Carding America: Tourist or Terrorist?

The Real ID Act is making its way through process now, but there can be little doubt that an act demanding every citizen submit to the newest, high-tech identification gadgetry however invasive will sail through the Congress and Senate. And you can also safely assume the technology will be far broader than the "borders" application proposed now. - {ape}

Congress set to impose ID card rules
States would need to verify papers
Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | May 5, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Congressional negotiators have agreed on a sweeping new system that would nationalize standards for driver's licenses and state identification cards, requiring states to verify the authenticity of every document that people use to prove their identity and show their legal residency.

If the House and Senate both pass the bill next week as expected, by May 2008 every state will be required to contact the issuers of birth certificates, mortgage statements, utility bills, Social Security cards, and immigration papers before granting a driver's license. States will also have to keep copies of those documents for seven years.

Touted as an antiterrorism measure, the Real ID Act would effectively erase laws in nine states that allow undocumented immigrants to obtain standard driver's licenses, which are widely accepted as official identification for boarding airplanes, opening bank accounts, and entering federal courthouses.

''The Real ID Act contains vital border security provisions aimed at preventing another 9/11-type attack by disrupting terrorist travel," said Representative James Sensenbrenner, Republican of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and the bill's primary author. ''Issuing driver's licenses to anyone, without knowing whether they are here legally or who they really are, is an open invitation for terrorists and criminals to hide in plain sight."

Existing licenses would remain valid until they expire, and drivers who want to renew would then have to undergo the new identity verification process, Sensenbrenner said. If a state does not comply, its residents will no longer be able to use their driver's licenses for federal government identification.

Sensenbrenner and other House Republicans attached the Real ID Act to a supplemental appropriations bill funding US troops in Iraq that is considered sure to pass. Several senators from both parties objected, and some of them signed a letter to Senate majority leader Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee, saying they were concerned the bill never received a hearing in either chamber. State governments also warned that it will cause longer lines at motor vehicle bureaus and cost hundreds of millions more than Congress has estimated.

But after a week of conference negotiations, Republicans from both chambers reached a compromise that leaves most of the bill intact. Among the notable changes, the House backed away from its demand that every state submit its driver information into a single national database that would be shared with Mexico and Canada.

Civil libertarians objected to the national database, saying a shared pool of information would be vulnerable to identity thieves and would effectively create a national ID card. That provision was changed so that each state will maintain its own database. Sensenbrenner said the interstate links would be used only to make sure an applicant does not have a license elsewhere.

But Tim Sparapani of the ACLU said the language of the bill does not include restrictions on how the linked state databases can be used; theoretically, every driver's personal information may still be available for unlimited access.

''They have created a national identification card and an interlinked set of databases whereby every driver's most sensitive personal information can be viewed by potentially thousands of employees and bureaucrats around the country," he said.

Nine states issue regular driver's licenses to people who cannot document their immigration status: Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Washington, and Wisconsin. Two more -- Utah and Tennessee -- issue special motor vehicle licenses to undocumented immigrants that allow them to drive but cannot be used as ID cards.

The Real ID Act also contains a provision that will allow the Homeland Security secretary to waive any law that would inhibit the building of fencing along US borders. The provision is aimed at completing construction of a 2.5-mile section of fencing along a smuggling route between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico, that has been delayed for years by environmental concerns.

Finally, the Real ID Act imposes several changes on the granting of asylum to people fleeing political, religious, or ethnic persecution. It would, for example, give immigration judges greater discretion to reject cases based on the refugee's demeanor.

However, the act would also lift some caps on the number of asylum cases allowed each year. And several asylum proposals were taken out in conference after evangelical Christian groups objected that they could hurt legitimate victims. One would have stopped appeals courts from staying a deportation order while they reviewed a rejected applicant's case.

Sensenbrenner originally tried to get the Real ID Act attached to the intelligence overhaul bill in 2004. He allowed it to be removed from that bill after House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, and the Bush administration assured him that they would support attaching the act to the first must-pass legislation Congress would take up in 2005.

The bill attracted a range of critics who said it contained flaws that would have been corrected had it undergone scrutiny through a normal legislative hearing instead of being rushed through Congress.

Cheye Calvo, of the National Conference of State Legislatures, said the bill imposes big costs and sets an unrealistic three-year deadline for states without giving them a voice in the process. Congress estimated it will cost about $100 million to purchase the necessary equipment to meet the Real ID Act's demands, but Calvo said the real figure is likely to be $500 million to $700 million.

''We don't have a whole lot of confidence that the money is going to materialize in the federal budget to pay for all these tedious new mandates," Calvo said.

But Sensenbrenner said the security benefits are worth the cost of more clerks and the inconvenience of longer waits at motor vehicle agencies.

''If somebody has to stand in line a few minutes more in order to make sure that the driver's license system is as secure as possible, that's a small price to pay than having thousands or tens of thousands of people killed in a terrorist attack where somebody used a driver's license to get on an airplane," he said.