National Id/Big Brother Is HERE!

Washington - Americans born after Dec. 1, 1964, will have to get more secure driver's licenses in the next six years under post-9/11 security rules to be announced today by federal officials.

The Homeland Security Department has spent years crafting the final regulations for the REAL ID Act, a law designed to make it harder for terrorists, illegal immigrants and con artists to get government-issued identification. The effort once envisioned to take effect in 2008 has been pushed back in the hopes of winning over skeptical state officials.

Even with more time, more federal help and technical advances, REAL ID still faces stiff opposition from civil liberties groups.

To address some of those concerns, the government now plans to phase in a secure ID initiative that Congress passed into law in 2005. Now, the Department of Homeland Security plans a key deadline in 2011, and then further measures to be enacted three years later, according to congressional staffers who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Without discussing details, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff promoted the final rules for REAL ID during a meeting Thursday with an advisory council.

In order to make the plan more appealing to cost-conscious states, federal authorities drastically reduced the expected cost from $14.6 billion to $3.9 billion, a 73 percent decline, according to Homeland Security officials familiar with the plan. Ohio officials have expressed concerns in the past about the costs and complications of complying with the law.

The American Civil Liberties Union has objected to the effort, particularly the sharing of personal data among government agencies. The DHS and other officials say the only way to make sure an ID is safe is to check it against secure government data; critics like the ACLU say that creates a system that is more likely to be infiltrated and have its personal data pilfered.

The Sept. 11 attacks were the main motivation for the changes. The hijacker-pilot who flew into the Pentagon, Hani Hanjour, had four driver's licenses and ID cards from three states.
By 2014, anyone seeking to board an airplane or enter a federal building would have to present a REAL ID-compliant driver's license, with the notable exception of those more than 50 years old.
The exemption was created to give states more time to get everyone new licenses, and officials say the risk of someone in that age group being a terrorist, illegal immigrant or con artist is much less. By 2017, even those over 50 must have a REAL ID-compliant card to board a plane.

Among other details of the REAL ID plan:
The traditional driver's license photograph would be taken at the beginning of the application so that should someone be rejected for failure to prove identity and citizenship, the applicant's photo would be kept on file and checked in the future if that person attempted to con the system again.

The cards will have three layers of security measures but will not contain microchips as some had expected.
Plain Dealer reporter Elizabeth Auster contributed to this story.

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