Starting in May, 2008 you will need a federally approved ID card to travel by air, open a bank account, apply for your social security benefits, or use most government services. President Bush signed The Real ID Act in 2005 and states have until May 11, 2008 to be in compliance.
In Alabama, your national/real ID will take the form of your state driver's license which will not really be a state driver's license anymore. It will be a Homeland Security ID card. To get the new identification your old ID will have to be recertified. This means that you, your grandma, Uncle Charlie, and God knows who else will have to make a personal visit to a state office with certified birth certificates, current U.S. Passport, Social Security Card, and proof of address. The state will have to certify these certificates are real, digitize them, and store them permanently.
Once everyone's personal information is on file, then the Department of Homeland Security will require Alabama to set up an information database that will be shared by ALL states to allow information verification.
There will be a barcode on the back of the ID which will allow bars, banks, airlines, and so to swipe through card readers. Instantly upon implementation of the Real ID there will be a new kind of second class citizen - those who do not possess a card. The following is from a website that is devoted entirely to opposing the new ID card requirement:
If it's possible to create a scheme worse than a national ID card, this is it: a privatized National ID card. The citizens of every state will not only be at the mercy of a company like ChoicePoint or Acxiom to 'approve' their identity, but will have no privacy protections whatsoever on that data. Your sensitive drivers license data can be bought and sold along with everything else these companies sell, such as your credit information. The federal government can then gain access to this information without having to comply with any laws, such as the Privacy Act.
DHS is granting the right to control our identity to private industry. It will be Identity-Mart, Inc.: Always Low Privacy, Always.™ Congress needs to take immediate action to stop this travesty.
Do you remember those movies from the Cold War about Eastern Bloc Communist Countries that required a national ID? The cold eyed security agent would approach the hero and say the dreaded words, "Show me your identity documents!"
Alabama citizens, starting next year, will be in the same pickle.
Until next time...
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