Boycott Real ID: It's not worth surrendering your privacy (opinion)

[Auggie]

Joe Mathews, Connecting California / San Francisco Chronicle, Feb 9, 2020

Note: Probable paywall at the link

The author is calling on Californians to defy state and national governments and refuse to get a Real ID.

Real ID driver’s licenses have stars on them, but otherwise look like the license you already have. The difference is the privacy you must surrender; to get one, you have to produce original birth certificates, Social Security cards, proofs of residence, and information confirming your lawful status in the U.S.

Such requirements may sound like they boost security, but the opposite is true. New security risks are created when people submit more identification into databases searchable by a government already surveilling our calls and digital communications. Real ID provides new ways for hackers and terrorists to steal our identities, and for governments to discriminate against us.

By tying Real ID to travel within the country, the American government is creating an “internal passport” of the sort that oppressive regimes (like North Korea) use to limit their people’s freedom of movement, and to create distinct classes of citizens.

With state governments — including, disgracefully, California’s — encouraging people to get Real IDs, the best defense is defiance. If enough Americans opt out, Real ID can’t become the standard. Those 100 million people without Real IDs, or other federally approved IDs like passports, shouldn’t get them. Those of us with compliant IDs, like passports, should refuse to present them, and insist on accessing airports and government buildings our tax dollars pay for.

The author argues that "Real IDs could become national IDs that are required for getting a job, renting an apartment, picking up a prescription, making hotel reservations, paying by credit card, or — eventually — voting. Before long, those who can’t get Real IDs will be second-class citizens."

"Real ID," he writes, "is incompatible with life in a free society," because:

• Real ID will increase government discrimination against immigrants, since those without Real ID will become ICE targets.

• Under Real ID, an international criminal with a valid passport can travel around our country. But your neighbor who can’t produce a certified birth certificate or Social Security card can’t fly to Phoenix to watch spring training baseball.

• Security experts say Real IDs will be easily hacked, and since they are machine readable, will allow for wider tracking of individuals

https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/Boycott-Real-ID-It-s-not-worth-surrendering-15040782.php

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Whoa -- that's one hell of a compelling argument IMO. And I'm all set to get mine tomorrow! I might just wait a bit, and rely on my passport when this thing kicks in.

DUers -- your thoughts?

[CrispyQ]

1. Privacy is dead. We traded it for convenience. -nt

[Blues Heron]

2. If you want a drivers license what choice do you have?

[Ms. Toad]

18. In Ohio, at least, you can still get a non-compliant license

It works for driving, but not for getting on a plane.

[Blues Heron]

24. Didn't know that. Thanks

I've dived into the abyss- I already scanned the license and did selfies to get access to two different apps!

[SamKnause]

35. I live in Ohio.

I renewed my driver's license last year.

I got a normal driver's license.

It is black and white.

No color photo.

My brother did the same last year.

[Rhiannon12866]

40. I didn't get one, either. At the time, at least, it was too much trouble and mine was expiring

So I just got a regular license. And that was here in New York - 2 years ago.

[Zolorp]

3. IF you don't get one you'll never fly again.

[MineralMan]

7. Sure you will. Just get a passport.

Even a passport card. It's not good for travel to every country, but it's good to get you on a plane.

Last year, when Minnesota's Real ID driver's license was even more of a PITA to get than it is now, my wife and I replaced our expired passports with new 10-year ones. I started using the Passport as a boarding pass holder as soon as it arrived. Works great.

Both our our driver's licenses expire this year, so we'll be getting the Real ID versions. The only problem we have is that 90% of all of the things they want as proof of residence are now done online. But, we have what we need, so...

[Zolorp]

9. A passport is still a RealID

Once RealID was implemented, every new passport issued was a RealID.

If you do not want RealID, then you do not want a passport.

[MineralMan]

10. What I want is to be able to fly and visit the Social Security office.

They already have all of my information, you know. Yours, too.



Me? I want a national ID card that doesn't cost $100 and that doesn't expire. That'd be great.

[MineralMan]

11. All I had to do to renew my old, expired passport was

show my Social Security Card and driver's license and send the old passport with the application. They sent it back, with the new passport about three weeks later.

