Real ID was originally supposed to take in effect in 2008, so it's been delayed 17 years at this point, which is absurd. It was created 20 years before it would take effect.
I feel like the "It is 2386, the government sends its annual delegation to Brussels to ask for a Brexit Extension. The people know not why, only that it is sacred tradition." meme applies here. The delay in implementation is ridiculous, bordering parody if we didn't know it was real life.
Because the feds are very patient about these things. They knew that with consistent pressure, the holdout states would trickle on board, which is exactly what has happened. A couple states like Oregon held out until just the past few years, but now even they will give you a REAL ID.
DHS still wants to have more secure and validated IDs but states aren't issuing them as default so a lot of people take the easier licensing/ID option when they renew. My state, NC, doesn't issue them as default or even really push them at all. So the problem at the federal level is you have states and people not getting the IDs so making the transition to requiring REAL ID for flights etc would be potentially very disruptive.
I mean, I get that DHS still wants it, but... Why?
It might have made sense in 2005 with the post-2001 political climate, but it's 20 years later. We've been fine with the current IDs for so long, and the climate is not anywhere near the same now as it was then with relation to security theater.
Well at this point AFAIK it's a legal requirement that they do it. To fully cancel it would require action by congress to remove the program all together, I'm willing to bet (but not willing to find the language) that DHS can extend implementation but not cancel it.
apparently the only way to cancel it is to refuse to use it, en masse, its the low adoption rate by end user that keeps the deadline being kicked down the road
While I wouldn't go that far, I definitely support Americans who wish to utilize their unique free speech and freedom for this cause. Example: https://i.imgur.com/C12Cw06.jpg
(Ignore the reply tweet, it's an obvious Russian troll)
I have flown twice in the past few years without ID when I misplaced my wallet. TSA made me sign a form which basically said nothing useful. Children fly without ID. It's about control not about flight safety.
The comment you are replying to didn't say anything about safety, merely disruption, and I'd wager having a ridiculously large number of people going through extra checks and having to sign forms would be super disruptive ;P.
This is it. States need to rip the band-aid off (or be forced to) so that people will be forced to get a Real ID at their next license renewal. Only then will this deadline pass without being extended
This isn’t as good of an idea as you may think. It is in the best interest of everyone to allow illegal aliens to be licensed and insured.
Washington state also charges a premium for Real ID. For those who don’t fly or cross from Canada to the US, Real ID is just a waste of money.
EDL in WA will be $115 for 5 years starting in 2024. A US Passport Book is $130 for 10 years (or a US Passport Card is $30 and good for domestic air travel and land/ground to CA and MX). Why would I bother with Real ID? I can’t even renew Real ID online or get it immediately after having my photo taken. While quicker than a Passport, it takes 2-3 weeks.
California has had problems with large scale ID counterfeiting, which they really, really do not want to talk about
Second item is an analogy.. when cash for transit here was changing to an electronic ID, the BART transit agency found excuse after excuse to delay.. later, a finance officer said in a public forum "we have a cash flow and we control that" .. much later, things changed somewhat. I believe that Federal vs State govt is simply at odds over the endless self-employment of administering these ID programs, and who calls the shots... and they should be ! Fed growth is virtually a one-way ratchet in practice.
Not only this, Things are very confusing for people. During checking at my last flight I asked the officer about if Ohio ID would be sufficient for the real ID requirement. She couldn't answer because she didn't know how they issue it these days. If this a TSA officer, what about ordinary people?
I think this is one of those cases where you didn't ask the right question. The TSA officer of course doesn't know the ID issue policies of 50+ ID-issuing regions.
If you had asked "How do I know if my ID meets the Real ID requirements", the answer is very simple: "It has an image of a star on the top of the ID".
> the answer is very simple: "It has an image of a star on the top of the ID".
Or an American Flag somewhere on the ID (mine is randomly next to my photo), for the few states that only issue Real ID-compatible IDs in the form of EDL/EIDs. Looking at you, Washington.
And the star can be:
> gold or black star, a white star in a gold or black circle, a white star in a gold bear in the case of California, or a white star in a gold state map in the case of Maine.
It's so absurdly complicated. As someone else said it'd be fantastic parody if it weren't real life.
NY also has that 'American Flag' for an 'enhanced' ID. FYI, the 'enhanced' is only valid for land or sea crossings into canada/mexico/some caribbean destionations (you can't fly into those countries).
You have to go to the DMV for 'real id or enhanced' so I won't be getting one anytime soon until they force it on me. I have a passport for travel anyway.
I believe the US flag is common to all EDLs, that's their version of the gold star.
What I meant by that statement is that Washington, unlike New York, only has EDLs available as a Real ID-compliant option. There are two options: "Unreal" DL or EDL. So there is no gold star at all for some states, they just have the US flag to denote something compatible with Real ID.
>I think this is one of those cases where you didn't ask the right question. The TSA officer of course doesn't know the ID issue policies of 50+ ID-issuing regions.
I thought that because it was a (main) Ohio airport, this will be an appropriate question but probably you are right.
>If you had asked "How do I know if my ID meets the Real ID requirements", the answer is very simple: "It has an image of a star on the top of the ID".
I was asking this question so that I can decide if it is worth getting one because I don't want to keep using my passport on domestic flights (risking it getting lost, and heache to have a replacement outside my home country).
They aren't really officers. They can not arrest nor detain, they don't carry a duty firearm, and they don't swear an oath to uphold Constitution. They play word games.
because as the world becomes a more chaotic and unstable place, the price of freedom (which is risk) also increases.
