It should come as no surprise that Michael Chertoff is defending the REAL-ID Act, claiming that it is vital to the nation’s security. What he fails to address is that our new national ID will actually do little to prevent crime, terrorism, and anything else it is trying defeat.

“The Homeland Security chief, who is nearing his two-year mark with the agency, was likely trying to quell rampant skepticism about the IDs voiced by some privacy advocates, immigrants and other groups. Some have said they fear that the IDs are a stepping stone to a veritable police state, complete with ready surveillance of individuals. Some have argued that the idea of creating more tamperproof IDs is only a marginally better way to screen out those intent on committing terrorist acts because ID cards don’t even begin to tackle a core crime prevention challenge: determining a person’s unspoken intentions. “

The new ID cards will do little to prevent anything other than keeping track of honest people. Terrorists will obtain the ID cards legally, just as they had on 9/11, and the government will perform surveillance on everyone. There is no way of telling if I, an American born and raised, am thinking of going batshit and blowing something up because of being so pissed off at the way my fellow Americans are willingly goose stepping into a police state. There is another Timothy McVeigh out there. These cards will never predict who he, or she, is.

There is also the likely possibility of fraud amongst these new cards. This will probably cause the government to implement biometrics into the cards, forcing people to give up pieces of their identity to do things as simple as banking. Most of the ID fraud is going to occur right now. People are going to IDs today, under false pretenses. These IDs will be considered legal and, when the REAL-ID becomes mandatory, they will simply transfer the ID over. All legit.

The government, on its own, is notorious for its incompetence in handling large scale projects such as this. It is unlikely that they will consult anyone that could actually help secure such a system. While it is claimed that only the most basic information is going to be put onto the card, it is completely obvious that more and more of our private information will be placed onto the card. We already have the technology to do it, it’s just a case of citizens having the desire to fight to keep their privacy. It will only be a matter of years before the REAL-ID really will be your ID. You’ll need it to bank, drive, shop, and eat. It will have your medical records, your biometrics (fingerprints, retina scans, DNA) and every other thing that makes you you.

Now, while it’s great to think that you could ditch your fat wallet full of credit cards and store loyalty cards, do you really want to have all your information in a single database that will become increasingly difficult to correct?

Having a single source holding your identity is a bad thing. It is far too easy to obtain information about you and copy that. You lose your card or someone steals it from you and you are royally screwed.

Nothing is secure. It’s a fact of life. You can make things more secure but it’s only a matter of time before individual technologies are cracked. Right now, there are different types of ID. Each state has their own, with minor variants within each state. By placing all IDs in one place, you create one ID that is trusted everywhere. All it takes is for someone to obtain the information and create a copy that is indistinguishable from the real one. Then what do you do?

We also shouldn’t be making the job of the government to police us so easy. We shouldn’t be letting our information sit in a single database, accessible to everyone including the local bar, airlines, police, and doctor’s offices. They will, most likely, also keep your information in their databases. The DMV will be required to keep digital copies of your birth certificate and social security cards. If you move to another state, get them scanned again. How secure is your identity now?

The more a single piece of identity is accepted as the only true and acceptable ID, the more valuable it will become to criminals and the more likely things like identity theft will increase. Michael Chertoff is essentially telling us that, with REAL-ID, it will be easier to track immigrants and illegal immigrants won’t get your identity because REAL-ID will prevent them from doing it because REAL-ID will be the real thing because it’s impossible to make fake REAL-IDs.

Although enforcement of REAL-ID violates Article X of the US Constitution, those in Washington have become accustomed to running roughshod over that little piece of paper and, instead, have taken to telling the States that they must implement this or lose Federal funds.

The fact is, there has not been that many Americans that have died as a result of terrorism, yet everyone seems to be running around paranoid that a terrorist is waiting just around the corner to kill them. You are more likely to be murdered by your neighbor or family member. Before 9/11 we never feared these people or ran around screaming for a national ID.

Think of the numbers… In the last average American’s lifetime’s worth (~70 years), maybe 5,000 U.S. citizens have been victims of terrorism on U.S. soil – out of a population of 300,000,000. That’s a one in sixty thousand chance, over an entire lifetime, of falling victim to terrorism if we don’t secure things any more than they are right now (what media hype would have us believe aside). Removing a one in sixty thousand risk during my entire lifetime merits a tiny, tiny, intrusion in to my liberties. Whilst all kinds of things may be “vital” to removing that risk, the risk is actually so damn small that the slightest intrusion from any of those “vital” things means it’s far better to suck the risk up and live with it. And that’s before you consider that this is a major intrusion in to civil liberties for something that won’t even remove that tiny 1:60,000 risk and will, at best, just add another zero on the end of an already negligibly small number.

The crazy thing is, we’re hundred, if not thousands, of times more likely to be killed by the crap we eat – yet suggest curtailing our liberty to buy junk food even the slightest bit and you get a political shitstorm far in excess of the people who blindly accept we need to curtail liberties far worse to simply tweak a 1:60,000 risk. Yay for disproportionate responses based on media and political hype.

An ID that will probably include RFID to it is a horrible decision. We know RFID is easily defeated and we know that the government still loves the technology. Marry the two and we are in for constant tracking and huge problems of identity.

And how exactly would this work when you put the human element into it? People are generally forgiving. “Oh I forgot my card at home,” or “Come on, you know me, let me in.” This type of behavior will occur, only leading to more abuses of the system.

Have you actually read the requirements? First of all, this means no more automatic renewal, no renew by mail or Net, everyone will have to physically go to the DMV and stand in line, probably at least doubling or tripling the foot traffic in those already overworked, slow-as-fucking-molasses dens of bureaucracy. You need a birth certificate — so older folks who don’t have one and were born in East Podunk, North Dakota where the old records were wiped away decades ago when the flood happened — well, you’re shit out of luck. You will now need to use a verifiable physical address — no more P.O. Boxes or mail drops on your ID. Great, now if someone is stalking you, they’ll know exactly where to find you. And the most absurd requirement is that you must present some sort of photo ID. Um…excuse me…my driver’s license IS my photo ID. How many people in this country don’t have some sort of second photo ID? And even if they do (school, work, etc.), since those IDs don’t have the same level of security and documentation as this supposedly uber-secure RealID, then what’s the point? You’re using documents that are insecure and easily forged to verify your identity for an allegedly secure ID. Anyone see the fallcy here?

Do you really want to give up your privacy for a little security? If not, you should do a bit more reading and learn what else you can do to help get this overturned.