While shilling for the Real ID Act this week, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff asked Americans a series of spectacularly irrelevant questions:
“Should banks cash checks from people who cannot prove who they are? Should parents hire babysitters they know nothing about? Should airlines let passengers on board planes without validating their identity?”
No, of course not, Mike. The problem is, you forgot to ask a more pertinent question: Should citizens hand over their sensitive information to one of the most inept organizations in the nation?
That’s what Chertoff and Washington are requesting Americans do when it comes to Real ID. While hiring a babysitter or signing on with a bank is a voluntary agreement between two consenting parties, the Real ID is a government mandate that, in effect, creates a national identification card with open-ended goals and precious little guarantee of success.
The Real ID Act was tucked into a May 2005 military funding bill so as not to inconvenience Congress with substantive debate on the matter. The new law sets federal standards for state-issued identification and driver’s licenses, which must now conform to more than 200 pages of rules and regulations. And, as everyone knows, if the DMV needs anything, it’s more rules and regulations.
After an uproar, the federal deadlines for Real ID have been extended. Washington also lifted a provision in Real ID that would have required every identification to be embedded with a radio-frequency identification chip.
You needn’t be the tin-hatted-short- wave-radio sort to feel fairly prickly about such things — though it does spur questions about the long-term feasibility and purpose of the program.
Preventing meth labs?
In a recent presentation at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, for instance, Stewart Baker of Homeland Security, claimed, “If you have a good ID it would make it much harder for meth labs to function in this country.”
Meth labs? Will Real ID help track down tax evaders for the IRS, as well? Or speeding and parking tickets for the local sheriff’s office? What other purposes will it have?
We’re told that Real ID is necessary to shield us from terrorist infiltrators and make it easier to keep out illegal immigrants. Sure, the creation of a federalized identification card will enable government databases to share sensitive information about its citizens — but only law-abiding citizens. Illegal immigrants and terrorists will exempt themselves from such information sharing, you can be sure.
If that is the case, Chertoff — whose newfound anguish about the illegal immigration problem would be more believable if the administration had actually confronted the problem — knows full well we have perfectly fine IDs right now. Any employer can check a Social Security number and find out the legality of a potential hire.
If a license can be forged, you can imagine that the Real ID’s resilience will also be tested tout de suite by a kid on a MacBook Air. (My money is on the kid.)
Seventeen states have already passed legislation opposing Real ID. Six of those states — Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Washington — have passed legislation prohibiting compliance. More states should follow suit.
The Constitution, as far as I know, offers no provision for the government’s collecting, sharing and storing a citizen’s information.
And no offense, but surely there are a few thousands places better equipped to store personal information than the DMV. What recourse do Americans have when government loses information? After all, consumer satisfaction is not exactly its strong suit.
Illegal immigration and terrorism are, of course, both matters that deserve serious attention. But there are other issues that matter, as well.
Reach columnist David Harsanyi at 303-954-1255 or dharsanyi@denverpost.com.
