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WASHINGTON - Residents of at least 17 states are suddenly stuck in the middle of a brewing fight between the Bush administration and state governments over post-Sept. 11 security rules for driver's licenses — a dispute that in just a few months could leave millions of people unable to use their licenses to board planes or enter federal buildings. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Friday that if states want their licenses to remain valid for air travel after May 2008, those states must seek a waiver indicating they want more time to comply with the REAL ID Act's new...

WASHINGTON — Americans born after Dec. 1, 1964, will have to get more secure driver's licenses in the next six years under ambitious post-9/11 security rules to be unveiled Friday by federal officials. The Homeland Security Department has spent years crafting the final regulations for the REAL ID Act, a law designed to make it harder for terrorists, illegal immigrants and con artists to get government-issued identification. The effort once envisioned to take effect in 2008 has been pushed back in the hopes of winning over skeptical state officials.

Last month, New York State Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced that the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) would reverse a post-9/11 policy by the Pataki administration to deny a driver’s license to anyone who could not prove legal status – immediately prompting at least a dozen county clerks who operate DMV offices as agents of the state to announce they would flout the new rules.To combat identity fraud, all but eight states – HI, ME, MD, MI, NM, OR, UT and WA – require drivers to prove legal status to obtain driver’s licenses.Spitzer did an about-face only after the state’s...

One of the more clever country song titles I ever heard was If the Phone Don’t Ring, You’ll Know It’s Me.That’s something like the predicament of searchers after the menace of voter fraud, who can’t seem to find much of it. The New York Times today reports that “scant evidence” exists of a significant problem.Voter fraud is the idea that individuals might vote multiple times, in multiple jurisdictions, or despite not being qualified. This is distinct from election fraud, which is corruption of broader voting or vote-counting processes. While voter fraud (and/or voter error) certainly happens, it is apparently on...

September 22, 2007 -- ALBANY - Gov. Spitzer announced yesterday that illegal immigrants will get driver's licenses - but at a cost to legal citizens because they'll now be useless as airport ID. Spitzer said the state would no longer require a Social Security number or proof that a person is not eligible for such a number in order to qualify for a driver's license. That change clashes with the 2005 REAL ID law passed by Congress that states require, among other things, a Social Security number in order to get a license. States have until December 2009 to be...

In an Executive Order titled Establishing the President's Board on Safeguarding American's Civil Liberties released on August 27, 2004, the following statement regarding government obligation to ensure privacy to Americans is made: "The United States Government has a solemn obligation, and shall continue fully, to protect the legal rights of all Americans, including freedoms, civil liberties, and information privacy guaranteed by Federal law, in the effective performance of national security and homeland security functions." The above statement was used by Jim Harper, Director of Information Studies with the Libertarian Cato Institute, at a hearing presented before the Senate Committee on...

The U.S. Senate definitively rejected President George Bush's immigration bill on Thursday, just hours after senators expressed deep misgivings with portions that would have expanded the use of a national ID card. Because the procedural vote was 46 to 53, with 60 votes needed to advance the immigration legislation, the proposal is likely to remain dead for the rest of the year. Privacy advocates were quick to claim that a vote against Real ID cards the previous evening doomed the bill. Wednesday's vote showed that senators were willing to delete the portion of the labyrinthine immigration bill that would require...

There is more proof of fraud within the proposed ‘Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007.’ Native born and naturalized employees will be required to show — as proof of legal status — their employers either a “United States passport or a driver’s license or identity card issued by a State, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, or an outlying possession of the United States that satisfies the requirements of the ‘Real ID Act of 2005.’” (see Title III). Yet no state or territory requires a person to show proof of citizenship to obtain a driver’s license or identification card....

Four states have passed laws that reject federal rules regarding a national identification system. This casts serious doubt on the future of the 2005 Real ID Act that goes into effect in December 2009. New Hampshire and Oklahoma joined Montana and Washington state in the passage of statutes that refute guidelines set forth in the Act. However, these actions could eventually lead to drivers licenses issued in these states to not be accepted as official identification when boarding airplanes or accessing federal buildings. In addition to these four states, members of the Idaho legislature intentionally left out money in...

  Exclusive:  The Real Deal On Real I Dby Joan Harrold MessnerDate: June 1, 2007   The ACLU is waging a legal war against Real ID legislation designed to create a safety barrier protecting all law-abiding Americans. FSM Contributing Editor Joan Harrold Messner makes a compelling argument that most Americans agree with the Real ID. How about you?   The Real Deal On Real I D   By Joan Harrold Messner   Terrorists, counterfeiters, murderers, identity thieves, underage drinkers, deadbeat dads, illegal voters, drunk drivers and serial criminal drivers ALL can use multiple driving licenses to escape detection.  A secure...

