States Maneuver to Avoid Penalties of New Federal ID Program
Spencer S. HsuWashington PostSunday, March 30, 2008
The governors of Maine and South Carolina are working with the Department of Homeland Security to avert a showdown before tomorrow's deadline over a federal demand for new driver's licenses that could leave residents of those states unable to board aircraft, officials said.
Forty-six other states have formally sought and received extensions of a May deadline for starting work on the new licenses, and Montana and New Hampshire struck a deal a week ago that prompted DHS to grant them extensions they had not requested.
Over the past three years, DHS has struggled to fulfill the counterterrorism mandate set by Congress in 2005 to produce the new licenses by May. As DHS's timetable has slipped, resistance to the plan, known as Real ID, has grown across the country.
The plan was enacted because all but one of the hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001, had acquired, legitimately or by fraud, IDs allowing them to board planes and travel. The law, which overhauls how state ID cards and driver's licenses must be awarded, is meant to combat forgery and fraud by standardizing license data to be shared across government databases.
It requires, for example, that states verify applicants' citizenship status, check identity documents such as birth certificates, and cross-check information with other states and the federal government.
Political opposition to the plan has come from governors such as Montana's Brian Schweitzer (D), who remarked in a National Public Radio interview: "If it does come to a head, we've found it is best just to tell them to go to hell and run your state the way you want to run your state."
The plan's critics have questioned its projected $3.9 billion cost, its technical feasibility and its potential to create a de facto national ID.
But Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff in January announced a March 31 deadline for states to begin to comply and to request an extension beyond the May target. Otherwise, residents of those states could be barred from flying.
Spencer S. HsuWashington PostSunday, March 30, 2008
The governors of Maine and South Carolina are working with the Department of Homeland Security to avert a showdown before tomorrow's deadline over a federal demand for new driver's licenses that could leave residents of those states unable to board aircraft, officials said.
Forty-six other states have formally sought and received extensions of a May deadline for starting work on the new licenses, and Montana and New Hampshire struck a deal a week ago that prompted DHS to grant them extensions they had not requested.
Over the past three years, DHS has struggled to fulfill the counterterrorism mandate set by Congress in 2005 to produce the new licenses by May. As DHS's timetable has slipped, resistance to the plan, known as Real ID, has grown across the country.
The plan was enacted because all but one of the hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001, had acquired, legitimately or by fraud, IDs allowing them to board planes and travel. The law, which overhauls how state ID cards and driver's licenses must be awarded, is meant to combat forgery and fraud by standardizing license data to be shared across government databases.
It requires, for example, that states verify applicants' citizenship status, check identity documents such as birth certificates, and cross-check information with other states and the federal government.
Political opposition to the plan has come from governors such as Montana's Brian Schweitzer (D), who remarked in a National Public Radio interview: "If it does come to a head, we've found it is best just to tell them to go to hell and run your state the way you want to run your state."
The plan's critics have questioned its projected $3.9 billion cost, its technical feasibility and its potential to create a de facto national ID.
But Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff in January announced a March 31 deadline for states to begin to comply and to request an extension beyond the May target. Otherwise, residents of those states could be barred from flying.
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