Feds Soften On States Over Real ID

Signs Of Compromise Between Bush Admin. And States Resisting New Driver's License Standards

(AP)  There are signs of a potential compromise to end the Bush administration's standoff with states resisting new standards for driver's licenses. For people who live in those holdout states, the dispute raises the specter of hassles at airports and federal buildings.

At issue is a law known as Real ID that would require new security measures for state-issued driver's licenses. The Bush administration says the law, passed after the Sept. 11 attacks, will hinder terrorists, con artists and illegal immigrants. Opponents say it will cost too much and weaken privacy protections.

Unless holdout states send a letter by the end of March seeking an extension, their residents no longer can use a driver's license as valid identification to board airplanes or enter federal buildings beginning in May, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has warned. They would have to present a passport or be subjected to secondary screening.

Only three states - Maine, Montana and South Carolina - have not sought extensions or already started moving toward compliance. New Hampshire has asked to be exempted, but Homeland Security Department officials have not found the state's letter to be legally acceptable.

But on Friday, the agency granted Montana an extension even though state officials did not ask for one and insist they will not follow the law. Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer told The Associated Press that administration officials "painted themselves in a corner."

Chertoff has offered to phase in requirements over about 10 years. But with President George W. Bush leaving office in January, a decision to move ahead with Chertoff's plan will rest with the next administration.

By 2014, according to the plan, anyone seeking to board an airplane or enter a federal building would have to present a Real ID-compliant card, except people older than 50, officials said. That exception would give states more time to get everyone new licenses, and officials say the threat from someone in that age is much less. By 2017, even people over 50 must have a Real ID-compliant card to board a plane.

Last week, five senators appealed to Chertoff to exempt all 50 states from the approaching deadline. Chertoff, in letters sent to the lawmakers Friday, said Congress had set the date when the law went into effect in 2005 and "I cannot ignore it."

Yet hours after Chertoff sent them, Assistant Secretary Stewart Baker told Montana's attorney general that the government would grant the state an extension even though it explicitly was not seeking one. Baker said the state's new license security measures already met many Real ID requirements anyway.

"I can only provide the relief you are seeking by treating your letter as a request for an extension," Baker wrote.

Schweitzer said his state had not backed down.

The agency's approach to Montana could provide an easy way out for the remaining states resistant to Real ID. It also suggests the government does not want to go ahead with its plan to conduct extra screening on residents of certain states.

To Tim Sparapani, senior legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, "this concession is proof positive that in the face of opposition from the states, DHS will blink every time. Congress needs to step in and replace Real ID with a plan that works."

Critics of the plan say that by linking a number of government databases, Real ID could make people's identities less secure; Chertoff has dismissed that claim. Some governors complain compliance will cost their states a small fortune.

To quell that criticism, the government has reduced the expected cost of putting the law into place from $14.6 billion to $3.9 billion.

Among other details of the Real ID plan:

• The traditional driver's license photograph would be taken at the beginning of the application instead of the end. If someone is rejected for failing to prove identity and citizenship, the applicant's photo would be kept on file and checked if that person tried again.
  
• The cards will have three layers of security measures, but will not contain microchips. States will be able to choose from a menu of security measures to put in their cards.
  
• After Social Security and immigration status checks become national practice, officials plan to move on to more expansive security checks. State motor vehicle offices would be required to verify birth certificates; check with other states to ensure an applicant does not have more than one license; and check with the State Department to verify applicants who use passports to get a driver's license.

[michellem99-2009]

Yes, tool, Dear I read 1984 on talking books years ago..I ''member when I got my first ss card it said was not for ID use..It had my number in red. I was a minor and today it the same as everybody''s black. I am against the real ID act..I am a Mainer in Seattle. I see as the nanny govt violating the contution of US of A.

[liberalme]

These National ID cards will eventually be required for everything, just like your Social Security number is required by every company you do business with today.

You will not be able to buy a cup of coffee with a credit card without your National ID card being scanned by Starbucks. In this way, every aspect of your life will be recorded for government abuse.

Posted by UnderMyBoot at 03:23 PM : Mar 22, 2008

Land of the free? Home of government misconduct--are we all just going to let these invasions and restrictions happen?

I certainly could understand this being enforced for people coming into this country--but those of us who have been here for generations? Not on my watch--they can throw me in jail.
This is America---in order to get our freedoms back we need to vote out everyone in Washington in November---they''re all getting "funny" in the head and need straight jackets as they all have forgotten what country they think they''re "ruling"!

[toolmangler-2009]

Bush did this to build a data base so the government could keep track of it''''s own people and for no other reason. When they stop the illegal entries at the boarders, then and on then, should they even think of tracking us. What''''s next, implant a tracking chip at birth?
Posted by jjp735i at 08:28 AM : Mar 23, 2008

=============================

Schools embrace fingerprint scanning
By Pauline Vu McClatchy News Service

WASHINGTON %u2014 The lunch lines in West Virginia%u2019s Wood County schools move much faster than they used to. After students fill their trays with food, they approach a small machine, push their thumbs against a touch pad %u2014 and with that small movement, they%u2019ve paid for their meal.
For half the state%u2019s school districts, as well as hundreds more across the country, the days of dealing with lost lunch cards or forgotten identification numbers are over.
"A student cannot forget their finger," said Beverly Blough, the director of food service in Wood County School District, which in 2003 became the first district in West Virginia to use finger scanners.
But the emergence of finger scanning has also sparked a backlash from parents and civil libertarians worried about identity theft and violation of children%u2019s privacy rights. In several cases when parents have objected, school districts have backed down, and some states have outlawed or limited the technology.

