Declan McCullagh on Real ID:

Declan McCullagh is CNET News.com's chief political correspondent. He has gained fame on the net for his discussions of many aspects of the law that interest web citizens, Intellectual Property and Media people. He has a FAQ on Real ID. His FAQ is - I would say - rather evenhanded. Here's where it gets interesting:

Is this a national ID card?
It depends on whom you ask. Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's technology and liberty program, says: "It's going to result in everyone, from the 7-Eleven store to the bank and airlines, demanding to see the ID card. They're going to scan it in. They're going to have all the data on it from the front of the card...It's going to be not just a national ID card but a national database."

McCullagh's new column (4/17/06) is titled "Perspective: The Real ID rebellion." In it, he discusses New hampshire's rebellion: they have passed a state law forbidding NH from participating in Real ID. Here are two more interesting quotes:

While New Hampshire may be the first, it's not alone. Other state politicians are seething over how the federales are strong-arming them on national IDs.

The National Governors Association, hardly a bunch of libertarians, has called the Real ID Act "unworkable and counterproductive." The National Conference of State Legislatures wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff in October, asking him to defer to states' expertise.

No doubt much of the political outcry is over money and would evaporate if the Feds wrote checks to cover the cost of upgrading state computer systems. (The governors' press release baldly admits they're "asking Congress to fund the changes required" by the Real ID Act. One taxpayer watchdog group puts the cost at $90 per Real ID card.)

That would be a shame. Privacy and autonomy are even better reasons to be skeptical of this scheme.

And he also notes that Real ID might conflict with the Tenth Amendment to the constitution:

"Having a national ID would promote a surveillance society that we should all dread," Jim Harper, the director of information policy studies at the free-market Cato Institute, told the state Senate committee last week.

The sad thing is that the U.S. Constitution was written to prohibit the federal government from taking such drastic steps. The long-forgotten Tenth Amendment says that powers not explicitly delegated to the Feds "are reserved to the states" or to the people.

Our Story so far ...

A nice column by Justine Nicholas at www.LewRockwell.com sums up the current Real ID controversy, noting the strange bedfellows forming for and against it, and making a few other interesting points. She quotes an opponent saying "You need ID to get ID. And no ID means no work." And she notes that New Jersey may actually have a more secure system for requiring ID than the federal Real ID system (the federal law overrides state laws).

She aptly focuses on the hysteria to do anything in the name of security, so that:

[Proponents] have been joined by hysterical officials and laypeople who will endorse anything that can be attached to the word "security," however tenuously. So we see people who find nothing wrong with creating the Police State of America joining forces with those who claim to oppose governmental control of people’s lives.

"You need ID to get ID. And no ID means no work."

A nice column by Justine Nicholas at www.LewRockwell.com sums up the current Real ID controversy, noting the strange bedfellows forming for and against it, and making a few other interesting points. She quotes an opponent saying "You need ID to get ID. And no ID means no work." And she notes that New Jersey may actually have a more secure system for requiring ID than the federal real ID system (the federal law overrides state laws).

She aptly focuses on the hysteria to do anything in the name of security, so that:

[Proponents] have been joined by hysterical officials and laypeople who will endorse anything that can be attached to the word "security," however tenuously. So we see people who find nothing wrong with creating the Police State of America joining forces with those who claim to oppose governmental control of people’s lives.

The Devil is in the Details (and here they come):

You probably remember that the real ID law is not complete. The law requires the DHS to specify additional requirements that every state must meet. A news story at Security Document World lists recommendations that an organization called the Document Security Alliance (DSA) has made to the DHS. (No telling whether the DHS is listening, of course.) The DSA "is made up of approximately 70 industry members and representatives from 20 federal government organizations including the United States Secret Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Departments of Homeland Security, Treasury and Transportation, along with the Social Security Administration, Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and the Government Printing Office." This group has apparently looked at issues of compatibility, retention, verifiability and authentication, and they've made a lot of recommendations. At the very least, they are showing us how complicated (and expensive) it may be to "do Real ID right." Here are some of their concerns:

* electronic scanning and archiving for document capture, retention and storage;
* electronic verification of applicant information;
* 2D Barcodes as the standard overt machine-readable technology for carrying data;
* incorporation of new technologies to enable cross-jurisdictional point of inspection human and machine-readable ID authentication (such as barcodes, digital watermarks and optical media);
* support for current major issuing methods (Over-the-Counter, Central, Hybrid) with security process improvements;
* document durability and performance standards including the use of composite cards, PVC and polyester, polycarbonate, Teslin or other card materials that can meet the performance requirements yet are also compatible with current typical personalization equipment presently being used in secure ID issuance systems;
* 5-year validity period for identity credentials
* physical security of materials and facilities ;
* training on fraudulent documents and human-verifiable and machine-readable features of credentials.

Here's one small sample point: some states believe they are already in compliance with the Real ID act, but if the DHS accepts these recommendations and establishes challenging standards for the required degree of detail used to scan paper documents, all states may have to buy new systems and rescan everything their citizens have already produced.

The DSA'a website is www.documentsecurityalliance.com. You will find two interesting, short papers here at their site.

Britain tries the National ID:

Britain apparently is setting up a national ID including biometric ID. First will come the national register (data base) and then the plastic cards. Here's an angry article claiming (among other things) that the rate of people turning age 16 will exceed the rate of people who can be biometrically ID'd in a year. (In other words, the registry will never be complete.)

Keep an eye on the british National ID. They have less privacy protection and rights than Americans, and the government may still have a very hard time managing the registry. Here's a web site fighting against the British National ID.