The Department of Homeland Security issued regulations to implement the REAL ID Act today. Well, it issued regulations to delay implementation, anyway. The regs really don’t explain anything in this fundamentally flawed national ID law. They just kick the can down the road.
I’ll compile here some links to Cato@Liberty blog posts about what I’ve been up to. Apologies to C@L readers forced to slog through my meanderings twice.
First of all, it’s interesting to watch the slow-motion collapse of so many government ID programs because they are so poorly designed and poorly thought through.
That isn’t stopping politicians from trying to shore them up. Representative Barbara Cubin (R-WY), for example, has been misdirecting her state’s legislators about what the law says.
I originally thought that Senator Collins (R-ME) was confused about REAL ID. Her state was the first to pass legislation rejecting REAL ID, so you would think she would not try to help force states to implement a national ID. But it now is quite clear that Senator Collins (R-DHS) supports REAL ID.
The people who know what they’re talking about are folks like George Smith up in Maine and – my very favorite – Bill Bishop, the Director of the Idaho Bureau of Homeland Security. Summarizing REAL ID’s utility as a national security tool, Bishop said: “I don’t believe in the Easter Bunny, I don’t believe in Santa Claus, and I don’t believe in the Lone Ranger. Which means I don’t believe in silver bullets.”
Look for the forthcoming podcast on REAL ID (and other cool stuff), right here on TLF.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
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