Thread: Support H.R.220 - Common Sense About Identity Theft & RE

States opposing Real ID, including Maine, gain allies
But there's a move in Congress to expand the reach of this expensive and intrusive plan.


June 6, 2007


— The federal Real ID law is rolling down the tracks toward a collision with a growing number of states that are balking at its high cost and potential invasion of privacy.

Now, there's another train that may soon be running on the same line: A pending amendment to the immigration bill now being debated in Congress uses Real ID (or a passport) to identify the citizenship of job applicants.
Something's got to give, and it's not clear who will blink first, although a couple of bills have also been submitted to repeal the requirement.

When the Real ID Act was passed by Congress in 2005, the Department of Homeland Security backed it as a domestic security measure. The law told states to revamp their systems of providing driver's licenses and non-driver identification cards according to its uniform national standard.
After Dec. 31, 2009, no "non-compliant" state-issued ID can be accepted for federal purposes, such as traveling on commercial aircraft or proving eligibility for benefits.

One problem is that giving every one of the nation's 245 million licensed drivers a new ID is projected to cost upward of $14 billion, and there's no federal funding for the program.
In addition, the new licenses are supposed to contain personal data that can be read by machine, which raises considerable concerns about privacy should they be lost or stolen.

That's why Maine, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Washington, Montana, Hawaii, Idaho and Arkansas have passed either laws or resolutions rejecting its implementation, with similar measures pending in at least three other states. The National Governors Association has also expressed opposition.

If the feds want this, they should pay for it, and drop the requirement to include ultrasensitive data. Otherwise, the revolt could spread -- as it should.

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story ... 6&ac=PHedi

Barr says the REAL ID requirement in immigration bill won’t fly
Wednesday, June 6, 2007, 03:09 PM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Last month, former Georgia congressman Bob Barr chastised those passing too-quick judgment on the immigration reform effort now going on in Washington.

But on Wednesday, he announced that he’d found something objectionable “hidden deep within the massive bill.â€

Sanford To Sign Real ID



STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA

OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR

MARK SANFORD, GOVERNOR

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Joel Sawyer

803-734-2100

jsawyer@gov.sc.gov

Governor to Sign REAL ID Law

LEGISLATION WILL KEEP SC FROM COMPLYING

WITH COSTLY FEDERAL MANDATE

Columbia, S.C. - June 12, 2007 - Gov. Mark Sanford will travel to Greenville tomorrow (Wednesday, June 13, 2007) to sign S.449, South Carolina's official "no" to the REAL ID Act. The REAL ID Act is the federal government's attempt to create a national ID card, an initiative that would cost South Carolina's taxpayers and lead to longer lines at the DMV. The new law will officially prevent South Carolina from participating in the program.

The governor will sign the bill at a Greenville DMV office (15 Saluda Dam Road, Greenville) at 2:30 p.m. For more information or directions from your location, please contact Joel Sawyer in the Governor's Office at 803-734-2100.

-#####-



Joel Sawyer

Office of Gov. Mark Sanford

(803) 734-5254 - work

(803) 446-6713 - cell

(803) 734-6447 - fax

http://campaignsandelections.com/sc/rel ... fm?ID=1123

TN rejects "Real ID" legislation
I got this press release earlier today:

NASHVILLE - The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee (ACLU-TN) today praised the Tennessee General Assembly for their bipartisan rejection of the REAL ID Act, which would require all Tennesseans to give up sensitive personal information which would be stored in a national database, to pay higher licensing fees, and to stand in long lines at the Department of Motor Vehicles. The joint resolution (SJR24 criticizes the federal law’s unfunded mandate and its threats to privacy, security, and the Tennessee Constitution.

“Implementation of REAL ID would crush our privacy rights, drown the state in red tape, and make all of us less safe,â€

Govs slam federal ID program
By DUSTIN BLEIZEFFER
Star-Tribune staff writer Tuesday, June 12, 2007



DEADWOOD, S.D. -- Western governors grilled U.S. Homeland Security assistant secretary Stewart A. Baker on Monday, complaining that the federal government's Real ID program is unworkable and unfairly mandates that states cover the costs.

