Letter to the Editor: REAL ID!

2/8/07

Is anyone aware that this is happening?  The federal government in May 2008 is requiring all states to completely revamp their drivers licensing guidelines.   The guidelines will be dictated by the Homeland Security Department.  Some of these guidelines will include having to be fingerprinted, retinal eye scan and the actual card having rfid chips attached to them, holding all this information in a digitized format.   The federal government will not recognize your ID without this Real ID card.  You will not be able to fly, enter federal buildings, collect Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid and many banks will require you to have it.  

 This bill, called the Real ID Act, was earmarked on the sixth revision of a military spending bill in 2005 and hardly even debated.  Thankfully many states are rising up to this and working to undo this wrong.   Please contact the representatives in your area and demand that something be done to stop this.  If you want to inform yourself on this bill and what implications this will have on all of our lives just google "Real ID Act", "Real ID cards" or search newspaper archives for this at your local library. (The bill is HR 1268 ENR in the drivers license sub-section).    I try to be informed myself and yet the first I heard of this was in a very short story on King 5 news on Sunday night at 11:00 pm (2/4/07).  Most people I speak to about Real ID haven't heard of it either.    Suspicious, that something so significant is this much under the radar!

Imagine, next year going to get your license renewed and finding out you have to be fingerprinted or eye scanned for this.  This is for real, it will happen, unless people speak up loudly and demand it to be changed!

Jim Wright
Brier, Wa