[Ms. Toad]

19. It's the initial process that collects the information -

same with the driver's license. Once you have one, you can renew it based on the information provided earlier.

[MineralMan]

25. Yes. The government already has all that information and much more.

If you've served in the military, they know far more about you than that. If you have had a security clearance, especially at the Top Secret level, they pretty much know everything there is to know about you.

So far, none of that has caused me any problem, nor do I expect it to. I'm a pretty innocuous sort of person, really, despite being free with my opinions.

[Ms. Toad]

27. My concern isn't the privacy issue -

It is another way to discriminate against poor, elderly, minority, female, undocumented individuals. Life is initially harder for people who can't document their life from birth, through the present because travel is restricted, car rentals (a surprise to me), staying in hotels, etc. I suspect that as the IDs become more prevalent, the disparity will become more significant.

As to car rentals - when my daughter's car was totaled recently we wanted to put both my spouse and our daughter on the rental car's driver list. They refused my spouse because her license renewal date had not yet rolled around and she did not have a Real ID. After that experience, she went in before her renewal date to get one.

But this hits the same groups who are prevented from voting by voter ID laws. Older people born at home (especially minorities), minorities whose birth records were destroyed by arson during the civil rights era, poor people who don't have the money to track down the documents, women (largely) who have changed their names multiple time - and who must prove every name change from birth to the present, etc.

[bottomofthehill]

29. Not quite true

Under the Real ID Act, Real ID’ are only issued by states. You may need similar documents to get a passport, but it is not a “ Real ID.

[NRaleighLiberal]

8. this. we are screwed.

[Auggie]

12. You can fly domestically with a passport

[Zolorp]

13. All Passports are RealIDs

There is a RealID chip in every passport.

[Auggie]

22. The author suggests a license is one more piece of ID to hack

If a passport will suffice, why give your info to yet another system that could be stolen?

[bottomofthehill]

30. There is a readable chip in a passport

But it has nothing to do with the Real ID Act

[TwilightZone]

4. "insist on accessing airports and government buildings"

"Those of us with compliant IDs, like passports, should refuse to present them, and insist on accessing airports and government buildings our tax dollars pay for."

Right, just waltz right in. What could go wrong?

[ret5hd]

28. Seems all you need in Kentucky is a gun:

[dalton99a]

5. No, don't wait. Get a Real ID card.

Don't make life harder for yourself.

We lost this battle long ago:

https://www.newsweek.com/dmv-drivers-license-data-database-integrity-department-motor-vehicles-1458141
DMVs Across The Country Selling Your Driver's License Data For As Little As a Penny, Making Them Millions
By Andrew Whalen On 9/6/19 at 4:42 PM EDT

[shanti]

6. Too late

Mine expired last year, so I had to get one anyway. It's not like they don't already have this information.

[lunatica]

14. When I moved to NM I had to get a real ID just to vote

Good luck with not getting one.

[GoCubsGo]

15. Thanks for reminding me to renew my passport.

It's more expensive, but the State of South Carolina has already compromised enough of my privacy by having their revenue authority computers hacked. Screw 'em. Not that the federal government has been any better, but I don't need it out there in two different places.

[mnhtnbb]

16. My passport is good until 2026

so I will not get a state real ID. I only hope that passports will still be renewable when the time comes.

I sent my passport in to renew it immediately after the 2016 election because I was concerned what might happen under Trump. I'm glad I did, because I understand some people are having trouble renewing them.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

17. Pigs like trump

Rely on stratification

All authoritarian people are over concerned with hierarchy and who deserves this or that. Authoritarians are scared to death of equality. An educated populace that know what authoritarians do,what a sociopath is and what a narcissist is. And has a desire to keep those kind of people away from power that they want.

[in2herbs]

20. When I called DMV the other day I was told I had to have a bunch of documents to renew my

DL, which I've had for 50 years. I have no intention of traveling so I don't need a Real ID but they insist that to renew a DL you need the same docs that you need for a Real ID. When I called the state where I was born to get a copy of my birth cert. I was told I didn't need to submit any docs to get a cert copy of my birth certificate.

Think there's a hole in the system somewhere???

