High-security drivers licenses will soon be an option for Nevada drivers. That’s the word from Department of Motor Vehicles Director Edgar Roberts, who told a Legislative panel Monday the controversial “Real ID” program will no longer be mandatory. In January, Governor Jim Gibbons made the program mandatory in Nevada by executive order. But the high-security licenses have caused long lines at DMV offices, and sparked criticism from opponents who say the program intrudes into personal lives. Lawmakers could endorse Roberts’ plan by the end of the month. Nevada has spent about two million dollars to implement the “Real ID” program, and so far, 46-thousand drivers have opted for the high-security cards.

“I am not sure we are going to extend it,” Conklin, D-Las Vegas, said Tuesday. “The Legislature generally has not been supportive of Real ID.”

Ending the program won’t cause any problems for travelers because the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has delayed until March 2011 the deadline for states to comply with the law, which was intended to verify drivers’ identities and create licenses that terrorists cannot duplicate. Before delaying implementation of the law in December, the agency threatened to prevent travelers from flying if they lived in states that did not follow the law.

Considering all the 9/11 terrorists had valid passports, everyone who isn’t making money off REAL-ID doesn’t see the necessity in the new driver’s licenses. REAL-ID is a violation of the tenth amendment and should not have been implemented in any state. It is only a blanket of security theater, making you feel like the government is protecting you.

If you think this is bad, read about the national ID the government wants. Neither should have ever seen the light of day and both should have been laughed out of Congress.

Read the rest of my latest article at The Daily Censored.

In order to speed up the process, Governor Herbert announced that the D.M.V. located in Draper would be open on Fridays from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. However, this elimination of the Draper D.M.V.’s four-day workweek is temporary. Another service that has been put in place to help with wait times is an estimated wait time page online; this estimated time page encompasses Wasatch Front locations.

Despite long wait times applicants must now provide documentation from four categories: Legal/Lawful Presence or Status Evidence; Identity Verification; Social Security Number (S.S.N.) or proof of ineligibility to obtain S.S.N. or Individual Tax Identification Number (I.T.I.N.). This is an increase of documentation is aimed at screening people who are in the United States illegally.

Document requirements are further complicated by the fact that it changes depending on whether or not applicants are seeking a regular or limited term license. Regular licensing includes people seeking a new driver license or renewing their driver license.

Documentation that qualifies as Legal/Lawful Presence or Status Evidence (for regular I.D.) includes valid U.S. passport, certified birth certificate, valid Permanent Resident Card, Certificate of Naturalization, or a Certificate of Citizenship. Documents used for Legal/Lawful Presence or Status Evidence can be used for Identity Verification as well.

S.S.N. or proof of ineligibility to obtain S.S.N. or I.T.I.N. documents is social security card, W-2 form, pay stub showing name and S.S.N., or an SSA-1099 form. However, Commercial Driver License applicants must have a social security card. Applicants must provide two Utah Residency Verification documents. Residency verification must display applicants’ address and can include utility bills, recent bank statement, valid Utah vehicle registration or court documents. Only one of these two documents can be printed from the internet.

The D.M.V. will scan all documentation, which will be put into a secure system. The D.M.V. suggests that all applicants look at estimated wait times and gather necessary documentation before going to the D.M.V.

Security Management’s Joseph Straw writes that the 2005 law requires that applicants for state-issued IDs including driver’s licenses demonstrate legal U.S. residence and requires that states incorporate security features into ID cards. These security features include biometric information and RFID capabilities. The law also mandates that states store electronic copies of “breeder” documents like birth certificates and Social Security cards, so that application materials can be checked against copies of originals. There are five other, non-driver’s license-related requirements in the law.

Earlier this year DHS secretary Janet Napolitano – a fierce opponent of Real ID during her tenure as governor of Arizona — endorsed pending legislation called the PASS ID Act, which would remove the requirement that states maintain electronic copies of breeder documents. Straw writes that PASS ID would further set a 2016 deadline for total compliance of all licenses regardless of issue date. That deadline is a year ahead of the REAL ID Act’s, but PASS ID would eliminate a series of the current law’s interim deadlines.

As deadlines are further pushed back, one has to wonder if any part of REAL-ID or PASS ID will ever be fully enforced.

Listen to the MP3.

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.

Napolitano, former governor of Arizona, said she has met with governors of both parties recently “to look at a way to repeal Real ID.” She said she wants to substitute the federal law with “something else that pivots off of the driver’s license but accomplishes some of the same goals. And we hope to be able to announce something on that fairly soon.”

Two pieces of legislation for consideration when lawmakers return to Richmond on Jan. 14 call for Virginia to ignore the federal mandate to come into compliance with the Real ID Act by the end of 2009.

“Certainly people should be identified by high standards when that’s called for, but it’s not called for when you’re going to buy beer,” said Jim Harper, director of information policy studies for the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

“If we’re going to have our identity recorded every time we buy beer or use a credit card or buy gas, that turns into one big surveillance system,” he said.

Finally, someone gets it.  There is no need to log every instance that you use your driver’s license.  What people also don’t realize is that civil disobedience can ensnare you under the REAL-ID Act as well.

With the addition of REAL-ID, the gathering of babies’ DNA without parental consent and other databases, it is easy to see that the government is moving towards more control and less privacy for every American.