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

Who is being protected?

[Nomen Publicus]

Identity has little if anything to do with intent.

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

So you have to wonder exactly what the government thinks it is protecting itself from by using REAL ID?

Upset Federal Judges and Litigators

[resistant]

As has been remarked before (by myself and others), one of the more interesting results of demanding such specific identification of residents of states that balk at Big Brother is the abrupt denial of the Constitutional right to seek redress of grievances in the courts (read the Federal courts). If you have such "leper" identification, suddenly you cannot sue anyone in the Federal courts, or even show up to defend yourself if you are sued in a Federal court or charged with a crime in the Federal courts, or testify as a material witness in Federal courts. Will Federal judges issue contempt of court citations against the defendants, or against the armed agents who prevent the defendants or witnesses from entering the courtrooms? Getting Federal agents to enforce a blizzard of contempt of court citations against themselves could be problematic. I am not a lawyer, nor do I pretend to be one at drunken parties, but this all seems entertaining in a grim way.

Re:Upset Federal Judges and Litigators

[resistant]

On the contrary, after the deadline, you cannot (legally) enter Federal buildings and therefore the courtrooms in them, even if you agree to be searched with a microscope and a probe captured from the aliens at Roswell. Without a "Real ID" identification or a (Federally issued) passport, you're technically screwed. Lots of people have no passport, nor feel any need for a passport, which is supposed to be only for entering and leaving the country, not for basic civil rights.

As a practical matter, though, I gravely doubt that the judges in those courtrooms would allow for an instant actually barring people from their courtrooms, leading nervous Federal security agents to ignore the black letter wording of the law, perhaps doing as you suggest and settling for giving the hairy eyeball to anyone arriving, voluntarily or otherwise, without his duly issued mark of the beast. They like giving people the hairy eyeball anyway, even without encouragement.

I suppose with this regime sooner or later someone will get cute and claim through a lawyer that he can't answer a summons regardless from a Federal judge because the law plainly forbids him from entering a Federal building without a "Real ID" identification or passport, and he has neither, and he cannot be legally forced to break the law. That would be amusing, although probably not to the judge who would be issuing contempt of court citations.

BTW, the Wikipedia entry is interesting and might as well be hereby linked

.

Re:Good

[johnsonav]

I've oft heard the argument made that the idea of states' rights makes less sense nowadays when people regularly move to a different state than their own for university, and then perhaps to a different state to work, and then perhaps to yet another state to retire. There are many people who move to Wisconsin to take advantage of their great public University. Then move away to a state, like California or Arizona to work where there are more jobs in their area of expertise. Then they retire to Florida, where they pay no state income tax. It is only because of the states' sovereignty, separate from the Federal Government, that the people in those states can decide for themselves what is important.

States' rights make more sense now than ever before. People are able to move from state to state more easily than in the past. It's a feedback loop. As more retirees move to states like Florida and vote, more retiree friendly legislation gets passed, and more are drawn there as a result. They are happy because they get to live in a state where they have the votes to get what they want. And I'm happy they aren't here driving ten under the speed limit, clogging up the highways where I live. It's win-win.

Montana Governor

[Speare]

A couple weeks ago, I heard the governor of Montana on NPR, talking about why his state wasn't going along with the federal plan. It was an embarrassing interview, he tried to sound folksy as a rural westerner would, but ended up sounding ornery, obstinate for no real reason, and clueless on the real issues. In my opinion, he missed a real chance to explain real reasons why Real ID doesn't make sense. I very much wish that they would get security experts like Bruce Schneier to talk in layman's terms about the actual shortcomings, or even Constitutional scholars to talk about the states-rights issues that apply here, than to get politicos who just want to explain why they "ain't signin' up today fer a concept of tomarra."