More News

As red ink flows in Maryland and most other states, legislatures struggle to decide which public services are the most expendable.

Thankfully there is a program that we would actually be better without. The "Real ID" program, a Department of Homeland Security effort to create a national ID card, was hastily enacted as a rider on the tsunami relief bill in 2005 — without congressional hearings or public input. Its costs are mindboggling and it makes us less secure.

First, Real ID makes no sense in this economy. Two weeks ago, Gov. Martin O'Malley and most of his fellow state governors from across the country met with President-elect Barack Obama in Philadelphia. They emphasized the dire financial situations overwhelming state houses nationwide. And just last week, Governor O'Malley provided Maryland's federal delegation with the state's priorities for inclusion in the economic stimulus package.

Governor O'Malley can show leadership now by reminding the president-elect that one effective way to aid the states is to rescind wasteful unfunded federal mandates. In Maryland alone, the cost of partially implementing this unfunded mandate will be no less than $120 million. By the time the federal government completes its plan to shove most of Real ID's costs onto the states, costs to Maryland could easily exceed $200 million — adding more than $50 to the price of each Maryland driver's license.

Second, the fact that this unfunded federal mandate may be withdrawn means that it makes neither political nor fiscal sense to throw good (not to mention, scarce) money after bad. President-elect Obama is publicly opposed to Real ID. His nominee for Secretary of Department of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, the current governor of Arizona, recently signed legislation barring Arizona from implementing Real ID. And the National Governor's Association and the National Conference of State Legislators recently called for suspension of the Real ID regulations and repeal of the Real ID Act.

Finally, Real ID is worse than a waste of money. It is one-stop shopping for identity thieves.

Marylanders gain nothing in national security or highway safety from Real ID. Rather, Real ID creates new security and privacy threats. That's because one of the key requirements of Real ID is that states must participate in a shared national database that will hold everyone's personal information and original source documents, like birth certificates, creating a massive single data warehouse with no security controls — an easy target for identity thieves.

And no matter how secure the government intends to make this central data hub, driver's licenses themselves will contain much of this same information on their machine-readable strips, for which there also are no security requirements.

According to Department of Legislative Services, Maryland's projected deficit for fiscal 2010 is more than $1 billion and growing as revenue estimates continue to decline, forcing many tough choices on our elected officials. One choice should be easy — forgo Real ID.

Cynthia Boersma is legislative director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland.