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 reality 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, but it surely’s been true for practically 1 / 4 of a century. So what’s protecting this 9/11-era regulation from being absolutely 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 method to verify who individuals are once they board a flight. In response to these suggestions, Congress handed the REAL ID Act in 2005. States had 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 likely to be “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 had been REAL IDs supposed to unravel?
Justin Oberman, the previous TSA assistant administrator: The argument, concisely acknowledged, could 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 while you’re underneath 21. Nevertheless it’s one other factor if you happen to can really get an official ID when you will have some type of nefarious intent.
The speculation is that you need to show 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 degree, it doesn’t actually matter if you’re the truth is who you say you might be, if in case you have evaded the grasp of regulation enforcement. That is one among these items the place it has not been tough 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 are fairly robust, although the underlying intent might have been okay.
Udi Ofer, a former New York Civil Liberties Union lawyer who wrote a report in regards to the pushback to REAL ID, together with privateness considerations: Most individuals don’t know what [the REAL ID Act] is about apart from pondering of it as a mere inconvenience that they’re about to face within the Division of Motor Autos. However when the regulation handed, there was an unbelievable ideological range within the voices of opposition.
Inform me about that. Who had been the individuals who had been in opposition to this?
Shenna Bellows, REAL ID critic-turned-issuer: I’d meet with LGBT rights teams who had been apprehensive about what this meant for the trans neighborhood. Then interspersing between immigrant rights teams. There was actually this unbelievable coalition that was numerous, that was very a lot apprehensive.
What had been your considerations about REAL ID again while you had been government director of the ACLU in Maine?
Bellows: We had two chief considerations in regards to the Actual ID Act. First, that the idea of a nationwide ID card or a nationwide driver’s license is de facto opposite to a free society. Second, from a sensible perspective, making a one-stop store for id thieves the place authenticating paperwork shall 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 concerning REAL ID while 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.
A number of the considerations you initially had about REAL ID — have these been addressed?
Bellows: We’re not importing authentication paperwork right into a federal database, for instance. In order that does present a measure of consolation to people who’re apprehensive about id theft and safety breaches. I feel, moreover, we haven’t seen Actual ID be used as a nationwide ID card so 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, that means a significant a part of your job is issuing REAL IDs. Do you will have 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 making an attempt to repeal Maine’s REAL ID.
However after I turned secretary of state — particularly as a result of I’d heard considerations from ladies in regards to the issue in getting it, and since I used to be involved in regards to the safety procedures in place at Maine’s Bureau of Motor Autos, I did transfer ahead with getting the REAL ID. I wished to see what was concerned, see how arduous it was, after which see what occurred to my information. It gave me confidence within the professionalism and management of my workforce on the Maine Bureau of Motor Autos.
It hasn’t modified my advocacy on the federal degree as a result of, once more, in America, our lives have all the time been about choices. The liberty to be who we’re, to be ourselves, and to do what we wish in a free society.
And so, certain, I’ve a REAL ID, but it surely is probably not for the particular person subsequent to me. They could have legitimate privateness and civil liberties considerations that make them select to decide out. And for that cause, I nonetheless suppose it might be the proper factor for the federal authorities to repeal the regulation.
Why not prolong the deadline once more?
Carter Langston, TSA press secretary: As a result of that when once more kicks the can down the street. And somewhat than try this indefinitely, we actually do want to start out doing one thing.
