Collins Urges Baldacci to Request Real ID Extension
Real ID
Bangor Daily News
Vicki Ekstrom
Boston University Washington News Service
2/29/2008
WASHINGTON – In a letter Friday, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, urged Gov. John Baldacci to request an extension for the state’s complying with the federal Real ID Act, which establishes national standards for state-issued driver’s licenses.
“Unless Maine requests this extension, thousands of Maine residents will experience substantial delays at airports and may have difficulty accessing federal buildings,” Collins said in the letter.
Maine is one of four states – the others being Montana, South Carolina and New Hampshire – that has not applied for an extension. States have until March 31 to seek an extension. Nationally, the switch-over to the new IDs would not be complete until 2017, but stringent rules would apply as early as May 11 to driver’s license-holders from states that do are not complying with the law and have not sought a waiver. Such an extension would give states until the end of 2009 before they would need to start issuing new licenses.
The stakes for many Mainers include personal privacy concerns versus potentially having to go through extra layers of security when traveling by airplane or entering federal buildings.
The Real ID Act has sparked debate throughout the country since it was signed into law three years ago, but more so leading up to its official release of the rules of implementation from the Department of Homeland Security on Jan. 11.
“It took two years and eight months to draft the rules and we participated in that process,” Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap said. “But they didn’t heed any of the advice, so it’s not like it was that productive of an exercise. The final rule is not that different from the outset.”
There are many points everyone agrees on, Collins said, making it clear that some form of secured driver’s licenses is necessary, but states are still concerned over privacy and cost.
In terms of privacy, Shenna Bellows, executive director of the Maine Civil Liberties Union, said she questioned the tracking technology that will allow states to cross-check if a cardholder has a card in more than one state. Despite the fact that the Department of Homeland Security said the system was very secure and the federal government does not collect the information, Bellows said she has doubts.
“The federal government has a horrible track record in data security,” Bellows said. “It has allowed, either by accident or fraudulently, people’s identity to be exposed.”
Dunlap said that privacy concerns have played an important role in Maine’s opposition to the act.
No matter what assurances are given by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, Dunlap said, “Once you create that concern, Secretary Chertoff saying it’s not one doesn’t make it not one.”
For example, Dunlap said, if a man buys a gun in Maine he would need to swipe his ID card, which would create a record of his purchasing the gun. Then, if on his way to Massachusetts to a Red Sox game he got pulled over by police for speeding, the Massachusetts police would swipe his card and see he’s a gun owner and if they asked where he was going would know that he is on his way to Fenway Park.
“Is that reason to search?” asked Dunlap. Dunlap said he thinks it is and that situations like this show the privacy concerns Maine’s legislature is considering.
Even with the privacy concern addressed, there is still the issue of cost.
The Homeland Security Department recently re-estimated the cost of the program to be nearly $4 billion over 10 years, $10 billion less than its original estimate. Congress appropriated $90 million to implement the program. States argue that the administration and Congress are not doing enough to help states with the cost.
“Taxpayers in Maine alone would have to pay $180 million to comply with its requirements,” Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, said.
Governors at the National Governors Association winter meeting in Washington in February voted unanimously for full federal funding of Real ID. While Homeland Security says the issuance of driver’s licenses is a state responsibility, the governors say that because it is a federal mandate it should be paid for by federal dollars.
Laura Keehner, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said the federal government is not making the Real ID a requirement, but “citizens in states that have not filed for an extension can expect to spend a lot longer in line at the airport.”
Maine’s state legislature passed a bipartisan resolution last year prohibiting the state from implementing Real ID. The resolution passed 171 to 4, making Maine the first state to pass a measure against the act. Five states followed Maine’s lead.
Now, Maine officials are not sure they can legally apply for an extension because of this resolution, although they aren’t sure they would want to apply for the extension regardless because of the overwhelming sentiment against the act in the state legislature and because the two major problems – cost and privacy concerns – have not been solved.
“Given the interest in the legislature in staying out of this, I want to be careful how we proceed,” Dunlap said “Members are still quite comfortable with their vote against Real ID.”
The act stemmed from recommendations by the Department of Homeland Security’s 9/11 Commission report urging the federal government to make state driver’s licenses more secure after finding that some of the 9/11 terrorists had acquired multiple driver’s licenses and different forms of identification under false names and were able to board the planes that flew into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
In response to the commission’s recommendations, Collins and the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which she then chaired, drafted the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 that would have implemented the commission’s recommendations by establishing a committee of federal and state representatives and technology experts to set mandates.
But before the legislation could be passed, the House put through legislation that repealed the Senate’s language and set the standards for the Real ID Act. There were no hearings or debates in the Senate in regards to the House bill. In fact, the House brought the bill to the Senate floor through an emergency defense spending bill, giving the Senate no opportunity to revert to the original Senate language or repeal the act.
“I don’t think Real ID was the solution. I think the solution was the language I wrote and I think it was wrong of the House to slip this into a defense spending bill,” Collins said in an interview. “But there is an immediate crisis looming on the horizon. If the state doesn’t take advantage of the extension as of May 11 Mainers who have only driver’s licenses, who don’t have passport or some other form of identification, are going to have a very difficult time traveling on airplanes because they’re going to have to undergo a secondary screening, causing increases in waiting time.”
Allen said that the Department of Homeland Security needs to be stopped from enforcing secondary searches. “I don’t believe they’re going to do that,” Allen said, “but what it takes is the entire delegation fighting for that proposition.”
Allen, who is challenging Collins for reelection in November, introduced legislation in the House in February of last year to repeal Real ID and begin the process again to better involve the states.
“Here’s what we should be doing,” Allen said. “We shouldn’t be postponing implementation until 2017. We should be working now to develop regulations through working groups consisting of state officials. We need to protect national security and the civil liberties of Americans. Pushing off Real ID doesn’t do that. We need to buckle down now.”
Allen said his legislation is “the same sort of idea” as the one Collins had originally proposed, but, he said, she now wants to “kick the can down the road and deal with it later,” by applying for an extension, he said. “I believe we should deal with it now.”
But Collins said that starting all over will take more time. “I don’t think it makes sense to pretend we can wind back the clock to four years ago when we do have a problem with people who are not in this country legally and people who are not residents of Maine who can get driver’s licenses and board planes and enter federal buildings,” Collins said. “There is a real problem here and it’s a problem that needs to be fixed.”
An example of the “problem” both Allen and Collins refer to occurred in Maine in 2006. Niall Clarke, an Irish citizen on a visa in the United States obtained a driver’s license, bought a gun, pointed it at Bank of America bank tellers in Bangor on Oct. 4, 2006 and stole $10,000.
Dunlap said it appears the extensions are Homeland Security’s way of pushing off Real ID to the next administration and Congress is going to have to deal with Real ID whether they deal with it now or in 2009.
“Homeland Security knows it won’t work because they forecast it will take until 2017,” Allen said. “So they’re tacitly recognizing it’s not working.”
By requesting a waiver, Allen said the state will lose the position to object and refuse to comply in the future.
Collins said requesting the extension does not commit Maine to the program and will save citizens from “aggravation, inconvenience, and frustration.”
