Real ID Updates

I am woefully behind on getting this information posted, but in my defense it hasn't been that easy to find out what's going on in relation to the Department of Homeland Security's generous offer to extend the deadline for implementing Real ID.  From the Bill of Rights Defense Committee:

"In the showdown between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and a handful of states ready to defy REAL ID, the grassroots has won - for now. DHS originally set a deadline of March 31 for states to register to implement REAL ID, or to apply for extensions. Though several states have said they will not comply with REAL ID, DHS granted extensions anyway, meaning the showdown is now postponed until December 31, 2009. Previously, DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff threatened that residents of states refusing REAL ID would not be allowed to board airplanes without a passport. In a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on April 2, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) criticized DHS for insisting on implementing a program that has been widely rejected throughout the US. "Bullying the states is not the answer," he said, "nor is threatening their residents' right to travel. From Maine to Montana, states have said no."

Grassroots organizing to resist the national identification system has resulted in at least five states bucking the federal government - Idaho, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and South Carolina. Maine was the last state to get a federal extension, because it is one of six states that do not require proof of citizenship to obtain a driver's license.

On April 1, Idaho's legislature passed a bill rejecting REAL ID driver's licenses. Lawmakers are concerned about the cost of the program and potential for invasion of privacy. The bill now goes to Governor Butch Otter for signature.

Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and South Carolina also refused to comply with REAL ID, but DHS has offered those states extensions until 2010, even though each of those states wrote letters stating their refusal to accept REAL ID.

Last year, the following 17 states rejected REAL ID in their legislative sessions: the six states named above, and Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Hawai'i, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Tennessee, and Washington."