REAL ID Is a Dead Letter

Ten states have now passed legislation rejecting the REAL ID Act, the national ID law Congress passed without a hearing in May 2005.


Massachusetts may be next. According to the Boston Globe, the registrar of motor vehicles in that state issued scathing comments to the DHS on the regulations implementing the law. Apparently, there were 12,000 comments in total — quite a few of them negative, I’ll wager.


I have testified on REAL ID twice in the U.S. Senate, both times calling the law a “dead letter” — once in the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and once in the Judiciary Committee.