REAL ID continues its long, slow failure. The federal government’s national ID plans continue to bash against the shoals of state and popular opposition.
Late last month, the governor of Utah signed H.B. 234 into law. The bill prohibits the Utah driver license division from implementing REAL ID. That brings to 25 the number of states rejecting the national ID law, according to the Tenth Amendment Center.
And the state of Nevada, one of few states that had been working to get in front of REAL ID, is reconsidering. With wait times at Las Vegas DMVs reaching two to four hours, the legislature may soon allow a temporary REAL ID implementation measure signed last year to lapse—this according to the Ely (NV) News.
Congress has attempted to circumvent the growing state opposition to REAL ID with the now-stalled PASS ID legislation. It basically would rename REAL ID so as to nullify the many state resolutions and laws barring implementation of the national ID law because they refer to the May 2005 “REAL ID” law specifically.
But PASS ID is the same national ID, it has all the privacy issues of REAL ID, and its costs would be as great or greater than REAL ID.
That doesn’t mean national ID supporters in Congress won’t try to sneak the REAL ID revival bill into law sometime later this year, of course . . .
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.