Isn't having to do all of this the result of Rs fear of immigrants?

[Auggie]

21. Yes! Real ID. Jim Crow. Voter Fraud. Gerrymandering. They chip away ...

a little bit here and there, wherever they can, to steal an election.

[Mariana]

31. In my state, vital records are public records, with very few exceptions. nt.

[hunter]

23. My father-in-law ran into a racist clerk at the DMV when he tried to get his Real ID.

Why? His nearest DMV is in Republican California.

My father-in-law was born in a California farm labor camp to Mexican parents more than eighty years ago.

He had his birth certificate, his U.S. military papers... all the required documentation and more.

The clerk wouldn't accept his birth certificate, an official copy from the county he was born in. She told him it was too worn, she couldn't tell if it was authentic, and that he had to get a new copy. Which was bullshit. My official birth certificate looks the same as his -- a photocopy of an old microfilmed record with an official stamp on it. I'm white, so I don't suppose I'd have any trouble with my birth certificate if I were to apply for a RealID there.

Republican California is every bit as racist as the Republican U.S.A. South. But it seems most of these Republican Nazis used to keep it to themselves before Trump was president. Now they feel free to let their freak flag fly.

The ironic thing is my father-in-law's ancestors were living in what's now the U.S.A. Southwest before there even was a U.S.A.. They later escaped into Mexico, fleeing the U.S. Army.

[phleshdef]

26. I have no choice. Ohio won't renew my driver's license this year otherwise.

[SamKnause]

36. Unless it has changed since last year.

My brother and I renewed our last year.

We got the black and white driver's license.

They asked which one we wanted.

Both were available.

I live in Ohio.

[phleshdef]

37. It takes effect October of this year.

My mom was able to get the black and white one last year too.

[SamKnause]

38. Thanks.

[Arthur_Frain]

32. As others have said here, privacy has been dead for some time now.

Very sad to be alive during the demise of privacy and print media. Two things we’ve lost in my lifetime that make me very, very, angry.

Having said that, this argument is always a good exercise in asking what you are really willing to trade for. This argument becomes a bit more poignant when you are retired, and can ask yourself the same questions with a hell of a lot more freedom and wiggle room to actually do anything about them. Everybody who is paranoid about Real ID, I would ask a few questions first.

1). Let’s take a look at that phone in your pocket. How is it compromising that privacy you seem to be worried about with REAL ID? Oh man, it’s not even conspiracy theory level stuff, and very early on, if you’re serious about your privacy, you’ll start leaving it at home. Someplace where it can’t hear or see you. Better yet, cancel it and opt out of the google/apple surveillance net. I know it’s difficult to believe, but 30 years ago, we did just fine without having a phone attached at the wrist 24/7.

2). In the rollout to 5G, realize that this is the technology/automation that will turn us into a police state, functionally. We can argue about whether or not that’s what it was designed as in the first place, but it does piggy back nicely on to the totalitarian model. And last time I checked, I’ve only seen them putting up more cameras, not taking any down. You couple that network connectivity with the facial recognition we’ve already been subject to with and without our concurrence, and you have the nightmare machine from the Dark Knight Rises. Awesome tools that corporate/government AmeriKa has convinced us to carry around everywhere.

3). How long before they look in places like this? Think our usernames are going to protect us from any real governmental overreach based on what you’ve seen at the impeachment sham recently? I laugh at the folks who self delete every single post every day, but I get the paranoia. That information really deleted, paranoid bro? Because they will eventually get around to looking here. And to be sure, “carnivore” has already hoovered up everything I’ve ever said. Hopefully I’m low man on the totem pole when it comes to rounding us up.

I guess what I’m saying is that the ideal of a “free society” has been a myth for a while. They’ve already got all of the info on you, me, everybody.

I’ve often wondered if it’s possible to really even “disappear” these days, like it used to be. I toyed with the idea when I first began to realize I’d be able to retire in 10-15 years. These days, I think one would be lucky to just fade into the background, but never really be able to disappear.

[radical noodle]

33. I had to produce all that

to get a regular license in Florida in 2012. They also wanted proof of my divorce 25 years earlier.

[cwydro]

34. I got mine last year.

Too late.