December 15, 2009 1:10PM # REAL ID Retreats Yet Again By [Jim Harper](https://www.cato.org/people/jim-harper) --- SHARE Several different outlets are noting the quiet passing of a Department of Homeland Security deadline to implement our national ID law, the REAL ID Act. In May of 2008, with many states outright [rejecting this national surveillance mandate](http://www.realnightmare.org/news/105/), the DHS issued blanket waivers and set a new deadline of December 31, 2009 by which states were supposed to meet several compliance goals. They have not, and the threat that the DHS/​Transportation Security Administration would prevent Americans from traveling has quieted to a whimper. The reason why? The federal government would be blamed for it. As Neala Schwartzberg writes in [her review](http://www.examiner.com/x-1972-Albuquerque-Travel-Examiner~y2009m12d14-Real-ID-and-January-1st--What-are-the-airlines-doing-about-travelers-on-domestic-flights) of the push and pull over REAL ID: > If I was a betting person (and I am from time to time) I’d bet the backed-up-down-the-corridor traveler who is then turned away after presenting his or her state-issued, official complete with hologram ID will blame Homeland Security. Does the ongoing collapse of REAL ID leave us vulnerable? Richard Esguerra of the Electronic Frontier Foundation says in [this *Wired* article](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/12/real_id/) that REAL ID “threatens citizens’ personal privacy without actually justifying its impact or improving security.” REAL ID [remains a dead letter](http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/_files/TestimonyHarper.pdf). All that remains is for Congress to declare it so. And it may be dawning on Congress that passing it a second time under the name “PASS ID” will not work. ##### Related Tags [Defense and Foreign Policy](https://www.cato.org/defense-foreign-policy), [Technology and Privacy](https://www.cato.org/technology-privacy) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).