucuses, and for having emerged from yesterday’s contests without having lost too much of his lead in the delegate count.
   
• Congratulations or condolences are in order for Pennsylvanians, who will now be rewarded for their stalwart refusal to jump on the bandwagon for ever-earlier primaries.  They will likely receive the brunt of Hillary’s, Obama’s, and the media’s attention from now until their primary on 22 April.
   
• Condolences for Americans; considering word of irregularities in Ohio and Texas, it seems we still don’t know how to hold an election.
   
• Congratulations to the vast right-wing conspiracy for so effectively keeping the Dems’ battling over their nominee likely until the convention this summer.
   
• And finally, congratulations to Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and South Carolina, for sticking to their guns so far, and resisting the unfunded mandated privacy intrusion of Real ID.

One thing you have to give the Geheimstaatspolizei credit for is being persistent in their efforts to have all Americans carry ID matching federal specs.

We’ve known for quite a while that if you didn’t possess (either by choice or by your state’s opting out) a REAL ID-compliant drivers license, you’d have trouble entering federal buildings and you’d be subject to the extra-special, extra-friendly secondary screening by TSA agents when flying.

However, Homeland Insecurity has upped the ante. From Threat Level:

Currently individuals who want to buy over-the-counter decongestants containing pseudo-ephedrine have to show I.D. to a pharmacy clerk, sign a log sheet and are limited in the amount they can purchase. The rules—pushed heavily by California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, are intended to make it harder for meth labs to get pseudo-ephedrine to cook into full-blown methamphetamines. They were made law in the 2006 re-authorization of the Patriot Act.

Stewart Baker, the assistant director for policy at Homeland Security and a longtime needler of privacy groups, suggested on Wednesday that the federal law could be tweaked to require controversial REAL ID identification cards, according to News.com.[...]

The Cato Institutes’s Jim Harper interprets Baker’s statement to mean a REAL ID would be necessary for any prescription. I don’t see that in the report on Baker’s remark, but certainly the F in FDA stands for Federal. The feds probably could do this, but from a health standpoint it would be a nightmare. No REAL ID, no birth control, no antibiotics, no insulin. How many dead Americans are these rules going to be worth?

This past week, Homeland Security announced their rules for implementing Real ID, including a provision indicating that states had to express a willingness to begin to come into compliance by 11 May, or their drivers licenses would no longer be accepted as identification for federal purposes.

Threat Level at Wired offers a picture of what could happen if the states continue to resist Real ID:

Eight states have already passed legislation opting out of the program, saying the costly program infringes on privacy and states rights. DHS originally estimated the cost of the program at $20 billion, but used creative math to slash that estimate by 73% today. Today’s estimate said the change would cost states $3.8 billion, and individuals $5.8 billion. The federal government has only authorized $80 million in earmarked funds for the states, but says states can raid their state grant funds to get at another $280 million dollars.[...]

If by May, Georgia hasn’t changed it mind and the feds don’t blink, the nation’s busiest airport—Hartsfield-Atlanta airport—will have security lines that last for hours. If a federal court house did not let a state resident get to his court date or prohibited someone from getting into a Social Security office, lawsuits and a storm of unflattering news stories will surely follow.

Throw in this being an election year too, and things could become mighty interesting. (Or, they would if we had a candidate running who actually valued privacy, rather than the authoritarian types we have in the current ranks of viable candidates.)

From a Geheimstaatspolizei press release:

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced today a final rule establishing minimum security standards for state-issued drivers’ licenses and identification cards. The rule sets uniform standards that enhance the integrity and reliability of drivers’ licenses and identification cards, strengthen issuance capabilities, and increase security at drivers’ license and identification card production facilities. The final rule also dramatically reduces state implementation costs by roughly 73 percent.[...]

REAL ID will address document fraud by setting specific requirements that states must adopt for compliance, to include: (1) information and security features that must be incorporated into each card; (2) proof of the identity and U.S. citizenship or legal status of an applicant; (3) verification of the source documents provided by an applicant; and (4) security standards for the offices that issue licenses and identification cards.

The tomes of rules are available from DHS.  However, the high points from what I heard in the press conference include:

• Folks under age 50 fully migrated over to the new ID by 2014; older folks by 2017
• Mandatory cross-checks of information provided (SSN) to confirm validity
• Photos taken at the start of the DL application process, theoretically to preclude a potential fraudster from making multiple attempts to apply for licenses (…although no mention was made that anyone will actually check the photo database to see if someone is making multiple attempts…)
• Other physical security measures to be built into Real ID-compliant licenses, although states will have some flexibility — a menu of options to choose from

I didn’t hear any mention yet as to whether we’ll all get to go experience the hospitality of the DMV (seems likely), or if some provision will be made for remote/by-mail renewals in those states where such a practice alleviates DMV strain.

Also, as expected, there’s no mention of providing license-holders with the ability to check to see who’s been accessing their data in the databases to be established for this plan, a provision which would go a long way towards combating certain forms of fraud and identity crime, as well as to protect against inappropriate invasion of privacy.

I still say we ought to just go to tattooing or implanting microchips into everyone’s forehead or onto the back of their hands.