Though already passed, and rejected in several states, the Obama Administration has said that it wants to scale back the use of REAL-ID.  Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wants to repeal the entire law before it goes into effect in 2012 and replace it with Pass ID, which would be cheaper and would come with government grants to help with its implementation.

As governor of Arizona, Napolitano called Real ID “feel-good” legislation not worth the cost, and she signed a state law last year opting out of the plan. As secretary, she said a substitute would “accomplish some of the same goals.”

The new plan keeps elements of Real ID, such as requiring a digital photograph, signature and machine-readable features such as a bar code. States also will still need to verify applicants’ identities and legal status by checking federal immigration, Social Security and State Department databases.

But it eliminates demands for new databases — linked through a national data hub — that would allow all states to store and cross-check such information, and a requirement that motor vehicle departments verify birth certificates with originating agencies, a bid to fight identity theft.

Instead, it adds stronger privacy controls and limits such development to a pilot program in Mississippi. DHS would have nine months to write new regulations, and states would have five years to reissue all licenses, with completion expected in 2016.

Though this legislation would still result in a national identity card, it eliminates the central database that would be an easy target to identity thieves.  It is also good that Napolitano wants more privacy controls.

Too often, REAL-ID has been touted as a way to prevent terrorism and identity theft, using the tired argument of the 9/11 hijackers.  Everyone seems to forget that those men were in the country legally and obtained their IDs legally, including their driver’s licenses.  They did not commit fraud in order to obtain identities while in America.  They used their own.

If the government hasn’t bothered to tackle the real problem of identity theft, social security numbers, then how is REAL-ID supposed to protect you?  If you look closely at REAL-ID, it was designed to put every US citizen into a database that could be watched and tracked.  If the government really cared about identity theft, then the entire social security administration would have been working hard to prevent people from stealing your number and using it to open bank accounts, lines of credit, and establishing new identities based on your SSN.