Real ID: From No Fly To No Drive Lists?

According to apparatchik Michael Chertoff and the commissariat of Homeland Security, the whole affair is a matter of national security. “We are now over six years from 9/11,” Chertoff impatiently declared, “we live every day with the problems of false identification. Simply kicking this problem down the road year after year after year for further discussion, further debate and analysis is a time-tested Washington way of smothering any proposal with process.”

In other words, never mind that most people oppose Real ID and civil libertarians warn of vexing abuse, Chertoff and the neocons are itching to get us all in lumbering databases, the next step in a plan that will ultimately result in the chipping of the population at large.

“I think the time has come to bite the bullet,” Chertoff continued, “and get the kind of secure identification I am convinced the American public wants to have,” or rather the government tells them they must have, as most people hate the idea and eighteen states have passed legislation rejecting the law and Congress has refused to put any money into implementing it.

But never mind. It is a win-win situation for AOL, Microsoft, Verizon and Yahoo, all who stand to clean up if Chertoff manages to force his card on Americans at large. “The Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) sent a letter to Congress this week begging for more federal funding for Real ID,” Privacy Digest noted last October. In addition to the above corporate culprits, we can add Digimarc and Northrop Grumman, “companies that specialize in creating high-tech ID cards, as well as Choicepoint and LexisNexis, data brokers that make their money selling personal information about you to advertisers and the government. These companies stand to make millions in contracts from states who are struggling with a federal mandate to overhaul their licensing systems and share more data by the May 2008 deadline,” a date right around the corner, thus explaining Chertoff’s impatience.

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