The Department of Homeland Security is forcing us to choose between two nightmares for Pennsylvanians.

Behind Door No. 1: We comply with the Real ID Act, a federal mandate that requires all of us to carry a national ID card that will contain our personal information, and which can be scanned by a multitude of government agencies and private businesses. The information on the card will be entered into a vast national database vulnerable to identity theft and security breaches. State taxpayers will have to pay for the massive program.

Behind Door No. 2: We can refuse to comply with this mandate, allowing Pennsylvania residents to hold onto their private information. But then the Department of Homeland Security may block us from boarding planes, entering government buildings, proving our eligibility to work or opening bank accounts.

These are the choices of the Real ID Act: No choices at all.

There is a Door No. 3 – reform the program or reject it – but first we have to pry open this door to walk through.

The American people never had a choice about Real ID.

Tacked onto a must-pass defense spending bill, the Real ID Act was passed in 2005 by legislators behind closed doors in a late-night session.

The Real ID Act will create the first genuine national ID card in American history. All of our personal information – Social Security numbers, addresses, dates of birth and other data – will be entered into a nationwide database.

This database would be accessed by thousands of municipal, state and federal employees. This includes employees of the nation’s motor vehicle departments as well as all levels of law enforcement officials, from the local police to the FBI.

Real ID would become such an integral part of our lives that any glitch in the system could spell disaster for Americans, affecting our ability to work, drive or board an airplane. Some even suggested requiring Real ID to vote.

Real ID also will be incredibly difficult to implement.

States will be required to overhaul their motor vehicle systems entirely.

Homeland Security has yet to issue final rules to the states on how they can comply with this massive undertaking. Meanwhile, the deadline for state compliance with the law looms.

In addition to the privacy concerns and administrative burden, states will have to shoulder the estimated $23.1 billion price tag of the program. Cost estimates for implementing this nightmare in Pennsylvania now stand at $100 million.

The federal government’s contribution? Almost nothing.

Ironically, even the senator who introduced legislation to provide federal funding for Real ID, Lamar Alexander,R-Tenn., does not support the program. He has called it a national ID card and criticized it as an unfunded federal mandate.

Never has a federal mandate received such fierce opposition. Seven states have resolutely turned against Real ID by passing binding legislation forbidding their state governments from participating. Ten other states have passed resolutions condemning the program and calling on Congress to repeal it.

The Pennsylvania House and Senate each passed a resolution to that effect, a sign that our elected officials are struggling with this frightening choice: Sacrifice the privacy and identity security of our citizens and plunge us into fiscal irresponsibility, or put us all at the mercy of Homeland Security.

Pennsylvania should choose Door No. 3. The time has come to stand up to the Bush administration’s false choices.

Gov. Ed Rendell should reject Real ID as both an unfunded mandate and an intolerable threat to Americans’ privacy.

Real ID is a real nightmare, and it’s time for Congress to wake up.



Larry Frankel is legislative director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania.