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March 3, 2008 By Chad Vander Veen
is not stored in a single place.
"CDLIS is a system AAMVA operates for the states, and all the states use it to check, when somebody comes for a commercial driver's license, whether you have a license in any other jurisdiction," he explained. "The records aren't centralized anywhere, it's a pointer system that when the states initiate a query through AAMVA, AAMVA sends messages to the individual states and gets responses back, then sends them back to the jurisdiction that initiated the query. That's the same type of architecture that would exist for the state-to-state transactions to cover all drivers."
Despite the final rule, the future of Real ID seems unclear. The law severely challenges states' rights while simultaneously saddling states with an estimated $4 billion bill. And as anyone ever remotely familiar with government cost estimates can attest, there is a good chance that number will get a lot higher.
Half the states in the union have either passed or are considering passing laws requiring noncompliance with Real ID, setting the stage for an epic showdown between the states and the federal government. If half the nation refused to carry the only ID the federal government recognizes, what would happen to the airline industry? No one without a Real ID will be able to pass airport security. It's just one of the intriguing questions Real ID presents.
But some states, such as California and Alabama, already issue drivers' licenses that meet almost every technological requirement set forth in the Real ID Act, according to those states' DMVs. For these states, funding deployment and managing tens of millions of DMV appointments will be the biggest challenges.
While it's true DHS issued its final regulations regarding Real ID, the reality is this is just the beginning.
You may use or reference this story with attribution and a link to
http://www.govtech.com/security/DHS-Extends-Real-ID-Deadline-but.html
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Mr. Vander Veen: Your march story about Real I D should have been labeled as an editorial. The simple fact is the, in the case of Real ID it is better Never then Ever. Drivers license were never meant to be used as a form of ID. They were, in fact, originally just a tax, like the vehicle license. My mother never took any kind of test to get her first one. Or went through any kind of ID verification. She just sent in her 50 cents, in stamps, to the Illinois Secretary of State and got her license back in a week. She never took any kind of competency test until after WWII, by which time she had driven to both coasts twice. The fatal flaw in the Real ID Act is the assumption that all American Citizens have a drivers license or state ID. This is just not true. A sizeable percentage of NYC residents do not. They have no need. They have a pretty good public transportation system instead. The same is true in Chicago. And these are not undocumented, or inner city, or even just poor, people. For instance, although we are fringe suburban dwellers, my wife and I both have dedicated urban family members in Chicago. Cousins in their 40's, 50's, and 60's and nephews and nieces in their teens to 30's. I can think of at least 8 that do not drive. They have no need. On my family side, we can document fighters on both sides of the Revolutionary War. My wife has a certified copy of her grandfathers papers from Ellis Island listing her father as one of his children. Although two of these relatives do have Passports and fly to Europe often, and thus have Illinois ID cards, most of them will never fly anywhere and would enter a Federally owned building only in handcuffs. But they are long standing, law abiding, voting, American Citizens. These are admittedly, in the eyes of DHS, worse case scenarios. But they are more common then DHS wants to admit, and laws have to be written assuming worse case scenarios. All the requirements for the Real ID Act are for the Federal Governments use. The Federal Government already has in place an ID system for it's own use. All they have to do is budget for the adoption of their own requirements and issue Federal ID's to those American Citizens that have a need for them.