From: Sverker K. Hogberg <skh2101@columbia.edu>
  To  : <CPC@emoglen.law.columbia.edu>
  Date: Fri, 06 May 2005 16:03:37 -0400

"Real ID Act" About to Become Law

Here's an article about the "Real ID Act" (imposing uniform requirements 
on state drivers licenses) that has been attached to an emergency 
military spending bill that is expected to be signed into law very soon. 
This seems like a particularly serious (but typical) abuse of 
legislative riders to appropriations bills.
http://news.com.com/FAQ+How+Real+ID+will+affect+you/2100-1028_3-5697111.html?tag=nefd.lede

"Starting three years from now, if you live or work in the United 
States, you'll need a federally approved ID card to travel on an 
airplane, open a bank account, collect Social Security payments, or take 
advantage of nearly any government service."

State licenses will have to store your name, birth date, sex, ID number, 
digital photograph, and address, and perhaps biometric data like retinal 
scans (TBD by homeland security dept). Since state licenses will have to 
use "common machine-readable technology" (barcodes, etc) this 
potentially allows for far better tracking/surveillance of individuals, 
and far better economies of scale for deploying scanning and centralized 
authentication systems, even outside of the context of government services.

Imagine having your license scanned, centrally authenticated, and logged 
for each and every one of the times you currently present photo ID (at 
bars, when buying cigarettes, at security checkpoints in large manhattan 
office buildings, at pharmacies, etc). That's a huge step in the 
direction of a ubiquitous national ID card system w/o the 
public/legislative scrutiny and vetting usually given to a stand-alone bill.


Slashdot Coverage: 
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/05/05/06/1516210.shtml?tid=158&tid=172&tid=219
Real ID Act (see Title II): 
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c109:2:./temp/~c1098DBdTR::

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