California Edges Toward Joining Real ID Revolt

The Department of Homeland Security's Real ID program has a real challenge on its hands from California. DHS had said it will only grant extensions from the Real ID rules taking effect on May 11 to states that apply by March 31 and promise to implement Real ID by 2010. California requested an extension but would not make the latter promise. DHS buckled and said, in effect, "Good enough." Perhaps they realized that trying to slap giant California around is qualitatively different than doing the same to New Hampshire. In another crack in the wall. DHS has granted Montana a waiver it explicitly did not ask for. From Wired: "For a short moment Thursday, millions of Californians were in danger of facing pat-downs at the airport and being blocked from federal buildings come May 11... DHS had said before Thursday it won't grant Real ID extensions to states who don't commit to implementing the rules in the future. That meant Tuesday's letter looked like enough to join California to the small rebellion against the Real ID rules. For Californians that would mean enduring the same fate facing citizens of South Carolina, Maine, Montana, and New Hampshire... [A]fter Threat Level provided Homeland Security spokesman Laura Keehner with the letter, Keehner said California's commitment to thinking about commitment is good enough."

Comments

Did the MT extension had anything to with this?

[snarfies]

Borodin: Do you think they will let me live in Montana?
Capt. Ramius: I would think they'll let you live wherever you want.
Borodin: Good. Then I will live in Montana. And I will marry a round American woman, and raise rabbits, and she will cook them for me. And I will have a pick-up truck, or umm... possibly even...a recreational vehicle, and drive from state to state. Do they let you do that?
Capt. Ramius: Oh yes.
Borodin: No papers?
Capt. Ramius: No papers. State-to-state.

Re:Did the MT extension had anything to with this?

[drooling-dog]

This setback for DHS is a very good and important thing. What I'd really like to see, though, is about 100,000 citizens converging on their local airport and taking it back through the sheer weight of their numbers.

Good

[johnsonav]

I wish states would step up and grow a pair more often. It's about time the states remembered their place in our system of checks and balances.

Re:Good

[johnsonav]

We can, and do. But there is nothing in the constitution that could be interpreted to remove states' sovereignty. The constitution was written, and remains, a compact between states and their respective citizenry. The constitution does not grant the states the right to exist; the states grant the federal government the right to exist. We can come up with new ways of interpreting the constitution, or even write a whole new one, but without rewriting each state constitution there is no way to remove their sovereignty.

The states have ceded a lot of authority to the federal government over the past 200 years, especially since the Civil War. Much of that, civil rights for example, has been for the best. But the ability of the states to write and enforce their own laws is what made it possible for this country to grow from 13 colonies to one of the most geographically and culturally diverse countries in the world. Laws that may apply to the dairy farmers in Wisconsin may be counterproductive in a largely urban state like New Jersey.

States rights are still important even after the closing of our western frontier and slower growth today. State governments are more responsive, flexible and approachable than the federal government. Local politics may not be as sexy as the soap opera in Washington, but if you truly want your voice to be heard, local and state is the only way to go.

The states have tremendous untapped power even now, in this age of a strong central government. Washington just got used to pushing whatever they wanted down the states' throats. Even if I thought that REAL ID was a good idea, I still want the states to dust off their boots once in a while, just to keep everyone on their toes.

But... didn't the states vote for REAL ID?

[MobyDisk]

I find it interesting that the states are refusing to implement REAL ID, but the state's representatives voted for it. So who are they representing if their state is willing to flat-out refuse a law? This is a very serious breakdown of representation. It is absolute confirmation that the representative democracy is not working.

The other aspect of all this is that while Slashdotters are praising the states for standing-up for civil rights, the reality is that the states are fighting REAL ID because of funding issues, not because of civil rights issues. If the government tied federal funding of schools (or highways, or parks, or somethng) to the implementation of REAL ID, then the states would quietly fall-in line.

Re:Who is being protected?

[AJWM]

Citizens with valid and accurate papers are perfectly capable of entering a federal building with evil intent.

Heck, citizens with valid papers and evil intent don't even need to enter a federal building to cause harm. Timothy McVeigh just parked his Ryder truck full of ANFO in front of the federal building in Oklahoma City.

The bit about preventing non-RealID holders from entering federal buildings has nothing to do with securing the buildings and everything to do with extorting compliance with RealID.