"The feds have half-baked ideas, and we ignore them. But from time to time they have half-baked ideas with mandates," said Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer. "This is another federal mandate we're not interested in (implementing) and paying for. ... How will you handle states that have said no, no, no way, and hell no?"

Real ID would require states to upgrade driver's licenses to also serve as passports. Baker said modifying driver's licenses is more palatable than creating a national ID card, and it's already an institution in Americans' lives.

States are supposed to comply in six years.

"The difficulty I face is I have to explain why 12 years after 9/11 was the deadline for problems we realized existed that day," Baker said. "Given the role driver's licenses have come to play in American life, to come up with some other card ... would require even more significant effort and make less sense for Americans and appear more as a national ID."

Real ID cuts at the heart of homeland security and immigration issues in the West. Just as Western states are launching massive clean energy construction goals comparable to the national interstate system, the federal government promises to thoroughly scrutinize the nationality of workers that companies and states hire.

"We will look for new ways to enforce the law, make sure the people you hire as contractors, state employees, have the best tools to identify their workers and make sure they belong in this country," Baker said.

Washington state is already working with Homeland Security to implement the program. Several governors of border states have expressed interest in similar cooperation with the federal agency, noting that they don't want the program to interfere with travel and trade with Canada.

Governors complained that Homeland Security efforts thus far haven't made Americans any safer.

"It used to be that one of the greatest forms of dignity was air travel," Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman said. "Now the biggest indignity is air travel. ... We're the most technologically advanced nation in the world. Why are we still shaking down our grandmothers?"

Reporter Dustin Bleizeffer can be reached at (307) 577-6069 or dustin.bleizeffer@casperstartribune.net

http://www.casperstartribune.net/articl ... 82e532.txt

N.H. Joins Maine in Opposing Federal Real ID Program
By Norma Love
June 12, 2007

Send Feedback E-mail this Article Print this Article Article Reprints
Calling the federal Real ID Act "repugnant'' to the state and federal constitutions, New Hampshire lawmakers voted to join other states — including neighboring Maine — in rejecting the federal Real ID Act as tantamount to requiring a national ID card.

The House voted last Thursday to send a bill to Gov. John Lynch that would bar the state from complying with the federal law, which sets standards for state-issued driver's licenses. Lynch's spokesman saidthe governor will sign it.

Also last week, Maine Gov. John Baldacci signed into law a bill prohibiting the state from implementing Real ID.

The New Hampshire bill also contains an unrelated provision to pay a death benefit for police and firefighters killed in the line of duty. Two police officers have died in the line of duty in the past eight months. Lynch spokesman Colin Manning said Lynch also supports the death benefit.

Real ID opponents said the state needed to send a clear statement that the federal government went too far in threatening individual privacy.

Last year, New Hampshire — one of two states picked to pilot the Real ID program — was the first state to consider rejecting the federal law, but the bill failed in the Senate.

Still, other states took up the fight. Maine passed a resolution opposing it in January and this spring Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire and Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer signed similar bills blocking their states from implementing the national rules.

President Bush recently bowed to pressure from the nation's governors and Congress and granted states until Dec. 31, 2009, to comply. Two years ago, Congress set a deadline for states to comply with uniform licensing standards by May 2008.

The law passed in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It requires all states to bring their driver's licenses under a national standard and to link their record-keeping systems. States must verify identification used to obtain a driver's license, such as birth certificates, Social Security numbers and passports.

Driver's licenses not meeting the standard won't be accepted as identification to board an airplane or enter a federal building.

Critics complain the law is too intrusive and costly to states to implement. They also say a national database of drivers' information will be a target for thieves looking to steal identities.

Rep. Neal Kurk, R-Weare, the prime sponsor of the New Hampshire bill, says legislation or resolutions have been introduced in at least 26 states opposing Real ID.

Lynch and the Executive Council rejected the $3 million federal grant attached to the pilot project last year. Earlier this year, he reiterated his concern that Real ID could end up costing the state tens of millions of dollars for implementation and enforcement, and said he also had privacy concerns.


http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/ea ... /80736.htm

Wisconsin considering anti-Real ID bill
Pat Schneider — 6/13/2007 8:34 am


Wisconsin soon may join the roster of states saying "no" to Real ID.

A bipartisan bill that would set high performance benchmarks for the federal legislation before the state would comply with it is being circulated for co-sponsors.

