Thursday, 25 January 2007
Maine Says Will Opt-Out of De Facto National I.D. Law
Maine's legislature overwhelmingly passed a resolution refusing to implement the REAL ID Act which requires states to standardize their drivers licenses according to federal standards, saying the bill would cost the state $185 milllion, turns the state into an extension of the federal government, and would invade privacy. The resolution also calls on Congress to repeal the rule, which was slid into a defense spending bill in 2005. Though the final standards have yet to be announced, after May 11, 2008, federal agencies won't accept non-compliant identification cards, which if the law weren't changed and Maine opted out would mean that Maine residents would have a very difficult time flying and couldn't enter federal courthouses, among other things.
"This is the beginning of the end of Real ID," said Barry Steinhardt, Director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Project. "The Real ID national ID scheme is pointless if one or more states refuse to participate, because the whole premise of the program is the creation of a single uniform national identity document and database."
Since this is only a resolution, Maine has not officially opted out, but the ACLU says statutory language is likely to be passed soon. At the end of the last session of Congress, Senators Daniel Akaka (D-HI) and John Sununu (R-NH) introduced a bill that would rollback many of the rules in the REAL ID Act, a warning shot to the Administration that the issue would be in play in the Democrat-controlled Congress in 2007. Legislators in other states including Georgia, New Hampshire and Montana have also introduced anti-REAL ID bills.
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