Editor’s be aware, Might 5, 2025, 11 am ET: This text was printed in March. The REAL ID deadline is Might 7, 2025.
Some issues really feel like a truth of life: The solar rises within the morning and units within the night. Winter turns to spring, which turns to summer time, which turns to fall. And the deadline to get a REAL ID will get pushed again.
That final one could seem extra in flux than the opposite examples, nevertheless it’s been true for practically 1 / 4 of a century. So what’s maintaining this 9/11-era legislation from being totally enforced? And why haven’t we simply given up on implementing it? We reply that and extra on this week’s episode of Clarify It to Me.
Our story begins throughout the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist assaults. The 9/11 Fee wrote a listing of suggestions, together with securing planes’ cockpits — and ensuring there’s a technique to examine who individuals are once they board a flight. In response to these suggestions, Congress handed the REAL ID Act in 2005. States have been presupposed to have three years to replace state ID necessities. This included including bodily security measures and storing copies of paperwork in a database that different states can entry as effectively.
The deadline was prolonged again and again. Now it’s 2025, and whereas the deadline continues to be Might 7, the enforcement is perhaps “phased.” My Clarify It to Me colleagues and I spoke with fairly a couple of individuals who all had totally different views.
Under are excerpts of our dialog, edited for size and readability.
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What issues have been REAL IDs supposed to resolve?
Justin Oberman, the previous TSA assistant administrator: The argument, concisely said, can be that it was too straightforward to get a (lowercase) actual ID earlier than. It’s one factor to make a faux driver’s license in your storage if you wish to go to a bar once you’re beneath 21. Nevertheless it’s one other factor for those who can really get an official ID when you’ve gotten some form of nefarious intent.
The idea is that it’s a must to reveal with a number of proof factors that you’re the truth is who you say you might be.
Now, the rationale that this has limitations is that, at some stage, it doesn’t actually matter if you’re the truth is who you say you might be, in case you have evaded the grasp of legislation enforcement. That is one in every of these items the place it has not been troublesome to poke holes within the REAL ID paradigm, which is why you now see a two-decade-plus delay. It’s left itself open to those counterarguments which might be fairly sturdy, even if the underlying intent might have been okay.
Udi Ofer, a former New York Civil Liberties Union lawyer who wrote a report concerning the pushback to REAL ID, together with privateness considerations: Most individuals do not know what [the REAL ID Act] is about aside from pondering of it as a mere inconvenience that they’re about to face within the Division of Motor Autos. However when the legislation handed, there was an unimaginable ideological variety within the voices of opposition.
Inform me about that. Who have been the individuals who have been towards this?
Shenna Bellows, REAL ID critic-turned-issuer: I might meet with LGBT rights teams who have been fearful about what this meant for the trans group. Then interspersing between immigrant rights teams. There was actually this unimaginable coalition that was numerous, that was very a lot fearful.
What have been your considerations about REAL ID again once you have been govt director of the ACLU in Maine?
Bellows: We had two chief considerations concerning the Actual ID Act. First, that the idea of a nationwide ID card or a nationwide driver’s license is admittedly opposite to a free society. Second, from a sensible perspective, making a one-stop store for identification thieves the place authenticating paperwork can be housed from individuals all throughout the nation raised considerations about particular person privateness and safety.
You ran for state senate in 2016 and received. What did you do relating to REAL ID once you held that workplace?
Bellows: I teamed up with Republican senators in my state to name on President Trump to repeal the actual ID, and that didn’t occur.
Among the considerations you initially had about REAL ID — have these been addressed?
Bellows: We aren’t importing authentication paperwork right into a federal database, for instance. In order that does present a measure of consolation to people who’re fearful about identification theft and safety breaches. I feel, moreover, we haven’t seen Actual ID be used as a nationwide ID card thus far 20 years later.
Now you’re Maine’s secretary of state. And a part of your job is being head of the Bureau of Motor Autos, which means a serious a part of your job is issuing REAL IDs. Do you’ve gotten your REAL ID?
Bellows: I didn’t have it. I opted out. And once more, I collected signatures for the repeal. And I used to be one of many leaders in attempting to repeal Maine’s REAL ID.
However after I turned secretary of state — particularly as a result of I’d heard considerations from girls concerning the problem in getting it, and since I used to be involved concerning the safety procedures in place at Maine’s Bureau of Motor Autos, I did transfer ahead with getting the REAL ID. I needed to see what was concerned, see how laborious it was, after which see what occurred to my information. It gave me confidence within the professionalism and management of my staff on the Maine Bureau of Motor Autos.
It hasn’t modified my advocacy on the federal stage as a result of, once more, in America, our lives have at all times been about choices. The liberty to be who we’re, to be ourselves, and to do what we would like in a free society.
And so, positive, I’ve a REAL ID, nevertheless it will not be for the individual subsequent to me. They could have legitimate privateness and civil liberties considerations that make them select to choose out. And for that motive, I nonetheless suppose it will be the precise factor for the federal authorities to repeal the legislation.
Why not prolong the deadline once more?
Carter Langston, TSA press secretary: As a result of that after once more kicks the can down the highway. And quite than try this indefinitely, we actually do want to start out doing one thing.
