May 16, 2007 11:28AM 

# REAL ID Is a Dead Letter 

By [Jim Harper](https://www.cato.org/people/jim-harper) 

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[Ten states](http://www.realnightmare.org/news/105/) 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*](http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/05/16/state_says_real_id_plan_will_cost_150m/), 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](https://www.cato.org/testimony/ct-jh03262007.html) and once in the [Judiciary Committee](https://www.cato.org/testimony/ct-jh20070508.html).

##### Related Tags 

[Defense and Foreign Policy](https://www.cato.org/defense-foreign-policy), [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Technology and Privacy](https://www.cato.org/technology-privacy), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) 

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