You can postpone digging through your old piles of stuff to find your lost birth certificate to get a REAL ID card. To fly on a plane, the Department of Homeland Securityrecently extended the deadline from May 3, 2023 to May 7, 2025 to convert your regular driver’s license or California ID card to a REAL ID-compliant license or identification card, or to get a valid passport.
In one of the excessive policy reactions following the 9/11 attacks in 2001, in 2005 Congress passed the REAL ID Act supposedly to make airline flight more secure against potential terrorist attacks.
According to the DHS, “Security standards include incorporating anti-counterfeiting technology, preventing insider fraud, and using documentary evidence and record checks to ensure a person is who they claim to be.”
It’s just an unnecessary hassle, and a further intrusion into our privacy rights. Since 9/11, better security in other areas has prevented a similar terrorist attacks. A REAL ID mandate is not necessary for security purposes.
The reason for the latest delay is the problems state DMVs have had during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. DHS Director Alejandro N. Mayorkas said, “This extension will give states needed time to ensure their residents can obtain a REAL ID-compliant license or identification card.”
According to a Dec. 5 announcement by the California DMV, almost 15 million Californians already have REAL IDs, up nearly 200,000 from a month earlier.
“If a REAL ID is on your holiday wish list this year, we’ve made it easy for you to get one,” urged DMV Director Steve Gordon. “All you have to do is fill out an online application, upload your documents and make a quick trip to the DMV.”
But this national ID mandate still offends our sensibilities as free Americans. “Your papers, please!” is a phrase about traveling in a bad Central European country in the 1930s.
It’s offensive to a free people, unnecessary for security purposes and an unjustified federal intrusion.
The best policy would be to entirely cancel the REAL ID mandate. It has been 17 years since the REAL ID mandate was pushed on the American people and for 17 years it has been obvious that it isn’t even remotely necessary.
— Tribune News Service
