The lines at the Louisiana Department of Motor Vehicles may be getting even longer. The Real ID Act of 2005 orders states to begin the process of implementing new driver’s licenses by December 2009. The act sets minimum standards for the issuance of state driver’s licenses and identification cards. The new cards will be necessary to board federally-regulated airplanes, access federal facilities and open bank accounts. The Department of Homeland Security officials said the new regulations will make it more difficult to fraudulently acquire a driver’s license. The act is part of the effort to fight terrorism and reduce fraud. The new minimum standards will include information and security features that must be incorporated into each card. States will be required to verify proof of identity and U.S. citizenship, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The act was passed in 2005, but it has met significant opposition across the nation. So far, seven states have passed legislation that rejects Real ID. Brett Geymann, R-Lake Charles, plans to introduce a bill at the 2008 regular legislative session on March 31 that will voice Louisiana’s non-compliance with the act. The bill will be modeled after Montana legislation that passed last month. The effort originated when the 9/11 Commission recommended improvements to the system of issuing secure identification documents. F. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., attached the act to a defense appropriations bill, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s Web site. Many opponents of the act voiced concerns about the way legislation was passed. Amanda Swanner, research director of the Louisiana Action Council, said legislators who opposed Real ID were scared to vote against it because they would also be voting against Iraq appropriations and tsunami funding. Geymann is working with the Louisiana Action Council to raise awareness about the issue across the state. The Louisiana Action Council is a non-profit, statewide grassroots organization that supports efforts to make government more efficient and effective. “States should have the right to say that this is ridiculous,” said Brian McNabb, executive director for the Louisiana Action Council. Real ID is not a federal mandate, so states are not required to participate, according to the Department of Homeland Security. But if a state chooses not to comply with the provisions, its driver’s licenses and identification cards will no longer be acceptable for official federal purposes. Residents of the non-compliant states will need to present another form of federal identification, such as a U.S. passport, to board federally-regulated commercial aircraft and access federal facilities. “If enough states reject the act, then they will have to do something,” McNabb said. “Half of the country will be in non-compliance.” Geymann said the issue of protection against terrorism is important, but this particular legislation is raising some major privacy and logistic problems. He is looking at the other states who have rejected the act as inspirations for his own bill. “Our goal is to get enough states to opt out of this,” Geymann said. “Then the federal government will be forced to look at this again. Despite the looming December 2009 deadline, many people seem confused and unsure as to what exactly Real ID will do and how it will be implemented. Louisiana, like 46 other states, filed an extension in anticipation of the original May 2008 deadline. “Real ID is an unfunded mandate from Congress that will create a huge financial burden for the states,” Swanner said. The law will force states to build new information systems and create an extensive new document storage system, said Swanner. States that have been granted an extension will be required to issue compliant licenses and identification cards no later than Jan. 1, 2010, according to the Department of Homeland Security. All licenses and identification cards must be compliant by May 10, 2013. McNabb said he will have a better idea of how much implementation will actually cost the state after Geymann introduces his bill. Once the bill is introduced, the legislature will determine the fiscal concerns. Montana’s legislature determined that compliance would cost their state approximately $57 million. The issues also raises identity theft concerns, as each license will contain electronically-encoded personal information. Also, each DMV will be required to store copies of every birth certificate. Realnightmare.org, a site that encourages non-compliance, calls the Real ID cards “one-stop shops for identity thieves.” “Already, bars often swipe licenses to collect personal data on customers,” the site said. “That will prove to be just the tip of the iceberg as every convenience store learns to grab that data and sell it to data companies for a dime.” The Department of Homeland Security maintains that Real ID will help cut back identity theft concerns. It establishes “layers of security to ensure that identity documents only go to the people they actually belong to.”
—-Contact Jack LeBlanc at [email protected]