There was a devious, Machiavellian air surrounding the Real ID Act, even when it was just a bill. It was furtively tacked on to an emergency appropriations bill for defense and Hurricane Katrina relief to ensure its unopposed passage through the House. It was almost universally overlooked when it was signed into law on May 11, 2005, and few have taken notice as its implementation draws near. The bill is scheduled to become effective on that date in 2008.
Possibly the least candid aspect of the law is its undescriptive title. What is a “Real” ID? Is “Real” an existential qualifier? Is it in contrast to a “fake” ID? Actually, the future Real IDs will not look much different from the driver’s licenses we have now. They will include all the information current IDs have, except everything will be federally standardized. However, the process by which IDs will be issued and the information they will contain below the surface will make them a required form of national identification and a landmark in American history. Intended to deter terrorism, the act will also establish a national database with all of the information on the ID. There are three major changes that the Real ID Act would introduce.
First, the Real ID Act calls for stricter identity-confirming documentation from recipients and more thorough background checks. This means even longer lines at the DMV, more rejections, and more drivers who bypass the process because they simply do not want to bother with it or because they might be ineligible. Illegal immigrants, not terrorists, would be the group most affected by this provision; history is a testament to the fact that terrorists will surely come up with the documents required of them, legitimately or otherwise.
Second, the Act will require recipients to provide a residential address, not a proxy address or a P.O. Box. While at first this seems like a reasonable requirement, it will actually put scores of Americans in danger whose personal safety relies on a strong barrier between their public and private lives. People in this category would include judges, law enforcement officers, and victicms of abuse. These people would undoubtedly be subject to increased criminal activity as their home addresses would printed on an ID that they would frequently display and in a database that may be readily hacked.
Third, the government will require each of these IDs to contain a “common machine-readable technology” such as a magnetic strip or a bar code. While many driver’s licenses already have a barcode or a magnetic strip, the federal standardization of this would be an important, precedent-setting step. The Real ID Act ominously gives the Department of Homeland Security the future right to specify what information will be stored on the ID. At a minimum, it would be the information printed on the card, but some speculate it would include more advanced and futuristic forms of identity-tracking such as a retinal scan or a fingerprint. The rationale for such technology is to make forgery more difficult by requiring a matching set of printed and electronic information, and to verify that the ID carrier is indeed the person identified. Again, however, it is clear that the people most motivated to inflict harm on our society would hardly be deterred by these additional requirements, especially as the electronic code is readily available online. The “real” motivation for this technology is probably much more principle-based than practical.
Certainly the most egregious aspect of the law is that it calls for all of these changes but provides absolutely no funding for them. The federal government wants its IDs, but does not want to pay for them. Such an overhaul of the current identification system would require expensive organizational changes to the tune of 200 million dollars per state. As a national ID system confers no apparent benefit on individual states, it is essentially a circuitous form of federal taxation via state agencies. States will certainly be forced to give up funding for other initiatives to pay for the alterations required by the Real ID Act, which raises the issue of partial or non-compliance. This Act really requires complete state participation if it is to be effective, since terrorists or illegal immigrants will simply get their IDs in states that do not comply with the law.
Opposition to the law is mounting as the day of its implementation day approaches. Legislators in Maine recently passed a resolution in which they openly refuse to enforce the act. Other states are expected to follow soon. Websites such as unrealid.com and nonationalid.com have sprung up to protest the privacy violations inherent in the act. If the federal government does not retract the law, we are likely to see a federal-state authority controversy in the next few years.
The most dangerous aspect of the law is not what it actually codifies, but what it sets the stage for. There are a medley of potential ways in which the government could expand or bolster the Real ID system. What other information could be put in this national database? What else could that information be used for? At best, it is an infringement on privacy rights; at worst it is a slippery slope to a slew of more Orwellian policies.
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