There are times where John McCain appears genuinely vulnerable in the Rocky Mountain West, including Montana. When he spends time saying things like this, it seems even more likely:
The 9/11 Commission recommended that the federal government set standards for the issuance of birth certificates and sources of identification, such as driver's licenses. Consistent with these recommendations, the Real ID act established federal guidelines to prevent fraud in the issuance and acquisition of identity documents. I support full implementation of Real ID but understand that states need to be given enough time and funding to implement the requirements. (Emphasis mine.)
There's some other mediocre stuff in that interview, like McCain's belief that a broadband infrastructure will just emerge without government help (I wonder where we'd be if Eisenhower took that approach with the Interstate system), but defense of Real ID is just clearly out of step here in the West.
Also -- I think McCain has voted for the Patriot Act repeatedly and opposed reforms. Yargh.
I've already touched on Tester's work on the CARD bill - which would force some sanity back into the credit card industry and do much to help a lot of consumers from getting fleeced - but I haven't given our state's junior Senator his props for his stance on Real ID:
Republican and Democratic senators alike railed Thursday against the cost and potential privacy problems of the Real ID Act, but a Homeland Security official insisted that the department has borne much of the expense for new driver's license standards.
"It is, as I see it, the worst kind of Washington, D.C., boondoggle," Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., said at a hearing of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs oversight subcommittee.
Now that we're paying attention to national databases of private information - thanks to the Good Guv's fight against Real ID - maybe we should consider the dangers of building such a system. Two recent BoingBoingposts illustrate the need for concern.
The very existence of a National Data Center may encourage certain federal officials to engage in questionable surveillance tactics. For example, optical scanners - devices with the capacity to read a variety of type fonts or handwriting at fantastic rates of speed - could be used to monitor our mail. By linking scanners with a computer system, the information drawn in by the scanner would be converted into machine-readable form and transferred into the subject's file in the National Data Center....
These tactics, as well as the possibility of coupling wiretapping and computer processing, undoubtedly will be extremely attractive to overzealous law-enforcement officers. Similarly, the ability to transfer into the National Data Center quantities of information maintained in nonfederal files - credit ratings, educational information from schools and universities, local and state tax information, and medical records - will enable governmental snoopers to obtain data that they have no authority to secure on their own.
Miller also noted that information cataloged thusly is subject to malicious or accidental alteration, that the information could be stolen by commercial interests, or others.
Nineteen-f*cking-sixty-seven.
Maybe it's time to start advocating for a privacy amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
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.
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.
The Governor signed a bill opting out of REAL ID today -- meaning Montana is not going to be part of the de facto national ID system. The bill passed unanimously.
Jon Tester is already on it -- calling on the U.S. Senate to listen to the people of Montana. Similar bills are moving elsewhere in the country.
More as real news stories are up.
Update - AP story is up. Montana is joining Arkansas and Idaho. Maine, Washington, and Hawaii are also being pains in the feds' asses on this one. That's a nice red/blue coalition, I think.
