ACLU presses candidates to repeal Real ID card law

The ACLU has rightly thrust the REAL ID Act - and the need for all candidates to proclaim their opposition to it - into the Presidential campaign.

For those that follow the campaign - or privacy for that matter - its probably not a great suprise to know that Democratic candidates Dennis Kucinich and John Edwards, as well as Republican candidate Ron Paul, are the only ones to date to CLEARLY articulate the threat the REAL ID Act poses to civil liberties.

New Hampshire's Union Leader reports:

Begun in July, the national and state organizations' efforts to get the candidates to publicly reject the plan to turn the state driver's license into a de facto national identification card haven't had much success.

While former Sen. John Edwards and Ron Paul are on record against Real ID as a threat to civil liberties, as is Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Sen. Barack Obama's only response so far has been to object on grounds it's an unfunded mandate and not enough has been done to help the state's implement it.

Ebel said requests to the national office of Sen. Hillary Clinton have produced no response, so she's hoping the campaign organization here will be more receptive. On the Republican side, former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney's campaign said that he favors a national ID, but opposes driver's licenses for illegal immigrants. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has said he doesn't think DMV workers should be in the immigration business.

...

Calabrese said the ACLU projects that although Real ID calls for the states to be in charge of their own information, ultimately the Feds will say "let us handle the database."

Ebel and Calabrese said the Department of Homeland Security is beginning to figure out there's growing opposition to Real ID at the state level, so they've introduced the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative that ACLU officials termed a "bait and switch" plan, which would hook up the driver's license base to customs databases.

Although people were originally going to have a passport to cross the border, DHS said if states linked their driver's license base to customs databases, they'd then be in compliance with Real ID. A key concern is that the DHS could expand the uses beyond the official purpose of Real ID. As specified by legislation, the Real ID is a secure card issued by states to be used only for the following reasons: to access a federal facility, board federally regulated commercial aircraft and enter nuclear plants.

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