Unless someone blinks, after May 11 air travel for Mainers will get a lot more complicated. So will entering a federal office building or courthouse. That is the day the Department of Homeland Security institutes new regulations that will gradually turn drivers\u2019 licenses into national identification cards.<\/p>\n
Whoops. We\u2019re not supposed to say that. The new regulations, part of the Real ID program, are supposed to \u201cenhance the integrity and reliability of drivers\u2019 licenses and identification cards,\u201d according to a press release from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).<\/p>\n
Essentially Real ID sets common standards for all drivers\u2019 licenses and state identity cards nationwide and creates the electronic infrastructure that gives states and the federal government access to each other\u2019s databases of personal information. Early last year an outraged and skeptical Maine legislature almost unanimously passed a bill opposing the new rules and forbidding the state\u2019s participation. Since then at least sixteen other states have passed bills or resolutions similarly opposing.<\/p>\n
According to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, Real ID will make America safe from terrorists, stop identity theft, and solve the illegal immigration problem. According to its opponents, Real ID is a massive invasion of personal privacy that offers no assurances of safety or security but will impose a multi-billion-dollar unfunded mandate on the states. Once in place, opponents add, Real ID presents the very real opportunity for \u201cmission creep,\u201d with its use expanding to include prescription drug purchases, banking, employment, and even access to a voting booth.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe vote opposing Real ID in the legislature wasn\u2019t about the money,\u201d Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap explains. \u201cEvery caucus, Republican and Democratic, House and Senate, said we don\u2019t trust the government to create databases of personal information and controls on how we move around.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cReal ID fundamentally undermines Mainers\u2019 privacy and security,\u201d declares Shenna Bellows, executive director of the Maine Civil Liberties Union (MCLU). \u201cThe federal government is foisting a national identification card on Americans without any debate on the pros or cons.\u201d<\/p>\n
Opposition to the new regulations has brought together an unusual assortment of players, from the MCLU to George Smith of the Sportsman\u2019s Alliance of Maine to legislative leaders of both parties. In truth, it\u2019s difficult to find anyone in Maine who supports the measure outside the few dozen members of Mainers for a Sensible Immigration Policy, who hope that Real ID is the solution to the illegal immigration problem.<\/p>\n
Maine Senator Susan Collins chaired the Homeland Security Committee when the original Real-ID legislation was passed and today is the ranking Republican member. She gets some of the credit for delaying implementation of the rules, and over the past several months, as public opposition to Real ID has mounted, she has adopted a progressively tougher stance against the program.<\/p>\n
Among other points, she notes that in 2004 she and her then-Democratic counterpart on the committee, Senator Joe Lieberman, of Connecticut, had written a bill that called for a collaborative approach between the federal government and the states in developing a new, more secure ID. \u201cThen Real ID was slipped through, and it repealed the language Joe and I had written,\u201d she recalls. \u201cWe need a tamper-proof ID. We don\u2019t need Real ID.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Collins says Real ID \u201cwas slipped through,\u201d she isn\u2019t exaggerating. A relatively obscure congressman from Wisconsin, F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., had been promoting Real ID for several years without success until 2005, when he managed to attach the program as a rider to a supplemental military appropriations bill. It sailed through Congress under the radar and without debate.<\/p>\n
Originally Real ID was promoted as an anti-terrorist measure, but that argument faltered when opponents pointed out that all of the 9\/11 hijackers carried valid identification papers that would have passed the Real ID test. Then supporters argued that it would prevent identity theft \u2013 until the DHS\u2019 Transportation Security Administration created a Web site that left the personal information of air travelers open to the public.<\/p>\n
Now Real ID is being pushed as an anti-illegal immigration program, which makes some people wonder what that has to do with air travel. And since it\u2019s a federal program being implemented by state motor vehicle departments, does that also turn drivers\u2019 license examiners into immigration agents? Matt Dunlap says that\u2019s not in the job description of any of his employees.<\/p>\n
Real ID was supposed to be fully implemented by this year, but critics won delays while DHS tried to reduce costs \u2013 originally estimated at twenty billion dollars \u2013 and answer questions about its effectiveness. If Maine and other recalcitrant states want their licenses and other state-issued IDs to remain valid for air travel after May 11, they must apply for a waiver claiming they need more time to comply.<\/p>\n
As it now stands, people born on or after December 1, 1964, will have to obtain the new ID by December 1, 2014. Those born before December 1, 1964, will have until December 1, 2017. \u201cThe reason for that,\u201d Dunlap says with a laugh, \u201cis that DHS figures that people over fifty years old are less likely to be terrorists. Hello? Anyone care to guess how old Osama Bin Laden is?\u201d (Bin Laden\u2019s birth date is generally given as March 10, 1957.)<\/p>\n
