Real ID was a real mistake and Congress should scrap it at last

As someone who had to work countless, sleepless nights and weekends in a crazy push to get a REAL ID solution implemented it really annoys me that they extended the deadline.

I've long since left that company but there were multiple pushes like that where we were trying to get a state compliant before the previous deadlines.

Real ID’s sole purpose is to punitively restrict travel for non citizens, particularly undocumented workers.

If you value liberty you should oppose it. It’s the best example of a specific step in the slide to a restrictive police state.

In no way does it improve security. I encourage everyone to speak out against it.

First, I understand your pain. I once worked on a team building a product for a multi billion silicon valley company only to have to project cancelled on the very evening before launch.

It sucked and I felt cheated. It took a long time for me to realize that I had been paid to do what I did and they choose to throw the work away, but it was theirs to discard.

With respect to Real ID, it is a stupid program and should be scrapped. It is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to stick a scarlet letter on immigrants.

Here's the thing though, every legal immigrant and likely many illegal immigrants already have documents like green cards and passports they can use rather to fly.

In the end, this program places the overwhelming burden on US citizens who dont already have a passport (the poorest 66% of us), doing very little to actually make air travel safer.

RealID is the expensive side asymmetric response to an imagined problem that we cant possibly spend our way out of. In fact, throwing money away like this is exactly what the bad guys want.

You realize that an illegal immigrant with a valid passport does not need a realid to fly right?

> “The day would not be far off,” wrote cybersecurity and surveillance expert Jim Harper, a former congressional committee counsel and senior fellow at the Cato Institute, “when a national ID is required for picking up prescriptions, purchasing guns and ammunition, paying by credit card, booking air travel, and reserving hotel stays, to name just a few types of transactions the federal government might regulate.” Again: That may be normal in some societies, but it cuts sharply against the grain in ours.

I’m not sure I fully understand the argument here. This is normal in US society. I cannot pickup prescriptions, travel, stay in a hotel, etc without a legitimate ID.

The argument appears to be that an ID issues by a state government is ok, but if it’s issued by the federal government that’s somehow, philosophically an overreach of power.

There are very good arguments against RealID. But the argument that it’s somehow fundamentally any different from what the US does today does not seem right at all.