A proposal to create strict federal standards for state-issued driver’s licenses could help fulfill a worthy goal – keeping terrorists and criminals from getting legitimate IDs.
But Congress is dealing with the license proposal in a way that precludes meaningful debate on important factors, like cost, privacy, illegal immigration and whether more secure licenses would become de facto national ID cards.
The so-called Real ID requirements are attached to an $82 billion Iraq-Afghanistan spending bill agreed upon by House and Senate conferees on Tuesday and it’s on a fast track to passage. We think Real ID should have been stand-alone legislation given full consideration.
Under the proposal, the 50 states will share a common format for licenses. To obtain a license or state-issued ID card, a U.S. citizen will have to show a birth certificate, photo ID, proof of Social Security number and a document with their full name and home address. (Such detailed requirements aren’t brand new – Colorado already has stringent requirements for license applicants – but state standards aren’t uniform.) Foreigners living in the United States will have to document their immigration status when seeking a license.
Beyond that, the plan would impose additional requirements on state and local license bureaus. States will have to authenticate the documentation (which may be trickier than Congress imagines), and retain copies of the documents and the applicants’ digitized photos. Licenses will carry these photos and will be designed to be tamper-proof. Although federal grants will help the states implement the changes, Washington does have a history of short-changing states on such mandates.
For some members of Congress, there’s also a broader immigration-control agenda behind the push for more secure licenses.
Others worry that broader issues haven’t been fully aired. “This is essentially a national identity card,” said Cathryn Hazouri, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado. She is concerned that the development of a national drivers’ database will make it easier for government to track individuals and that new procedures may make identity theft easier, too. “I don’t think it makes us any safer,” she said.
Privacy and identity theft are real concerns and ought to be considered carefully when the new requirements are implemented, as it appears they will be.
In the post-Sept. 11 world, there’s clear value in having fewer phony driver’s licenses floating around. But when the new format and rules take effect, public officials, civil libertarians and others need to keep close watch for unintended consequences.
