Letter: REAL ID a real risk

To the editor and members of the N.C. Legislature:

Are y’all familiar with legislation passed and signed into law in 2005, referred to as REAL ID? If not, y’all should look it up.

I will assume every one of you knows about it. But the rest or us don’t, and I just found out about it from a recent article in The News & Observer.

If you are not familiar with it, let me explain: Essentially it will require all of the driving citizens of these United States to provide for digital imaging of a photo ID, birth certificate, Social Security card and documentation (proof) of principal/legal address.

This information will be stored (security?) on each state’s DMV database and will be linked to all 50 states and multiple territories (and Canada?).

So, once hacked into, all is available to steal IDs.

The implementation process has been dragged out, giving extensions, so that now there are 23 states in compliance, 27 states/territories with extensions and five states/one territory noncompliant. I understand that North Carolina will start implementation Jan. 22, 2018, with full implementation by Oct. 1, 2020.

When was out national government, and especially our state government, going to tell us all about this? Were you just going to spring it on us at the last minute? Do you know the State of North Carolina has spent the last two years preparing people for the new ID voting requirements? Two years! Where is or advance notice of REAL ID?

We have a conservative state government, a predominately conservative national government (the President excepting) who profess to believe in small government, less government in our lives. How does this law fit that credo? It does not and y’all know it.

In addition to the fact that no one in this state (for that matter the country) knows about the law and its implementation, the one fact that overall is a serious, cataclysmic impact is the security of our individual privacy!

Y’all must know of the many, many breaches of security for many, many companies and public/state agencies that have been hacked with ease. (Edward Snowden comes to mind.)

Now there will be 50 individual states and other territories with their own individual, uncoordinated security or lack thereof. So if one is hacked, all are hacked!

Y’all are hopefully smart people. Get the point? None of the dialog in the law addresses the security of the system/databases, a big, big flaw in the law.

The Jeffersonian principles of individual liberty are lost with this law. It will convert state-issued driver licenses and ID cards into tracking devices, which will surely be used for many other purposes that the holders may and probably will not want and have no choice about.

Plus, if people don’t either opt for or are just ignorant of this law’s requirement, they will be denied “federal access capability” such as boarding a domestic airline.

Talk about burdensome – this is hostile!

It is a violation of our Constitutional rights, specifically the 10^th Amendment.

We deserve a response and information on this law and its implementation!

Ken Christie

Wake Forest

(Christie sent this letter to 10 state legislators, The Wake Forest Weekly and shared it with The Wake Forest Gazette. The only response he received was from U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, which is reprinted below. Also below are the highlights from the N&O article by Bruce Siceloff.

(The Gazette is reprinting information about REAL ID taken from the Department of Homeland Security’s website in this issue.)

Dear Mr. Christie:

Thank you for taking the time to contact me about the REAL ID program. I appreciate hearing from you and welcome the opportunity to respond.

The REAL ID Act, passed by Congress in 2005, is a coordinated effort by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the states to establish minimum standards for production and issuance of state-issued driver’s licenses and identification cards. REAL ID is not a national identification card, nor does the federal government retain a national database of driver information. States and territories maintain jurisdiction over the authorization of driver’s licenses and identification cards. Forty-nine states are currently in compliance with the Act or have received implementation extensions.

When considering policies intended to improve national security, it is critical that we protect Americans without unnecessarily intruding on individuals’ rights or those powers traditionally reserved for the states. If we consider legislation that affects REAL ID, I will keep your views in mind.

Again, thank you for taking the time to contact me. Please do not hesitate to contact me again about other important issues.

Sincerely,

Thom Tillis

U.S. Senator

REAL ID raises gold-star privacy issues

The article was written by Bruce Siceloff and appeared in the Jan. 17, 2016, issue.

— North Carolina’s DMV plans to complete the change to REAL ID by the end of 2017.

— Most of the state’s 9 million registered voters will be asked to bring in their identity documents to have them scanned and saved by DMV.

— Those who comply will get a driver’s license or ID with a gold star.

— Those who do not comply will have licenses labeled “NOT FOR FEDERAL IDENTIFICATION” and will have to carry their U.S. passport or other federally approved IDs when they want to fly, visit a federal building or visit an Army, Navy or Marine facility or base.

— The digital information will be a database shared with motor vehicle agencies in the other states.