Politech is the oldest Internet resource devoted to politics and technology. Launched in 1994 by Declan McCullagh, the mailing list has chronicled the growing intersection of law, culture, technology, and politics. Since 2000, so has the Politech web site.

We've had plenty of discussions about the Real ID Act here on Politech, 
including these:
http://www.politechbot.com/2007/02/09/california-officials-like/
http://www.politechbot.com/2007/01/25/maine-becomes-first/
http://www.politechbot.com/2005/03/24/john-gilmore-on/

But so far it's been difficult to figure out how bad the bloody law will 
be in practice. That's because the Department of Homeland Security has 
remarkably broad power to come up with regulations, which they finally 
did in draft form:
http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/nprm_realid.pdf

Here's a summary I wrote trying to put this in perspective:
http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6163509.html

Among the outstanding unanswered questions: Will the final rules include 
an RFID tag? Will all drivers licenses have a standard design dictated 
by Homeland Security? Will the information that has to be stored on the 
nationalized licenses (in the form of a 2D barcode) be encrypted?

The deadline extension by Homeland Security was cunning. It's almost 
certainly intended to fragment opposition in state capitals. If the 
federalized ID card doesn't have to be complete until 2013 -- the 
earlier date was 2008 -- state DMVs won't be as alarmed right now and 
voters won't be either.

Here's some more background:
http://www.epic.org/privacy/id_cards/
http://www.realnightmare.org/

-Declan

Posted by Declan McCullagh on Mar 07, 2007 in category privacy

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The Politech general information pages and photographs are copyrighted by Declan McCullagh. Original posts distributed to the mailing list are licensed under a Creative Commons License.