Last year, seventeen states passed legislation objecting to the REAL ID Act, a massive national identification program the federal government is trying to foist on the American people through their states' driver licensing systems. Virginia may soon join those states in the REAL ID rebellion. Today, the Virginia Senate's Transportation Committee will consider a bill to reject the unfunded mandates in the REAL ID Act.

... REAL ID isn't about national security. It isn't about illegal immigration. It isn't about identity fraud, or even cold medicine. It's about Washington politics. Federal bureaucrats want to coerce states like Virginia into building a multi-billion dollar system for identifying, tracking, and controlling law-abiding citizens.

Source - The American Spectator

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After releasing regulations last month that failed to fix the manifold privacy and civil liberties violations of the Real ID Act, the federal government has left state governments to shoulder most of the cost of the onerous, invasive national ID program. The President?s budget proposal requests only $110 million in federal grant money toward the states for Real ID implementation, and even that money, if actually appropriated by Congress, will be split among Real ID and other programs.

... Even combined with about $80 million in federal dollars already in place to pay for Real ID implementation, the funding would fall far short of the projected cost ? estimated by the Department of Homeland Security to fall between four and 23 billion dollars ? for the constitutionally suspect driver?s license program. States are left to fend for themselves to comply with the unfair, unworkable demands of the Real ID Act. The National Conference of State Legislatures, a bipartisan coalition of state legislators, expressed outrage at the paltry funding request, calling it the "most egregious example" of unfunded federal mandates.

Source - ACLU

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Editor's note: A May deadline looms as just one flash point in a political showdown between Homeland Security and states that oppose Real ID demands. This is the third in a four-part series examining the confrontation.

No television, no wedding or family photographs, and definitely no image of herself on her driver's license: That was the devout Christian life that Nebraska resident Frances Quaring was trying to lead.

Which is why, after the state of Nebraska rejected her request for a license-without-a-photograph in the mid-1980s, Quaring sued the state in a landmark case that ended up at the U.S. Supreme Court. She won, with the justices agreeing that preserving her freedom of religion outweighed the state's interest in requiring an ID photograph.

Source - C|net

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With the announcement last month by Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff of the final implementing regulations for the much-delayed Real ID Act, the debate over this thinly veiled national identification card project moved into high gear.

The federal government for several years now has been fighting a guerrilla action with citizen groups and a number of state legislatures over imposing on the states and the citizenry this privacy-intrusive and costly mandate. With the announcement Jan. 11 of the final regulations, the debate is fully joined and pits those who support the principle of states? rights against the legions of Big Government advocates.

Source - AJC.com

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Editor’s note: A May deadline looms as just one flash point in a political showdown between Homeland Security and states that oppose Real ID demands. This is the second in a four-part series examining the confrontation.

The nation’s capital attracts more than 15 million visitors a year, mostly leisure travelers who often make their way to the city’s official visitor center, which is conveniently located downtown in a corner of the Ronald Reagan building.

Or was that inconveniently located? Starting May 11, Americans living in states that don’t comply with new federal regulations could be barred from entering Washington D.C.’s visitor center and collecting the complimentary maps and brochures–unless they happen to bring a U.S. passport or military ID with them.

Editor's note: A May deadline looms as just one flash point in a political showdown between Homeland Security and states that oppose Real ID demands. This is the second in a four-part series examining the confrontation.

The nation's capital attracts more than 15 million visitors a year, mostly leisure travelers who often make their way to the city's official visitor center, which is conveniently located downtown in a corner of the Ronald Reagan building.

Or was that inconveniently located? Starting May 11, Americans living in states that don't comply with new federal regulations could be barred from entering Washington D.C.'s visitor center and collecting the complimentary maps and brochures--unless they happen to bring a U.S. passport or military ID with them.

Source - C|net

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