Entry for May 02, 2007

Yesterday I was in Sacramento, and read in the news that a Town Hall meeting was being held at my alma mater UC Davis to allow the public to make comments on the Real ID Act.
The speakers included business groups, activists from various interests, some people that seemed like lobbyists and general public.
I think the Real ID Act can be useful to establish minimal standards, but they seem to want to go beyond that. Several times the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security, Dr. Barth, spoke about the Driver License being a tool for terrorists. Really? Weren't most them here on federally issued visas????

Seeing as I work in IT, the thought that they want all the states to hook each other together and try to verify all this stuff about who you are seems goofy. Not that I don't see merit in the objective of establishing some standards for all the states, but there are some issues:

• Who is going to pay for changes required by each state?Why not just ask the states if they meet certain standards, and help them meet the standards proposed?
• How can the states verify federal information if all the federal systems required aren't built yet?
• I can understand the need to better track immigrants, but why is that the states job? I thought that definitely was a federal function?
• Although they never bring it up, and seemed to poop on the idea when it was, there is a new passport and a passport card(called WHTI) that seems to accomplish the same goals for federal verified ID. Why not just ask the states if they meet certain standards, and help them meet the standards proposed?

What really surprised me (not really) was when one transgender activist spoke, the panel from DHS nodded their heads and scribbled a lot of notes like they never had considered the fact that if a person changes their presentation, but does not undergo any surgery, many places will not issue an amended birth document, so that person would only have access to their original birth document. As one put it "OK, great, now I have to go to DMV, get a 'M' on my license and get outed everytime I need to show my ID. Do you know what this will do for my chances of holding employment, let alone living my life?".
Even though California law says different, if the state decides to go along with this, they would be forced top follow these rules.

I hope people email the DHS their comments before they close the comment period May 8, 2007. If not, I think a lot of money is going to get spent on something that likely will have negligible value. But thats just my opinion..