Its authors, state representatives Louis Molepske Jr., D- Stevens Point, and Jeff Wood, R-Chippewa Falls, make no bones about the fact that they think the federal law is an expensive boondoggle that will expose Wisconsin citizens to increased risk of identity theft and curtail civil liberties.

Some 36 states have passed or are considering legislation criticizing or opting out of Real ID, a 2005 federal law authored by Wisconsin's U.S. Rep. James S. Sensenbrenner, R-Menomonee Falls. In a statement as the Real ID neared passage, Sensenbrenner said it was aimed at "preventing another 9/11-type attack by disrupting terrorist travel and bolstering our border security."

Sensenbrenner was not available, and his office declined comment for this article.

States have until May 2008 to begin complying with Real ID, which specifies which forms of identification can be used to obtain a state driver's license or ID card, and how those documents must be electronically stored and shared with other states. Only licenses and ID cards from states in compliance with Real ID could be used to board a commercial airliner or enter a federal building. States are to have completed implementation by May 2013.

Make no mistake, Real ID establishes a national ID card, Wood said.

"What we carry in our wallets now are real IDs,'" he said. "This federal national ID bill requires the states to collect personal information -- social security number and digital image -- and put it into a national data base accessible to every governmental entity in the country."

"My concern," said Molepske, "is we not sell it as an anti-terrorism mechanism when it is really an immigration issue."

The entanglement of the two issues, national security and immigration, was intensified by the fact that a state law that went into effect this year requiring proof of legal presence in the United States to be eligible for a Wisconsin license or ID card was billed as a first step to compliance with Real ID.

Sensenbrenner is the author of the failed immigration legislation that would have made illegal presence in the country a felony and fueled the explosion of grass-roots opposition last year.

Sensenbrenner, who was in the Wisconsin Legislature for a decade before being elected to Congress in 1978, was a vocal opponent of recent compromise immigration legislation that would have given aliens in the United States without documentation a pathway to citizenship.

He said of licensing procedures pre-Real ID: "Giving driver's licenses that can be used for identification to anyone, regardless of whether they are here legally or whether we know who they really are, is an open invitation for terrorists and criminals to exploit."

The proposed new state legislation would prohibit the Department of Transportation from doing anything to comply with Real ID unless: the department ensures that data collected is secure, any personnel involved are adequately screened and trained and no unreasonable cost or records-keeping burden be imposed on license applicants.

What's more, the bill prohibits the Department of Transportation from spending any state money to comply with Real ID and encourages the Attorney General to challenge its legality.

Implementing Real ID would cost nearly $22 million -- for everything from additional staff at the Department of Motor Vehicles to data processing, enhanced security and new card stock for the licenses -- in the biennium now being budgeted, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau reported.

A new $10 "security verification fee" proposed by Gov. Jim Doyle to cover the costs of complying with Real ID will fall more than $11 million short, the bureau said. A $15 fee would reduce the shortfall to $756,000. Federal funds available for Real ID compliance are projected to be just over $600,000.

The logistical obstacles are staggering, Molepske said. "They're asking 245 million people to stand in line at the DMV between 2008 and 2013 to fight terrorism."

He's skeptical that the legislation will survive opposition by the airline industry and others that depend on air travel and tourism.

"We want to convince policymakers to open this up," he said.

Governmental groups, including the National Conference of State Legislatures and the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, have gone on record against Real ID.

The liberal American Civil Liberties Union also has been a vocal critic of Real ID, and Stacy Harbaugh, community advocate for the ACLU of Wisconsin, praised the Molepske-Wood legislation.

"Wisconsin finally is stepping up to become of the many states saying they won't do this," Harbaugh said.

The law also is contrary to traditional conservative principles, Wood said. "This was done without the majority of conservatives being fully aware of the implications. When they realize what it means in terms of personal liberties and centralization of government power, I think people will be furious," he said.

Molepske said he's treading carefully not to challenge Sensenbrenner. "I called and told him we're doing this. We want it to be as non-confrontational as possible."

Wood said opposition to Real ID in Sensenbrenner's home state would be very significant.

"How Wisconsin goes will be how the country goes," he said.


