« Ind. Gov't. - "Was Kalispell, Montanna's prospective new city manager, Matt McKillip, reluctant to produce public information while he was mayor of Kokomo, Ind.?" | Main | Ind. Law - "Indiana executions at slowest pace in 15 years" »

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Law - "Obama Administration Plans to Scale Back Real ID Law"

Spencer S. Hsu reports today in the Washington Post:

Yielding to a rebellion by states that refused to pay for it, the Obama administration is moving to scale back a federal law passed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that was designed to tighten security requirements for driver's licenses, Homeland Security Department and congressional officials said.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wants to repeal and replace the controversial, $4 billion domestic security initiative known as Real ID, which calls for placing more secure licenses in the hands of 245 million Americans by 2017. The new proposal, called Pass ID, would be cheaper, less rigorous and partly funded by federal grants, according to draft legislation that Napolitano's Senate allies plan to introduce as early as tomorrow.

The rebranding effort follows months of talks with the National Governors Association and poses political risk for Obama as well as Napolitano, a former NGA chairwoman who wants to soothe strained relations with the states without appearing to retreat on a recommendation by the 9/11 Commission. * * *

As governor of Arizona, Napolitano called Real ID "feel-good" legislation not worth the cost, and she signed a state law last year opting out of the plan. As secretary, she said a substitute would "accomplish some of the same goals."

Eleven states have refused to participate in Real ID despite a Dec. 31 federal deadline.

"The department's goal is to fix, not repeal" Real ID, allowing all jurisdictions to comply by year's end, said a DHS official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity before a formal announcement.

"If the law cannot be implemented, it is hard to claim that it increases security," said David Quam, lobbyist for the NGA.

The new plan keeps elements of Real ID, such as requiring a digital photograph, signature and machine-readable features such as a bar code. States also will still need to verify applicants' identities and legal status by checking federal immigration, Social Security and State Department databases.

But it eliminates demands for new databases -- linked through a national data hub -- that would allow all states to store and cross-check such information, and a requirement that motor vehicle departments verify birth certificates with originating agencies, a bid to fight identity theft.

Instead, it adds stronger privacy controls and limits such development to a pilot program in Mississippi. DHS would have nine months to write new regulations, and states would have five years to reissue all licenses, with completion expected in 2016. * * *

The new plan would still let people get licenses with fake documents, said Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), who authored the 2005 legislation. "We go right back to where we were on Sept. 10, 2001," he said, "Maybe governors should have been in the Capitol when we knew a plane was on its way to Washington wanting to kill a few thousand more people."

Pass ID also penalizes states that have spent millions to digitize their records, rewards laggards with federal funds and makes new requirements unenforceable, foes said.

For example, the new bill kills provisions that would have required the new IDs to board airplanes and that IDs that did not comply with the requirements feature a different color or design.

Meanwhile, privacy groups also objected, saying Real ID should just be killed.

"We don't want to end up with National ID Lite," said Chris Calabrese, counsel to the technology and liberty program at the American Civil Liberties Union.

Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said the plan is "a lot softer" but will still leave more Americans' personal data subject to theft and misuse.

Sens. Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii) and George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio), the bill's sponsors, are seeking support from Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (Maine), the chairman and ranking Republican, respectively, on the Senate homeland security committee, and other centrist lawmakers. So far, no other Republicans have signed on.

John Gramlich had a story in Government Technology on April 23rd that began:
Congress and the Obama administration are considering ceding key ground in a long-running battle between the federal government and the states over Real ID, the 4-year-old federal program that requires all states to start issuing more secure driver's licenses by the end of the year.
Computerworld's Jaikumar Vijayan wrote June 1 under the headline "Oregon joins list of states saying no to Real ID: State won't adopt Real ID unless feds reimburse costs, lawmakers say." Some quotes:
Oregon is one step closer to becoming the latest in a growing number of states to reject the Real ID Act, which sets a national standard for driver's licenses.

Lawmakers in Oregon's House of Representatives approved a bill on Friday that would prohibit agencies from spending state money to implement the requirements of the Real ID Act unless the federal government reimburses them the money.

The bill, which now heads to the governor for his signature, would also prevent the state Department of Transportation from implementing requirements of the Real ID Act unless it can demonstrate specific security controls for protecting driver's license data. The bill passed the Senate in April.

If signed into law, the bill would make Oregon one of more than two dozen states with measures either rejecting or opposing the Real ID mandate, put in motion by former President George W. Bush.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has been tracking state opposition to the bill, currently lists more than a dozen states that have passed statutes prohibiting the implementation of Real ID.

The most recent of those rejections was by Minnesota which in May signed into law a statute that prohibits Real ID implementation. Others include Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Washington.

In addition, another 10 have passed resolutions denouncing Real ID, while anti Real-ID legislation has been introduced in five other states.

The growing number of states blocking Real ID is sure to increase the pressure on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is responsible for overseeing the standard, to either drop the initiative or somehow make it more acceptable to states. It's a particularly tricky balancing act for the Obama administration because DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano was among the first to reject Real ID as former governor of Arizona.

Here is the chart "tracking state opposition to the bill" referenced in the story.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on June 14, 2009 01:50 PM
Posted to General Law Related