Our view on national identity card:

8 years after 9/11, it’s too late to scrap Real ID and start over

What the new Homeland Security chief wants to replace it with is weak.

More than eight years have passed since 18 terrorists obtained the state driver's licenses or ID cards that allowed them to board the jetliners they hijacked on the fateful morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Four years have passed since Congress enacted an ambitious law, the Real ID Act, to avoid a repeat by making it tougher to obtain a driver's license fraudulently. Yet compliance remains wildly inconsistent.

From the moment the law passed, many states balked. Thirteen passed laws prohibiting compliance, and many have expended more energy fighting the law than trying to make their licenses secure. It is too expensive, they argue, and the databases needed to confirm identities are inadequate. So Real ID has languished, wasting a chance not only to deter terrorism but also to reduce identity theft, curb illegal immigration and reduce underage drinking, all by making the nation's identification-of-choice more secure.

Now, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who previously was governor of Arizona, one of the lagging states, is proposing to junk Real ID and replace it with what she says is a practical compromise. But the new plan, Pass ID, appears to be a needless retreat.

Where states have had the will, progress has been substantial.

In 2003, fewer than half the states even bothered to check Social Security numbers provided by applicants against a federal database. Now, according to the Homeland Security Department, all of them do.

Before Real ID, even fewer states used federal data to verify documents immigrants used to prove they were in the U.S. legally. Now, all but a handful do. Maryland was one of the last holdouts, but after the state became a magnet for illegal immigrants seeking driver's licenses, it changed its law and has begun verifying their status.

Several states have found a range of benefits. When Indiana checked its 6 million drivers against a Social Security database, it ended up invalidating 19,000 licenses that didn't match. When it began using "facial recognition" technology to make its photos secure, the state caught a man who had 149 licenses with the same photo but different names.

Real ID does have its flaws, starting with the inadequate databases. Birth certificates, for instance, are obviously difficult to verify. But in the past few years, a dozen states and New York City have put together such databases, and five more are on their way, according to Janice Kephart, a security expert who was on the staff of the 9/11 Commission, which is where the push for more credible driver's licenses began.

Cost is another legitimate concern. The federal government should pay for the changes it demands. But it has already given states more than $130 million to tighten licensing procedures. Not enough, perhaps, but not a niggling amount, either, and hardly sufficient reason to cave in to the laggards.

Yet Pass ID would move in that direction.

It would weaken demands that states certify the legitimacy of documents. It would push back by years a requirement to verify the validity of birth certificates and remove the mandate for passport verification. It would also let states decide how to handle applicants whose Social Security numbers don't match federal databases. Instead, the databases should be improved and made easy for the states to use.

Eight years after 9/11, requiring states to have credible driver's licenses is not an extreme burden. But the evidence says all states will comply only if forced to do so.

Balky states

Since 2006, these 13 states have passed laws rejecting Real ID, a federal law to make driver's licenses more secure:
-Alaska
-Arizona
-Idaho
-Louisiana
-Maine
-Minnesota
-Missouri
-Montana
-New Hampshire
-Oklahoma
-Oregon
-South Carolina
-Washington

Source: Department of Homeland Security

Posted at 12:22 AM/ET, August 17, 2009 in USA TODAY editorial | Permalink

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Opposing view: An unfunded mandate

Without federal aid, how can and why should S.C. activate Real ID?

By André Bauer

South Carolina's General Assembly has chosen — deliberately and officially — to oppose Real ID, the federal government's attempt to force states to issue national identity cards to their citizens.

Unlike federal welfare reform, under which states were encouraged to create individual approaches, Real ID represents a top-down, one-size-fits-all mandate. The dictated direction has been to twist the individual driver's licenses issued by 50 states into "internal passports."

Citizens turn to our Department of Motor Vehicles to obtain or renew their driver's licenses, or state identity cards. Most citizens get a license or card renewable in five or 10 years. They may renew these forms of identification online, in person or by mail.

In South Carolina, lawmakers have streamlined the issuance and renewal processes to provide customer satisfaction and taxpayer comfort. We think the system is working fine.

South Carolina is facing a $200 million midyear budget shortfall, which arrives on top of last year's $1 billion budget cuts.

Absent specific federal funding to implement this federal initiative, how can and why should South Carolina allocate $25 million in start-up costs, not to mention $10 million in annual operating expenses to fund Real ID?

Postage, envelopes and mailing labels for new cards required for everyone would create an exorbitant expense. Providing oversight to ensure compliance with new federal standards that regulate how our DMV must categorize drivers, deal with temporary or lost cards, format cards and share data with federal authorities would only increase the program's price tag.

If Real ID is a "national security" issue, let's make it one. Let's find true consensus for a national ID card, and let's agree the federal government should administer and pay for such a program.

Absent that consensus, let's label Real ID for what it really is: an unfunded mandate from Washington that ignores a paramount admonition contained in the Constitution of the United States of America — powers not specifically delegated to the federal government are retained by the states.

André Bauer, a Republican, is lieutenant governor of South Carolina.

Posted at 12:21 AM/ET, August 17, 2009 in USA TODAY editorial

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