The REAL ID Act, which was signed into law nearly 12 years ago, was a post-9/11 reform that sought to bring national standards to driver’s licenses and has taken over a decade to be fully implemented.
But one conservative lawmaker believes that what was viewed as a national security safeguard is now a privacy issue to millions of Americans, and one that will complicate their lives within the next year.
Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., has introduced a bill, the REAL ID Privacy Protection Act, to make privacy reforms to the REAL ID Act, including to eliminate document archiving and to allow states to decide against linking their databases nationwide.
“Quite simply, it’s to clear up deficiencies we see in REAL ID,” Sanford told the Washington Examiner. “This is about the 10th Amendment. This is about the prerogative of states. Something as simple as issuing a driver’s license has historically been the sole prerogative of states, not the federal government.”
The South Carolina Republican has been against REAL ID since his tenure as the state’s governor. However, it has become an issue within the past month as multiple states have seen the law go into effect, leaving many Americans without proper identification to gain access to federal facilities, including military bases and nuclear power plants.
Additionally, the Department of Homeland Security has already begun posting notices to airline passengers that they will need to be REAL ID compliant by January 2018. This could be a rude awakening to travelers throughout the U.S. if changes do not take place within the next year.
“It’s important because this doesn’t just impact federal installations … A year later, it’s going to impact people’s ability to get on an airplane,” Sanford said. “You’re really going to hear from people at that point.”
However, the privacy issue remains the sticking point for the former governor. Sanford argued that Americans have paid a price privacy-wise in exchange for what was promised as a national security need.
“I think a lot of things came out of 9/11 that degraded civil liberty in this country based on a supposed threat of terrorism. In many cases, while these things came at the expense of civil liberty, they didn’t add security. They added the false sense of security,” Sanford said. “I think archiving personal data for 10 years doesn’t in any way increase our security.”
At the moment, five states are non-compliant with the act, according to DHS, while 21 have received extensions until June or October to become compliant. However, some states have passed laws forbidding full compliance with REAL ID, creating hurdles for full implementation of the law.
While Sanford and two other House members — Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., and Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine — have made the proposal, he said they have not consulted with President Trump or anyone at the White House as of yet, pointing to the infancy of the administation.
“That’s where I think there is latitude,” Sanford said when asked about the chances that reforms of some kind could be passed. “I dealt with [former Homeland Security Secretary Michael] Chertoff when this debate took place when I was governor, and there was latitude. Our hope is to get this idea out there so that I can then go to the director of Homeland Security and other people who are like-minded and seek modification relative to where the Obama administration was on this.”
