Posted on 05/18/2009 3:29:41 PM PDT by Sarajevo
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The 9/11 Commission made the case that state driver's licenses need to become a more secure credential. Congress acted--twice, passing laws to establish national standards. Now this common-sense initiative is under attack and may never be implemented. Congress and the Administration must act decisively to make the REAL ID program a reality. They need a strategy that encourages states with the capacity to implement REAL ID to do so quickly, demonstrating its viability and value. Once REAL ID is underway, momentum will build for other states to join; their citizens will not want to be left out of a program that materially contributes to their safety, their prosperity, and the protection of individual freedoms. Why REAL ID? Identity is one of the cornerstones of a free society. Many transactions, from cashing a check to boarding a plane, are predicated on an assumption that free citizens in a free society should be free to act as they choose under the rule of law.That is why criminals and terrorists work so assiduously to obtain identity instruments or the "breeder documents" (such as birth certificates) that are used to obtain identification cards. Billions of dollars is lost each year due to identity theft, the fraudulent obtaining of government benefits, and other criminal activities. In addition, the 9/11 hijackers obtained 17 driver's licenses and 13 state-issued identifications. Some had duplicate driver's licenses. This is unacceptable. Any costs involved in implementing reasonably secure standard identification cards will be more than recouped by the contribution that secure IDs make to facilitating travel and commerce while combating criminal exploitation of the freedoms of a free society. What Is Required? The 9/11 Commission concluded that "the federal government should set standards for the issuance of birth certificates and sources of identification, such as driver's licenses." Congress acted. Both the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 and the REAL ID Act of 2005 required national standards including:
What Is the Problem? In the time since Congress acted, concerted efforts to undermine this program have included calling for further deferral of its implementation, demanding that the federal government spend tens of billions of dollars to upgrade state issuance facilities, trying to eliminate the requirement that citizenship or legal immigration status be validated, or even killing the whole program because of privacy concerns. None of these criticisms is warranted.
What Is the Answer? Congress and the Administration need a strategy to jump-start REAL ID. Specifically, they should:
What Is Right for America? REAL ID is the right answer at the right time. The alternatives are stark. One is to continue to live in the "wild West," where documents are counterfeited or exploited at will, costing the economy billions, disrupting the lives of millions, and putting all at greater risk. The other is a national identity card that will cost many times the expense of implementing REAL ID and that really will be an additional intrusion into the lives of all Americans. Compared to the options of doing nothing or putting "Big Brother" in charge, REAL ID offers a sensible and sound program for creating the secure identity documents that are needed to help keep American safe, free, and prosperous. James Jay Carafano, Ph.D., is Assistant Director of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies and Senior Research Fellow for National Security and Homeland Security in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. |
The law does not give government more access to personal information, nor does it create a national data base. In fact, the law adds privacy protections by requiring more security and background checks for government employees who handle personal data.
Would any government agency tell us why Joe Wurzelbacher's privacy was intruded upon?
So what is your solution to the problem?
I’m no libertarian, but I thought the Heritage Foundation was up for supporting the Constitution. State Driver’s Licenses are not federal. I do not like the funding and defunding mechanisms used to force compliance.
Make the Passport secure. Use it when you leave the U.S. and when you come back in. The Driver’s License is for giving evidence that the state issuing the license has certified that you are qualified to drive a motor vehicle on public highways... THE END. “Your papers please” is NOT the corner stone of a free society.
I’d rather have the problem than the supposed solution. Fake IDs will be available as always, anyhow.
What are believers of crap like RealID doing on a consevative website in the first place?
What? Someone stands up and says “NO, more control over citizens, more intrusiveness, more Big Brother is not the answer, and all you have is “What is your solution to this problem”?
Why not, say, Enforce the laws we have regarding the ability of a person to be in this country legally or not? Gee, that might be a good start before we start surrendering ourselves to Big Brother.
The Heritage Foundation is the most prominent CINO (conservative in name only) think tank in America, based on the Orwellian rhetoric (regulation and registration protect rather than restrict freedom) and the cavalier disregard for the Constitution evidenced in this article.
I have to disagree with the Heritage Foundation on this one.
This becomes an internal passport. Eventually it will be a crime not to carry it on you and surrender it whenever asked by any government official. It will also easily be hacked.
