It's Unreal Just How Awful 'Real ID' Is (2020)
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I believe in personal freedom and I am cautious of government overreach, etc. but the benefits of ID is just so huge, and I don't think it really changes much w.r.t. government ability to messes with you if they want to.
We are I think also the only one that both (1) has a significant number of eligible voters who do not have a photo ID and (2) in many states the party that controls the government and sets the rules for getting ID sets those rules to try to make it hard for people who tend to vote for the other party to get ID and make it easy for those who vote for their party to get ID.
> We do, however, need photo ID or at least a Social Security number for pretty much everything else (applying for loans, opening bank accounts, buying a house or car, starting a new job, getting married, etc).
There are a significant number of citizens who don't use credit, don't have bank accounts, don't have cars, work at off the record jobs that pay in cash or check (to cash a check all you need is someone you trust enough who has a bank account and then you can do a third party endorsement and let them cash it for you).
"National Id would be overwhelmingly positive, but here are the corner cases in which it doesn't work well, so let's have exceptions, alternatives, accommodations, etc. to make it work well for everyone. And "we're worried about this and that and that", so let's agree on some mechanisms to counterbalance it.
> There are a significant number of citizens who don't use credit, ...
They can still do that. But they would need an id. It's interesting however, what are their motivations. Are they just so poor that getting an Id is a burden? Is it a religious / ideological thing? Are they hiding from the government either due to distrust or some legal matters?
Do you know of any statistics on this? I knew a lot of people like this when I was growing up in the rural midwest in the 90s but it would have to be a lot more difficult to get by this way now.
23% of people making less than $25k/year do not have bank accounts [1].
20% of Black households in the US do not have access to a car [2]. That one also says that 17% of Black households are unbanked. For Americans overall this [3] says 8.7% of households do not have access to a working vehicle.
> I knew a lot of people like this when I was growing up in the rural midwest in the 90s but it would have to be a lot more difficult to get by this way now.
It probably is. For example before 1996 flying on a commercial airline was about as easy as getting into a movie theater. If you had a ticket you got in. They didn't care if you were actually the one who bought the ticket. They stated caring after TWA Flight 800, and caring even more after 9/11.
I think hotels check ID more now too. I'm sure there are other things.
But a lot of those things are things that poor don't actually do much of.
Another thing that probably makes it still feasible to get by that way is that people who don't have credit, cars, bank accounts, etc often live in communities with many other people in the same situation. Such a community is likely to have a significant underground economy that has developed to handle that.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/02/23percent-of-low-income-amer...
[2] https://www.cbcfinc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/NewRoutes...
[3] https://www.thezebra.com/resources/research/car-ownership-st...
It's a bit like IRS already knows exactly how much you own, but you have to tell them.
It is kind of stupid to advocate for just giving everything carte blanch to the government when they don't need it, as Europeans tend to be so eager to do.
Yes, the government has access, but let then get a warrant if some agency has a reason to access it.
That is all well and good, but with all the big breaches we have had it really does not matter. Your info is out there already if you ever applied for a loan due to that large credit agency breach(s). I forgot the name of the companies, but that alone was probably enough. Then tack on that the various Health Insurance breaches, Real ID is a non-issue at this point.
Now of course we have DOGE mining Social Security Data, so here we are.
Edit: I’m wrong, the state is required to keep copies. It’s not required to keep digital copies, but that’s probably simplest and so…
You can also get a US passport card. I used to carry one when I was in Japan. Anytime I had to show ID, the person would say "oh, diplomat!" because its looks more like a US federal ID card than a passport.
But it should also work in place of a "Real ID", and is easier to carry than a full passport.
That's some serious hyperbole. A requirement to board a plane != "a requirement for travel within the country."
[edit] > In the event you arrive at the airport without acceptable identification (whether lost, stolen, or otherwise), you may still be allowed to fly. The TSA officer may ask you to complete an identity verification process which includes collecting information such as your name and current address to confirm your identity.
