Skip to main content
Menu

Main navigation

  • About
    • Annual Reports
    • Leadership
    • Jobs
    • Student Programs
    • Media Information
    • Store
    • Contact
    LOADING...
  • Experts
    • Policy Scholars
    • Adjunct Scholars
    • Fellows
  • Events
    • Upcoming
    • Past
    • Event FAQs
    • Sphere Summit
    LOADING...
  • Publications
    • Studies
    • Commentary
    • Books
    • Reviews and Journals
    • Public Filings
    LOADING...
  • Blog
  • Donate
    • Sponsorship Benefits
    • Ways to Give
    • Planned Giving
    • Meet the Development Team

Issues

  • Constitution and Law
    • Constitutional Law
    • Criminal Justice
    • Free Speech and Civil Liberties
  • Economics
    • Banking and Finance
    • Monetary Policy
    • Regulation
    • Tax and Budget Policy
  • Politics and Society
    • Education
    • Government and Politics
    • Health Care
    • Poverty and Social Welfare
    • Technology and Privacy
  • International
    • Defense and Foreign Policy
    • Global Freedom
    • Immigration
    • Trade Policy
Live Now

Cato at Liberty


  • Blog Home
  • RSS

Email Signup

Sign up to have blog posts delivered straight to your inbox!

Topics
  • Banking and Finance
  • Constitutional Law
  • Criminal Justice
  • Defense and Foreign Policy
  • Education
  • Free Speech and Civil Liberties
  • Global Freedom
  • Government and Politics
  • Health Care
  • Immigration
  • Monetary Policy
  • Poverty and Social Welfare
  • Regulation
  • Tax and Budget Policy
  • Technology and Privacy
  • Trade Policy
Archives
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006
  • July 2006
  • June 2006
  • May 2006
  • April 2006
  • Show More
January 4, 2016 4:30PM

REAL ID, Rumor Control, and You

By Jim Harper

SHARE

The Identity Project says that a new DHS "Rumor Control" web page lies about the REAL ID Act. That may be true, but a lie is an intentional misstatement, and we don't know if the PR professional who wrote the material on that page knows the issues or the law. Let's review the record, taking each of the rumors DHS addresses in turn, so that the agency doesn't misstate the federal government's national ID policy in the future.

Rumor: I need a passport to fly domestically

The DHS is correct that residents of any state can currently use their drivers' licenses and IDs, as well as a variety of other forms of ID, at TSA checkpoints. Last fall, though, in an effort to buffalo states into compliance, DHS officials and others started fanning rumors that TSA would soon refuse the IDs and licenses of states that resisted the national ID program. You don't need a passport to fly yet.

Given the practice of checking IDs at airport checkpoints, the upshot of REAL ID compliance would be that the U.S. will have an internal passport system for domestic air travelers. You don't need a passport to travel within the United States now, but that is the direction the policy is going.

Rumor: TSA isn’t going to accept my driver’s license starting on January 1, 2016

It must have been reassuring when DHS's "Rumor Control" page started spreading this good news on December 31, 2015....

After deferring deadlines many times since the statutory deadline came and went in May 2008, DHS said last year that it would begin to refuse IDs from recalcitrant states "no sooner than 2016," and it has said it would provide 120-days' notice before it did. But the desire to manufacture urgency and bring states to heel seems to have gotten the better of the department, and refusal of IDs on January 1 became a widespread belief.

In fact, TSA will never institute a policy of turning away travelers from recalcitrant states. The reason why is the tidal wave of blame the agency would bring down on itself and the Congress if it ever followed through on this threat.

That doesn't mean its brinksmanship won't work. Many governors and state legislators haven't calculated what the politics look like, and they don't know that DHS has backed down every time a state has refused them.

What's also little understood is that DHS is picking and choosing which states to threaten based not on the REAL ID law, but on an in-house "material compliance checklist." DHS is issuing blanket waivers of some terms of the law to some states while it tells state officials in other states that it is absolutely required to enforce other terms against them.

Rumor: I need to get a new driver’s license or passport

The DHS response here says, "The REAL ID Act places the responsibility for action on the state, not residents of the state." A more complete clarification would say, "The REAL ID Act threatens residents of states to coerce action out of their state representatives."

The only thing that might require people to get new driver's licenses is their state legislatures and governors caving to the DHS and putting them into the national ID system. People in those states will be required to go back to the DMV and stand in line to show papers proving that they're legally entitled to be in the country. That'll be a challenge for many people, an insult to others, costly and time-consuming for everyone.

Rumor: The Department of Homeland Security is trying to build a national database with all of our information

DHS should not try to refute this again. Doing so is untruthful, false, not accurate, and incorrect. As I've noted before, the law requires states to

(12) Provide electronic access to all other States to information contained in the motor vehicle database of the State.

(13) Maintain a State motor vehicle database that contains, at a minimum –

(A) all data fields printed on drivers’ licenses and identification cards issued by the State; and
(B) motor vehicle drivers’ histories, including motor vehicle violations, suspensions, and points on licenses.

Who knows why those two items are listed out of order, but compliance with REAL ID means maintaining a big database and sharing it with every other state. States that don't do that are non-compliant with the REAL ID Act. DHS isn't requiring it yet---it's not on their "material compliance checklist"---but if states get on board, DHS will add this statutory requirement to the list.

REAL ID compliance now will put states "in for a penny, in for a pound." They're going to have to share lots of information about their residents with other states and the federal government.

Rumor: I can’t use my license to access a federal facility or nuclear power plant

As part of its staged implementation, DHS says that agencies are to refuse IDs from non-compliant states at federal facilities and locations regulated by federal identification rules. You see lots of announcements in the Federal Register about meetings where IDs from non-compliant states will be refused, and I've heard anecdotes about people coming to Washington, D.C., for government meetings being warned to have compliant IDs if their states are on the wrong side of DHS. What we haven't seen yet is anyone actually turned away from a meeting, a courthouse, or other location because the only ID they had was from a non-compliant state.

When someone is turned away from a meeting or government facility for not having a national ID, the lawsuit will be really interesting. DHS will have to claim that it can condition the right to petition the government (for example) on showing ID. And it will raise the question whether a person can be denied a constitutional right because they live in a state whose driver licensing policy differs from what the federal government prefers. The lawsuit will also expose that DHS is picking and choosing among provisions of the REAL ID law to treat as "compliance."

So, if you want your life to be easy, bring a passport on your next tour of a nuclear facility. But there are people in the country who stand on principle for liberty, sometimes at substantial cost to their convenience.

Related Tags
Technology and Privacy

Stay Connected to Cato

Sign up for the newsletter to receive periodic updates on Cato research, events, and publications.

View All Newsletters

1000 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20001-5403
202-842-0200
Contact Us
Privacy

Footer 1

  • About
    • Annual Reports
    • Leadership
    • Jobs
    • Student Programs
    • Media Information
    • Store
    • Contact
  • Podcasts

Footer 2

  • Experts
    • Policy Scholars
    • Adjunct Scholars
    • Fellows
  • Events
    • Upcoming
    • Past
    • Event FAQs
    • Sphere Summit

Footer 3

  • Publications
    • Books
    • Cato Journal
    • Regulation
    • Cato Policy Report
    • Cato Supreme Court Review
    • Cato’s Letter
    • Human Freedom Index
    • Economic Freedom of the World
    • Cato Handbook for Policymakers

Footer 4

  • Blog
  • Donate
    • Sponsorship Benefits
    • Ways to Give
    • Planned Giving
Also from Cato Institute:
Libertarianism.org
|
Humanprogress.org
|
Downsizinggovernment.org