| Yesterday, South Carolina's Governor Mark Sanford told the media that he wouldn't ask for more time to comply with the federal government's Real ID requirements. Homeland Security chief, Michael Chertoff, gave the extension to the state anyway, citing that state's plans to toughen its licensing security requirements.
Sound familiar? It should. That's the same way the federal government "handled" Governor's Schweitzer's declaration that Montana wouldn't be participating in the Real ID program:
Montana's attorney general sent DHS chief Michael Chertoff a letter (.pdf) Friday outlining the security features in Montana's current driver's licenses, which DHS threatened to reject as valid I.D. for boarding airplanes or entering federal buildings come May 11 unless the state promised to comply with Real ID.
DHS responded by interpreting that letter as a request for an extension (.pdf) of the Real ID deadlines until 2010, reversing its previous position that Montana ID cards would be rejected by federal agents.
"I sent them a horse and if they want to call it a zebra, that's up to them," Schweitzer said. "They can call it whatever they want, and it wasn't a love letter."
The problems with Real ID are many. It's an unfunded mandate, and state will have to pick up the cost. Cataloging so much personal information would subject everyone to identity theft. And it's not even an effective plan. Or, as Schweitzer said in a much bally-hooed NPR interview, a half-dozen kids at Kinko's could forge the documents needed for a Real ID.
But beyond the practical objections to the act, there's an issue of privacy. The Bush administration has been all too eager to collect as much information about its citizens as it can. Wiretapping, collecting cell phone information, collecting Internet usage data, and data mining. This administration has created a monstrous surveillance state, and Real ID - slipped through the Senate without debate as a rider on a tsunami relief bill -- is a part of that effort.
(Incidentally, Rehberg called opposition to Real ID, "emotionalism.")
Joining Montana and South Carolina in resisting Real ID are New Hampshire and Maine. And California and Arizona are flirting with rebellion.
But make no mistake - Brian Schweitzer is the face of this resistance, thanks to his interview with NPR and his subsequent, bold comments in favor of resisting federal encroachment into states' rights.
I'm all for using the federal government to ensure the civil liberties of its citizens from states, but there's no way we should stand by and allow the federals to usurp the states to impinge on our basic rights. |
