Maine rejection of Real ID a rebuke of 109th Congress

The Maine Legislature was the first in the nation to say no to the so-called “Real ID,” an ill-conceived leftover of the 109th Congress to create a national identity card. The vote was unequivocal – the Maine house voted for an anti-Real ID resolution 137 to 4 while the state Senate was unanimous. Soon they will consider a companion bill solidifying Maine’s rejection of Real ID in law. I hope this signals the beginning of the end of a boondoggle that offers little, costs much, and creates new security issues that put us all at risk.

What’s wrong with Real ID? Imagine if the federal government mandated the use of a single kind of door lock for every house in America. Thieves that mastered it would have access to every house. Here, having a diversity of locks is beneficial. It makes it difficult for thieves because they never know what lock they will have to beat and so gaining such broad access is not impossible.

Real ID is like having such a single lock protecting our personal information. Those that break the system gain broad access. Worse, this scheme intends to gather together a wide variety of our personal information and documents in one place making this an irresistible target for identity thieves. Already, we regularly hear of security breaches where tens of thousands of records are stolen at once. But with Real ID, millions can suddenly be exposed. Also, far from deterring terrorists, it would offer an irresistible target for them, too. Eventually, as they figured out how to make fake Real IDs, they could be virtually invisible within our borders. So the hope that this would aid homeland security is a false one. It leaves us more vulnerable both to terrorism and identity theft.

What’s worse is how Real ID distracts us from real security problems that require real solutions. What kind of ID card you have is not so important as how the back-end systems these connect to share and analyze information. We need back-end systems that can “connect the dots.” A signature success in this approach is how the states have addressed drunk drivers. Years ago, they could sidestep the consequences of their actions when states did not share information well. A driver with a suspended license could cross over state lines to get a new license and keep driving. It has been a long time since that was possible, and it didn’t take a national identity card to fix it. Instead, states simply started sharing information more effectively.

More to the point, the claim that Real ID would make a difference in tracking potential terrorists to prevent a Sept. 11-type attack is not true. All the information needed to stop the Sept. 11 terrorists was in various government systems. But they slipped through the cracks because no one managed to “connect the dots.” So far, efforts to make these organizations and their systems work better together have achieved mixed results. If Real ID had been in place before Sept. 11, it would not have made any difference whatsoever. Now, focusing on it as some kind of practical solution takes the focus off the real work of making these agencies and their systems work more effectively together.

Worse, if ever implemented, Real ID is guaranteed to be an expensive failure. The states would have to pick up the tab for this federal project – some $185 million in Maine alone over the first five years. Taxpayers would be saddled with added fees and inconvenience as the inevitable problems with it were ironed out.

Finally, Real ID gives the federal government a new tool for domestic spying on honest, law-abiding citizens. The existing driver’s license system would, in effect, be turned into something like an internal passport. Government agencies could track us wherever we go. Thieves and terrorists would inevitably break the system and become invisible while those that Real ID supposedly protects would be completely exposed to new intrusions on our privacy like the Bush administration’s illegal wiretap program.

Real ID is a real bad idea, one of many ill-conceived notions tossed around after the Sept. 11 attacks that sounded good in an atmosphere of fear but that does not hold up on calm reflection. Maine citizens can be proud that our Legislature has spoken loud and clear in a voice that will set the tone across the country, and should support passage of the companion bill that will give teeth to an already strong resolution.

Sally Dobres of Bangor is a board member and past president of the Maine Civil Liberties Union.