Pat Schneider — 6/13/2007 8:34 am
E-mailschneider@madison.com

http://www.madison.com/tct/mad/topstories/188114

ATTORNEY GENERAL MARTHA COAKLEY TESTIFIES IN OPPOSITION TO REAL ID ACT
June 14, 2007
CONTACT: Emily LaGrassa/Melissa Sherman
(617) 727-2543

BOSTON – Today, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley testified before the Legislature's Joint Committee on Veterans and Federal Affairs in opposition to the implementation of the federal Real ID Act in Massachusetts. The committee held a hearing on a resolution opposing the federal act that has been filed by Senator Richard T. Moore.

"The Real ID Act was pushed through Congress in 2005 without meaningful debate or hearing on its implications for the states," said Attorney General Coakley. "Not only does the Real ID Act call for sweeping changes in how states issue drivers' licenses with limited time to implement the changes, but it does not consider the financial burden placed on the states in order to do so. In Massachusetts alone, the cost of the first year of implementation is expected to exceed $140 million."

Senator Moore's proposed resolution articulates the policy of the Commonwealth as being against the Real ID Act on the grounds that it infringes on civil rights and liberties and it is not adequately funded. The resolution would also prohibit the Legislature from enacting legislation or authorizing any appropriation to further the implementation of the Real ID Act in Massachusetts, unless the appropriation is for either a comprehensive analysis of costs or mounting a constitutional challenge by the Attorney General or until the federal government provides adequate funding for implementation.

The Real ID Act, passed in 2005 as part of a military spending and tsunami relief bill, sets forth requirements for states' driver's licenses in order for them to be accepted by federal agencies for "any official purpose," including boarding an airplane, entering a federal building, opening a bank account, collecting Social Security and applying for federal benefits. The first implementations are scheduled to go into effect for states that opt into the program by May 2008. States may seek an extension by February 2008, but they still have to start issuing compliant licenses by January 1, 2010. According to the act, all licenses need to be compliant by spring 2013. The regulations for implementing the Real ID Act are not finalized leaving crucial details uncertain.

To date, 16 states have passed bills or resolutions opposing the implementation of the Real ID Act, and 22 other states have similar legislation or resolutions pending.

NOTE TO EDITORS: A copy of the written testimony submitted to the committee is attached.

http://www.ago.state.ma.us/sp.cfm?pageid=986&id=1925

How far will Colorado go to stop ID law?
By ED SEALOVER
THE GAZETTE
June 17, 2007 - 11:46PM

DENVER - Congress’ decision two years ago to create a de facto national identification card flew below the radar, tucked into a spending bill and barely causing a stir before it was approved.

But legislators in Colorado and elsewhere are waking up to the consequences of the Real ID Act, a proposal that the National Conference of State Legislatures estimates will cost states $11 billion during the next five years.

A wave of opposition is swelling, but residents of states that do not comply with the law by 2010 will not be able to board airplanes or enter federal courthouses.

The act requires that states issue driver’s licenses and ID cards that have specific information, that issuers of the licenses scan birth certificates and other proof of citizenship, and that states’ information be accessible to the federal government for a national database.

Intended as an antiterrorism weapon, it will prevent illegal immigrants from obtaining a driver’s license and restrict their freedom of movement, backers say.

Conservatives and liberals have assailed the legislation recently as a violation of civil rights because it demands more information from residents and then keeps it permanently at the government’s fingertips. In addition to being a costly mandate for states, it makes citizens vulnerable to identity theft by keeping their most important information in a central place that could be hacked into, critics say.

A resolution written largely by the American Civil Liberties Union that passed through the Colorado Legislature without opposition details those concerns and goes a step further. It states that the General Assembly will pass no law to facilitate implementation of the Real ID Act and will spend money only on a comprehensive analysis of the costs of implementing it or toward a constitutional challenge mounted by the attorney general.

But with the law stating that noncompliant IDs must be stamped and not accepted for federal purposes such as passing through Transportation Security Administration checkpoints, the question is: How far will states go to rebel against the national government?

“It’s a tough deal. I would like to say we’ll fight it all the way,â€

"REAL ID"-REAL REBELLION BOILING OVER


By Steven Yates
June 21, 2007
NewsWithViews.com

Right after my “Real ID—Real Rebellion Brewingâ€