ID does not exist to make government’s life any easier, it is for people to show who they are. The states are sovereign, the states via their people and their representatives ought to be able to determine what ID is required for their citizens. It’s a states rights issue. If the feds want to be in charge of creating a ‘federal ID’ so that citizens of the states will get one if they need to have one to go on planes, or into federal buildings, that’s a separate thing. Let the feds make their own cards and if people think they need one, let them get one. But the feds shouldn’t hijack state IDs for their own dirty ideas.
Agreed. REAL ID creates more problem than it solves.
Bruce Schneier has demonstrated the foolishness of relying on the “perfect” identification.
There is none and the marketplace has already moved miles ahead of government on the issue of identity theft. Per usual.
Except those few who work in embassies or are naturalized citizens.
Build the wall on the southern border.
Waterboard Ted Kennedy (in memory of Mary Jo) to find out how much the Kremlin paid him. (You know, how he contacted the Kremlin to see how he could defeat Ronald Reagan's missiles in Europe). Then raze the Kennedy compound and sow it with salt. And deport Schwarzenegger.
Next stop: Lindsay Grahamnesty, Juan McCain, and the other RINOs.
You act like this is difficult or something.
Cheers!
That's the whole point of trying to have secure IDs so we can identify who is here illegally, including terrorists. When someone boards a plane or applies for a job, we need to verify who they are. If they are here illegally, then deport them.
I strongly favor an attrition thru enforcement approach to illegal aliens. But you do need to have some reliable form of ID before you separate the wheat from the chaff.
What Is Right for America? REAL ID is the right answer at the right time. The alternatives are stark. One is to continue to live in the "wild West," where documents are counterfeited or exploited at will, costing the economy billions, disrupting the lives of millions, and putting all at greater risk. The other is a national identity card that will cost many times the expense of implementing REAL ID and that really will be an additional intrusion into the lives of all Americans. Compared to the options of doing nothing or putting "Big Brother" in charge, REAL ID offers a sensible and sound program for creating the secure identity documents that are needed to help keep American safe, free, and prosperous.
The author is against a national ID.
Thanx! I’ll need to remember that if I ever find myself drawn to the web page again.
The first thing you need to do is to identify who is the "foreigner." [read illegal alien] I assume you mean those living permanently here and not the 50.5 million foreign visitors who enter annually. How do you propose we identify them?
Build the wall on the southern border.
30% to 40% of the 12 to 30 million illegal aliens who are here came legally through tourist visas, student visas, and other non-immigrant work visas. The wall will help but we need to fully implement the US VISIT program that was passed in 1996 to track and deport visa overstays.
The devil is always in the details.
Some people around here read the word “ID” and then react with the emotions of a liberal.
Technology has made it easier to counterfeit money, so they changed the money to make it more difficult.
Technology has made it easier to counterfeit identifications, but nobody has done anything to make them more secure.
You cannot throw out the “foreigners” without a means of identifying them. The current means do not work.
“This becomes an internal passport. Eventually it will be a crime not to carry it on you and surrender it whenever asked by any government official.”
Not carrying ID has been treated as a crime for quite some time. I didn’t get a drivers license until my mid twenties. I just walked everyhere I wanted to go. I didn’t drink and had no use for an ID. In the few chance encounters I had with law enforcement types, I was definitely treated like a criminal. This was 30 years ago.
They all but said: “Where are your papers ?”
Unfortunately, much of the opposition to these programs come from the US Chamber of Commerce and misguided libertarians who don't even understand what is contained in the Real ID act. We have illegals voting and getting driver's licenses. Four states still issue illegals driver's licenses, which allows them to move freely around the country, open bank accounts, etc.
Buddy, Real ID is national ID. If you have not figured that out by what has been written about Real ID the last seven years, I don’t know what else to tell you.
The difference is it currently is NOT a crime. They could not turn you into a criminal for NOT having it.
That is an enormous difference. Because then you have a record as a criminal. And you can be held as such. People now have 24 hours to produce whatever their ID is.
Don’t get me wrong it is most often the smart thing to do, to carry your ID. But there are cases where people forget it, or don’t want to carry it and it is not a criminal offense.
This shifts the government from a ‘working for us’ to a ‘working against us’ mentality, that WE somehow cannot travel freely without having a government ID. It’s about control, and the control shifts the wrong way (to the government) and away from us.
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