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Maine legislature rejects Real ID Act

by DIG THE HEAVY | January 26, 2007 at 02:23 pm | 269 views | add comment | 0 recommendations

Maine yesterday became the first state in the nation to officially
decline to comply with the Real ID Act of 2005, the federal law that
critics say lays the foundation for creation of a national identity
card. Both houses of the state legislature - unanimously in the Senate, 137-4
in the House - approved a resolution rejecting compliance with the act,
which requires states to replace their current drivers' licenses by May
2008 with forgery-proof cards embedded with private information, and
urging Congress to repeal it. To obtain the new card, which is meant to ensure that the holder is in
the United States legally, an individual would be required to present a
Social Security card, birth certificate, proof of residency and a
biometric identifier, such as a fingerprint or a photograph. The card
would employ "common machine-readable technology" that could be scanned
to verify a person's identity.

"The federal government may be willing to burden us with the high costs of a program that will do nothing to make us safer, but it is our job as state legislators to protect the people of Maine from just this sort of dangerous federal mandate," Maine Senate Majority Leader Libby Mitchell said Thursday. "I am proud that this state has led the way in taking a stand against Real ID."