Senator Ted Kennedy and the anti-gun zealots who wrote the bill just couldn't resist the temptation to get their hands on our guns. They have included language that GOA has been able to defeat in the past. When Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) introduced these anti-gun provisions in 1998, the GOA grassroots were able to convince seven senator cosponsors to pull their names from Hatch's bill. The current language in the amnesty bill is only slightly different from Hatch's original language almost 10 years ago, but it would essentially do the same thing -- threaten every gun store in America. In...

Liberty vs. Totalitarianism, Clinton-Style Monitoring by I.D. and Database Two of the principal mechanisms by which the rulers of 20th century police states maintained their control over their people were the file and the internal passport. These governments kept a cumulative file (called the dangan in Communist China) on every individual's performance and attitudes from school years through adult employment. Citizens carried an internal passport or "papers" that had to be presented to the authorities for permission to travel within the country, to take up residence in another city, or to apply for a new job. These two methods...

I've written about the U.S. national ID card -- REAL ID -- extensively... The Department of Homeland Security has published draft rules regarding REAL ID, and are requesting comments. Comments are due today, by 5:00 PM Eastern Time. Please, please, please, go to this Privacy Coalition site and submit your comments. The DHS has been making a big deal about the fact that so few people are commenting, and we need to prove them wrong. This morning the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on REAL ID (info -- and eventually a video -- here[...]); I was one of the witnesses...

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is going to have a Town Hall Meeting in California on Tuesday, May 1st, 2007. This meeting is scheduled for 10AM to 2PM PDT, which is 12PM to 4PM CDT. It will broadcast over TV, radio and the Internet. State Rep. Jim Guest of Missouri , is the head of a 32 state coalition to stop REAL ID. DHS’s purpose of this meeting is to stop the growing opposition to the REAL ID ACT of 2005. We believe that DHS will GLUT the audience, phone lines and emails with “favorable questions” about REAL ID....

An especially expensive and ill-conceived federal initiative has managed to unite red and blue states; lawmakers as ideologically far apart as Sens. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, and John Sununu, R-N.H.; and organizations ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to the Cato Institute. At issue is the 2005 Real ID Act, which requires every state to replace all driver's licenses by 2013 with ones including an individual's name, address, date of birth, gender, signature, driver's license number, a digital photograph and features to prevent counterfeiting. Under the act, those licenses only could be issued after the state had verified a form...

HELENA - Gov. Brian Schweitzer said "no, nope, no way, hell no" Tuesday to national driver's licenses, signing into law a bill supporters say is one of the strongest rejections to the federal plan. The move means the state won't comply with the Real ID Act, a federal law that sets a national standard for driver's licenses and requires states to link their record-keeping systems to national databases. Though several states have either passed or are considering resolutions or bills against the act, Montana is the first state to outright deny its implementation, according to the American Civil Liberties Union....

More state governments defy congress and reject Real ID By Ryan Paul | Published: April 09, 2007 - 03:43PM CT The New Hampshire House of Representatives voted last week to block implementation of the federal government's controversial Real ID act. Since New Hampshire Governor John Lynch does not intend to veto the Real ID rejection bill, it will pass if approved by the state senate. Characterized by New Hampshire Representative Sherman Packard as "the worst piece of blackmail to come out of the federal government," the Real ID Act creates a set of uniform standards for state-issued ID cards, and...

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff visited Seattle on Friday to help Gov. Christine Gregoire kick off a pilot program that will allow Washington state residents to use a security-enhanced driver's license, rather than a passport, to travel to and from Canada. Chertoff predicted the new licenses will help meet the department's dual goals of enhancing security and reducing wait-times at the border. In a wide-ranging discussion with The Seattle Times editorial board after the event, Chertoff spoke repeatedly of his agency's efforts to balance competing demands. On issues ranging from port security to air travel to home-grown terrorism, Chertoff described...

(Will new requirement for driver's licenses create unsafe roads and second-class citizens?) Laws requiring motorists to prove they are in the country legally to get a driver's license will force immigrant workers further underground, make roads more dangerous and inconvenience all drivers, local workers' rights advocates say.A state law goes into effect April 1, requiring proof of legal presence in the United States before a driver's license or state ID card is issued. The new law will put Wisconsin in compliance with the federal REAL ID law, which requires states to adopt a legal presence requirement by May 2008. Civil...