Collins hopes that Maine applies for the extension, which gives the state until the end of 2009. \u201cThe state has many legitimate points about the cost and privacy concerns,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I don\u2019t want to see Maine citizens suffering the consequences of Maine not asking for the extension.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mainers who cannot produce an acceptable ID after the May 11 deadline \u2013 a passport or a military ID card, for example \u2013 will face additional screening at airport security checkpoints. \u201cThere are practical implications for residents of states that don\u2019t participate,\u201d acknowledges DHS spokesperson Amy Kudwa. \u201cThe IDs of states that opt out are no longer valid for federal purposes. This is the law, and we are the enforcing agency.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if just Maine stays out of the program, it\u2019s going to cause chaos at the airports in Portland and Bangor,\u201d Dunlap says, \u201cand in Chicago and Boston and Los Angeles, too, because Mainers travel. But it\u2019s not just Maine \u2013 Montana, Georgia, New Hampshire, all those other states have refused to join the program.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDHS is trying to scare Maine into backing down,\u201d warns the MCLU\u2019s Bellows. \u201cWhat\u2019s really going to happen on May 11 is nothing is going to happen. It\u2019s hard to believe that DHS is going to prevent the residents of all these states from boarding planes unless they go through enhanced security procedures. It would be a nightmare.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kudwa says DHS is hanging tough in the expectation that travelers who face the additional hassles will demand that their state governments comply with the program. She dismisses the possibility that citi-zens who already loathe the uncertainty and humiliation of modern air travel might direct their wrath at DHS instead.<\/p>\n
There are other issues with Real ID beyond flight delays. Bellows points out that Chertoff could end up explaining himself to a federal judge if citizens are barred from entering a federal courthouse or office building without showing a Real-ID compliant document. \u201cThere are serious First Amendment problems relating to the right to assemble and right to petition the government for redress of grievances,\u201d she notes. \u201cIf people are forced to show a Real ID license to enter a federal building, it imposes an unreasonable restriction on their access to their public servants.\u201d<\/p>\n
Collins notes that her constituent offices in Bangor and Augusta are both in federal buildings that will require the new identification to enter. \u201cThere is a list of alternative acceptable documents,\u201d she explains, \u201cbut otherwise I do fear there will be inconveniences.\u201d Both of Maine\u2019s congressmen, Tom Allen and Michael Michaud, have expressed opposition to Real ID, and Senator Olympia Snowe has called for delays to work out a compromise.<\/p>\n
Bellows says barring people who lack approved identification could be seen as imposing limits on the right of a federal court defendant to face his or her accuser or the right of a witness to testify. \u201cThe regulations do not address the constitutionality issue at all,\u201d Bellows notes. \u201cWe think Real ID is constitutionally unsound, and the Department of Homeland Security is opening itself to immediate legal challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dunlap notes that there is already talk of requiring Real ID-compliant identification for voters. \u201cThe Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform included it in their final recommendations,\u201d he says. If that happens, the state will not be allowed to charge a fee for a driver\u2019s license, because it would be interpreted as a poll tax, which is illegal.<\/p>\n
Among the few people publicly supporting the program in Maine is Robert Casimiro, of Bridgton, executive director of Mainers for a Sensible Immigration Policy and a member of the Minutemen, which made headlines last year when its members highlighted illegal immigration by setting up their own patrols of the Mexican border. The Brunswick High School graduate returned to the state a year ago from Massachusetts, where he led a similar organization. Both, he says, are outgrowths of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, itself an offshoot of the bitter battle inside the national Sierra Club in the late 1990s over immigration policy and overpopulation.<\/p>\n
\u201cPersonally I\u2019m not too thrilled about Real ID,\u201d Casimiro admits, \u201cbut if it will force Maine to do what it currently is not doing \u2013 requiring driver\u2019s license applicants to prove they are legal residents of the United States \u2013 then I have to support it.\u201d Casimiro notes that Vermont and New Hampshire already require proof of legal residence to earn a driver\u2019s license. Both also oppose Real ID.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not asking state employees to be immigration agents. But they need to verify that people are who they say they are,\u201d he argues. \u201cRight now the rules for getting a hunting license in Maine are much more strict than for getting a driver\u2019s license.\u201d<\/p>\n
George Smith, executive director of the Sportsman\u2019s Alliance of Maine, has some experience with that issue. He fears that Real ID is a foot in the door to increasing government surveillance of citizens. \u201cLook what happened with our Social Security numbers,\u201d he says. Many older Mainers have Social Security cards from their youth that say prominently \u201cNot to be used for identification.\u201d Now the number is required for all sorts of things.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was refused a fishing license in Florida and a pheasant hunting license in North Dakota because I refused to give them my Social Security number,\u201d Smith recalls. To him Real ID \u201csmacks of needing a passport to travel in your own country.\u201d<\/p>\n
For now, Mainers can only wait to see if someone blinks. Collins says Chertoff, with whom she speaks frequently on DHS issues, \u201cthinks he already has blinked by allowing the extension to 2009. He\u2019s very unhappy with that delay.\u201d<\/p>\n
By early February, at least, Dunlap was predicting that Maine wouldn\u2019t blink, either. \u201cI hate to be alarmist and say our liberty is at stake,\u201d he muses, \u201cbut we need to have that discussion. We don\u2019t need to roll over to a bureaucratic automaton. Justice William O. Douglas once said that oppression doesn\u2019t come suddenly, like turning off a light. It comes slowly, like nightfall, just getting darker and darker.\u201d