From the Washington Post:
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wants to repeal and replace the controversial, $4 billion domestic security initiative known as Real ID, which calls for placing more secure licenses in the hands of 245 million Americans by 2017. The new proposal, called Pass ID, would be cheaper, less rigorous and partly funded by federal grants, according to draft legislation that Napolitano's Senate allies plan to introduce as early as tomorrow.
The rebranding effort follows months of talks with the National Governors Association and poses political risk for Obama as well as Napolitano, a former NGA chairwoman who wants to soothe strained relations with the states without appearing to retreat on a recommendation by the 9/11 Commission. . . .
Eleven states have refused to participate in Real ID despite a Dec. 31 federal deadline.
"The department's goal is to fix, not repeal" Real ID, allowing all jurisdictions to comply by year's end, said a DHS official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity before a formal announcement. . . .
The new plan keeps elements of Real ID, such as requiring a digital photograph, signature and machine-readable features such as a bar code. States also will still need to verify applicants' identities and legal status by checking federal immigration, Social Security and State Department databases.
But it eliminates demands for new databases -- linked through a national data hub -- that would allow all states to store and cross-check such information, and a requirement that motor vehicle departments verify birth certificates with originating agencies, a bid to fight identity theft.
Instead, it adds stronger privacy controls and limits such development to a pilot program in Mississippi. DHS would have nine months to write new regulations, and states would have five years to reissue all licenses, with completion expected in 2016.
Supporters saw a slimmer measure as better than nothing. But critics said the changes gut the law, weakening tools to fight fraud and learn whether bad drivers, drug runners or counterfeiters have licenses in more than one state.
The story also notes that "privacy groups" think the changes do not go far enough, and REAL ID should be scrapped.
Plus, pardon me for assuming that the Constitution does not authorize the federal government to force this requirement on states...
That's never stopped them before. (shrug)
People use IDs to buy booze, which is sold in ISC.
People use IDs to get jobs.
EVERYTHING affects interstate commerce. People didn't buy a substantial number of copies of tabloid magazines because the lapdog liberal media suppressed the video of Ashley Biden snorting cocaine by threatening the person who shot the video, instead of treating him as an anonymous source. That affected interstate commerce.
If you want to argue that there is some sort of limit on Congress' power to regulate Interstate Commerce, you need a rigorous definition of what that limit would be (not just "I know it when I see it"). That's why Congress was so easily able to do an end run around Lopez and Morrison.
That train left the station a long time ago -- the overwhelming majority of adults has at least three of the following: a voter registration, a Social Security card, a Selective Service card, a license plate.
Driver's license is up to the states, not the .gov.
In general I think the government (at all levels) is too enamoured of ID checks; it makes it much easier for them to "round up the usual suspects", etc.
Yeah, Amazon knows more about me than the government; and I'm OK with that. Last I checked Amazon didn't have a small army of enforcement agents, and the worst they can do is stop doing business with me. When the government wants to sift through Amazon's DB, then I have a problem.
As for immigration - I think legal immigration should be MUCH easier than it is, so telling me the REAL ID makes it easier to enforce immigration doesn't cut it.
The federal government, likely at minimum -- specially hold it to be a nefarious entity -- has easy access to your biographical information (through you birth certificate, Social Security, Selective Service card, etc); a rough idea of where you've lived and traveled, among other thing (through your driving license, voting records, passport, etc.). With a little more effort and determination, it can get it hand on a plethora of other documents and such with which is can reconstruct you life's pastiche, beyond what a 'Real ID' would entail. If it were really into you, it wouldn't mind going through the effort of refining that pastiche into a coherent whole.
As noted by rainl, supra, our identity is already a matter of public record in so many ways, to which list I may add real estate records and professional licences. Of course there is no requirement for a subpoena or warrant to consult public records, such as our researchers examine every day in county seats all over the country, or such as we may order from the DMV.
An early commenter said the following:
The power to regulate interstate commerce cannot be construed as a power to regulate anything that might affect interstate commerce, precisely for the reason that such a power would be a complete blank check, and the Constitution was not intended to give the feds a blank check. It is a dreadful fallacy to imagine that one needs a rigorous definition of the limit in order to know that some things definitely fall outside. The question is whether we honor the Constitution as a limiting framework for the federal government, or whether the Constitution is regarded as a nuisance to be evaded. Any shyster lawyer can come up with a rubric for setting aside contractual limitations. The question is whether the courts will accept it. Unfortunately, in the case of the Costitution, it seems they will.
The bit about biometrics is wrong however.
As for those "privacy advocates", scratch them just the tiniest bit and you'll find, for instance, a group that collaborates with a foreign government in a plan that would reduce law enforcement and help that foreign government profit from illegal activity in the U.S.
And, those "privacy advocates" might as well go to work for those who do want a national ID. When they support massive illegal activity, that leads to a backlash against that illegal activity and makes it easier for things like Real ID to pass. If those "privacy advocates" would support our laws for once, those who want a national ID wouldn't have any cover. Their proposals would look extremely odd.
Don't expect "privacy advocates" to be able to figure that out.
I am of the age that most of my peers registered with Selective Service, however, I fit in a very narrow classification that made me exempt from Selective Service Registration. Of course, very few of my peers were in boot camp when they were 17 years old either.
After 9-11 I kept hearing commentators calling for a strong, voluntary National ID card. The idea was that people who used this card could be prescreened for airport travel and go to shorter lines. Strong Voluntary ID, sounded an awful lot like a US Passport to me. I always wondered why people thought we would need to invent a new ID system for this purpose.
You are misinformed. Not about me, they don't: Amazon probably has far less information about me than the government does. I have options for protecting my privacy when dealing with Amazon that I don't have when it comes to a national ID card.
The government has my thumbprint (I live in a state where this is mandatory for getting a driver's license), SSN, date of birth, eye color, hair color, height, weight, a picture of my face suitable for facial recognition, my car's make and model and color and license plate number, information about every foreign country I've ever visited, my annual income for every year of my life along with a breakdown of how I have earned it, and a whole host of other information. Amazon has none of that.
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