[1] https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/identification
It used to be that you absolutely could fly without an ID, but that's not the case anymore. Now it's at a discretion of a TSA officer.
As a child, we were taught that "America is better than the USSR because $REASONS." One reason given was we didn't need identification to travel around the country (this included flying). And when I saw "taught" I mean "this was taught to us in a public school."
Back in my day (There it is!), you would see newspaper want-ads like "Vegas bachelor party canceled. Two airline tickets avail this weekend. $200 OBO." You'd meet the guy, buy the tickets and get on the flight. ID was more for proving you were old enough to fly alone than anything. Tickets were not made out to the buyer, they were just assigned seating. Airlines were losing money and they knew it but couldn't figure out a way to stop it cheaply enough.
Metal detector screenings started in the 70's because back then airplane hijacking was a thing.
Then, 9/11. Metal detector screenings became mandatory. The airlines got the government to do the identity checks (TSA) and tighten the security the airlines did/could/would not pay for. State IDs (driver's licenses, for example) were sufficient. No more want-ads for a Vegas bachelor parties! The buyer might get a refund, might not, and the airline got to resell the seat either way. And we still take our shoes off to get on a plane decades later.
Fast forward to today, you (will) need a federal ID to travel on airplanes domestically, either a REAL ID or a passport. Sure, it's not hard to get, and there are ways around it if you forget or lose yours. Besides, what's the harm, right?
And every step along the way, it was a perfectly cromulent thing to do.
Now excuse me, I need to change the onion on my belt. That's still the fashion, right?
Train tickets remained completely anonymous in the USSR up until its dissolution.
I'm not familiar with Real ID, but this article doesn't present substantive arguments against it. It comes off a bit histrionic:
> And if you lose a Real ID—or it malfunctions—get ready for bureaucratic nightmares that would make Kafka blush. Newspapers will carry stories about people with Real ID problems who can’t access government offices to resolve them, because they don’t have Real ID.
What’s the distinction here? I would think flying with any commercial airline domestically is considered “federally-regulated air travel.”
(You can certainly quibble about relative practicality of that in a country the size of the USA.)
-Real ID will make it easier for hackers and terrorists to steal our identities, and for governments and corporations to discriminate against us.
-the American government is effectively creating an “internal passport” of the sort that oppressive regimes (including North Korea) use to limit their people’s freedom of movement
-Real ID will abet the federal government’s already out-of-control discrimination against immigrants and their families.
-Real IDs have been called “hacker bait,” since they would give criminals and others another supposedly trusted identification to penetrate. *your neighbor who can’t find her certified birth certificate can’t fly Southwest to Phoenix to watch spring training baseball.
It’s apparently a bit more complicated for a lot of women since they have to show all the supporting documentation for name changes. For instance, my mother is divorced and remarried, so she had to bring a birth certificate and two marriage licenses (plus name change applications) as supporting documentation showing progression of her last name from birth until present day.
A passport card is $65 and good for 10 years. That's $6.50/year.
A Real ID driver's license driver's license in my state is $42 dollars more to renew for 6 years than a non-Real ID license. That's $7.00/year. It can also be renewed for 8 years for for $56 more than a non-Real ID license, which is again $7.00/year.
In addition to being cheaper a passport card can be used both as an ID and to show citizenship. A Real ID is only an ID.
But your comment about the need to get the passport in the first place and it being expensive is entirely valid.
Having to carry a passport card within the US sounds harder than just carrying my license. Especially when the passport card has all sorts of warnings about keeping it in the paper sleeve it comes with. It acts like it needs to be treated with kid gloves, and not just thrown in a wallet, like a license.
My wife, when she renewed her DL this time, got a drivers' license stamped "NOT FOR REAL ID PURPOSES" because she didn't bring in her identity documents AGAIN to the DMV.
Screw that. The passport lasts twice as long as a driver's license, and we're going to carry those anyway, so...why pay extra and have to remember all these documents? Passport renewal is easier.