Lipstick on a legislative pig

It was a bad idea before and it’s a bad idea now. “It” is a national identification card.

In 2005 during the Bush administration, the Republican controlled Senate passed—with no debate—a House of Representatives resolution, HR 418, known as Real ID. Real ID, had it become law, would have set federal standards for state issued drivers licenses—and other state issued identification— turning them into national identification cards.

Many state legislatures had the good sense to tell the feds where to go with the idea. Indeed, 23 states enacted legislation or resolutions that were anti Real ID.

But, as is often the case with the federal government, no bad idea or piece of intrusive legislation is ever really removed from the table. It just gets a makeover with a new hairdo, some rouge and fresh lipstick. It then comes back with a new name, like a sneakily thrown boomerang designed to further chip away at liberty.

Such is the case now. With a Democrat in the White House and that same party controlling the House and Senate, Real ID is now called Pass ID and the feds are trying to make this renamed internal passport palatable to the state governments.

Pass ID strips some of the original provisions that were costly to state governments, but still calls for a mandatory holographic photograph, digital signature and other biometrics. Machine-readable bar codes are also required and allows for the use of radio chips to identify and track individuals.

Unless stopped, these Pass ID compliant cards will be needed before people can board airplanes or enter federal buildings more critical to homeland security than a U.S. Post Office. People will still be able to fly without compliant IDs, but they will face intrusive interrogation and searches.

It may be too strong a phrase to call Pass ID an internal passport—at least for now—but what’s to prevent that?

Jim Harper, of The Cato Institute wrote earlier this month:

"PASS ID places no limits on how the Department of Homeland Security, other agencies, and states could use the national ID to regulate the population. It simply requires the DHS to use PASS ID for certain purposes. A simple law change or amendment to existing regulation would expand those uses to give the federal government control over access to employment, access to credit cards, voting… And these are just the ideas that have already been floated."

Thomas Jefferson was correct when he wrote that people are inclined “to suffer while evils are sufferable.” But we sometimes wonder how long the American public will continue to accept governmental intrusion into their private lives, into the natural rights each of us have as individual men and women.

The Pennsylvania Legislature was one of those 23 state bodies that resolved against Real ID. We hope that, should Pass ID requirements come before that body, it too will be rejected.

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