[toolmangler-2009]

-- but this hanging every single thing on 9/11 is getting way beyond merely irksome and irritating: it''''s gotten to the unacceptable level.
Posted by MekhongKurt at 09:36 PM : Mar 23, 2008



I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this is just the beginning, Read the following articles George Orwells "1984" and ''Animal Farm'', The Book of the Revelations of St John (New Testament), Isaiah and Daniel (Old Testament) Nostradamus and others, it has been laid out line by line for thousands of years, Those that have a ear, let them hear.

[frankbowers]

Thank goodness FDR in his wisdom he did not hang the is terrorist theory on us after the bombing of Pearl Harbour 12/41, which had more lost of life than the two buildings and more cost in the dollars value to the US of A by for than these two building which were insured to the max and the entire lost at Pearl had not a penny of insurance.
Yeah thank goodness for a man with a little intellegience over an idiot who wants to control the world and most of all America, that person be gwbush/cheney

[gunownerdan]

"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
-- James Madison

"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."
-- James Madison

"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifist for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."
-- Hermann Goering, Hitler''s Reich-Marshall
at the Nuremberg Trials after WWII

[feddupp]

Remember--Hitler''s cruel reign began by isolating the Jewish people as a "good thing" for the German people.
And we all know how THAT ended!!
American people--WAKE UP before it''s too late!!

[MekhongKurt]

"Real ID," my ***.

I''m all for security -- who isn''t??? -- but this hanging every single thing on 9/11 is getting way beyond merely irksome and irritating: it''s gotten to the unacceptable level.

[magoo2u1]

Whew! Once this is in place we will all be safe. Everybody you can''t cpommit a crime without proprer ID ad IDs can''t be forged - unles you steal the license "Blanks" and the equipment to make them. Like what happened in Georgia. If I remember correctly it happened before they issued the first legal license under the new design.

[mheengan]

Thanks forthepeopl1 for the info about the Navajo of Arizona on Acsa.net, I''m passing it on. This is totally new to me. Hopefully I can help you spread the word.

[element51]

The picture comes to my mind from the old movies when the soldier says, "Your papers please." And if you can''t produce them you will be "detained". What better way for the government to know every move you make, every purchase you make, every thing you do? The next logical step will be an implanted chip which will allow you to be tracked like an animal. We will be told that all this is to protect us and is for our own good. Then there will be those knocks on the door at 3 in the morning. Then they won''t even bother to knock. This is what the elite want...total control over all of serfs. Big changes sometimes come in small parts. And you think you have freedom.

[wraflorida]

Is there no way to stop what the goverment is doing or will we just lay down and take it I know we will lay down and take it this is only one of many more to to come.

Wra

[jjp735i]

What a waste of money. Terrorists can still walk across our boarders, yet we cannot. How safe can we be?

Bush did this to build a data base so the government could keep track of it''s own people and for no other reason. When they stop the illegal entries at the boarders, then and on then, should they even think of tracking us. What''s next, implant a tracking chip at birth?

[rushlimpdrug]

Is this like the "Real" logo on milk cartons?

We have lots of forms of ID already, why are people griping and bleating over another?!
Posted by hypnotoad72 at 06:07 PM

Cause people like you don''t complain even as they keep piling on more krap and more loops for everyone to jump through.
Airports look more and more miitary.
It must affect children even more to see all the krap we as AMERICANS have to go through.
This is NOT the America I grew up knowing.

[randynason]

Godless Amerika,
Land that I love.

[beehive21-2009]

Talks cheap,never believe this BS .It is the duty of each American to pass on the pursuit of life, liberty and freedom and shall die for it as your forefather did.

[lemonskink]

To find out the real truth about National ID cards, I suggest you watch the movie, or look it up on the internet: America: Freedom to Fascism. You''ll find out pretty quick what the Bushies have in store for you with this scheme. I recommend every American see this documentary, it''s eye opening, true, and covers everything from income tax, radio frequency implants, ID cards, and laws from the Bush administration that many people don''t even realize are law. Things like martial law, and citizen work brigades, and how Bush can create a National Emergency at his choosing.

[standlee5]

National healthcare equals an end to privacy as we know it. It''s over the govt. will know everything about each and every one of us. They already pretty much do with tax returns anyway.

[standlee5]

It''s bound to happen, if we''re going to continue down the nanny-state path. How else is the govt. going to regulate all it''s endless services.

[michellem99-2009]

gramma..Yes Dear they are govt buildings..Good God Allmighty...We went to court and it was awful. Ye had to take everything out of yer pockets,they pawed thru yer purse,ran a bloody wane over yer person. This is not the America my Dad,Gamma yer husband went to war over. veteran71 amen..I sm a lady and I am pissed and add this to yer post that bloody war is over oil. Gramma I know yer boy there and I got kin there.