I think that maybe "real ID" has been delayed because USA truly has been the most free country on earth (at the cost of poorer places not near the USA). And this kind of policy diminishes people's freedom. However given the current climate scenario, as well as the current geopolitical looming war.
So that's why it's being pursued, because more chaos, less stability in the system, raises the cost of freedom, and the system has to know whose insurance premiums to raise. You gotta track and measure the people to do this (i.e. to control them).
Hey, could you please stop posting flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments (like this and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33819981)? It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
Real ID was a result of a political climate that envisioned terror attacks as a salient political issue, and that non-US citizens were believed to be the primary terror threat.
It's probably safe to say that we live in a vastly different political climate today.
I brought in multiple documents to prove my identity because I heard a lot of stories of people getting turned down for not having any documents. I also saw it first-hand while waiting at the DMV to renew. I finally get to the front counter. The lady working there eyed my folder of docs, then snarkily said "you know, less is more". I hate the DMV.
Tried to get it when changing my address after moving in IL.
Documents weren't perfect. Also you have to let the address settle after moving and getting a new id. (I.e. utility bills that aren't printed out with your address on them)
Short end of the story, I could have done an address change online quicker. Also, use my GE card as my fed id now. (Real Id)
I certainly suspected it. I've declined to get a real ID everytime, because it seems like it won't actually be required, and if it is, I have a passport I could carry, and get a real ID for convenience at the next license renewal.
In other words, why pay for it now, if it keeps getting pushed back, and likely will continue to get pushed back.
Does it cost more for you? My state doesn't charge any more for them you just have to bring the extra documentation which in your case (in my state though I think the requirements are the same everywhere) would be your passport you already have.
In my state (CA) I would have to actually show up to the DMV in person (normally you can renew online). That's inconvenient enough I'm never going to do it, if they start requiring "real ID" I'll just use my passport.
I always travel with it, personally. It's useful in other ways too, for example people in rural parts of the US can be weird about out-of-state IDs (I look young...).
They can be weird about them but they can’t deny their legitimacy. Americans do have the right to cross state borders. In other countries during Covid, the ability to cross state/regional borders was denied. It made me appreciate the decisions made when founding the country a lot more.
The problem the GP is talking about isn’t in regards to traveling and being denied. That’s not an issue in the US. The issue they would be talking about is what happens IN the state there traveling. For example a bar in Wisconsin could deny you because they don’t believe a Washington DC ID to be real.
If I'm traveling by air, I usually carry my passport as backup ID--especially after somehow losing my license once between the car and the counter at the airport. My Global Entry card is probably sufficient backup to be honest but I also have backup credit cards etc. anyway.
Global entry card is real ID compliant and a suitable backup. If you lose it, there’s not much somebody can do with it. If you lose your passport though, that’s just a more stressful thing to have to resolve
It cost slightly more for me in CA. And even then I got caught up in the whole DMV documentation snafu even though I brought a dozen identifying documents, so I had to get my REAL ID 3 times over, each at my own expense.
When I did it, because they fucked up, I had to pay to retest as well which cost an additional $8. I was referencing my own personal experience and that it cost more in actuality.
Well in WA, we already switched to RealID-compliant driver's license numbers, even for standard licenses. Next time your license is renewed, take a look at your license. I didn't even notice this for months after I got my new one. I was filling out a form and I put down the old one since I had it memorized. You still can't use it to cross borders though.
I'm sure this means we will have RealID-compliant cards as the norm here soon.
You can't use RealID-compliant cards to cross borders anyway, just for TSA and other federal ID checks. You can use EDLs. which are only issued by a few states.
I don't think WA will release RealID-compliant cards, they would have already since, as you mentioned, they implemented other changes to comply with the act like random ID numbers and adding the "not valid for..." text.
Most non-citizens will already have some form of RealID-compliant document, whether it's a foreign passport, green card, etc. Since the only added requirement for EIDs is citizenship, and since most non-citizens have RealIDs anyway, WADOT likely felt there wasn't enough justification to issue 6 different forms of ID to residents.
EDLs/EIDs are Real ID. Standard WA DLs are NOT Real ID compliant. Notice they’re marked with “Federal limits apply”. That means they’re no good for air travel if Real ID goes into effect.
I literally said all of that, yes. I don’t understand the point of your comment.
It is pretty clear I mean that WA will not issue non-EDL RealID Drivers Licenses given the context. Given that, I clearly know what restrictions exist to current WA DLs given I know what the two options are. I talk about being able to use an EDL but not a RealID document to cross land borders, so I clearly also know what you can use an EDL and RealID in terms of crossing international borders.
Sure, but when I’m traveling as a nonimmigrant anywhere else in the world regardless of how long I’m staying, the only ID they will accept from me is a US passport. This seems reasonably reciprocal with how US citizens are treated abroad
There is an additional benefit with the EDL, which is that you can go up to Canada and back with just the EDL, since it also is proof of citizenship. Whether that is worth an additional $7/year is debatable, but it's similar to the price of a Passport Card, which is equivalent.
It’s more expensive than a Passport book or card. EDLs are only good for 5 years. US Passport is good for 10.
WA EDL in 2024 will be $115. A US Passport Book is $130; a card is much cheaper.
I mean, sure, but one is also your drivers license and costs $5/yr more than a standard license or ID.
That’s really the price we should be comparing, because realistically people will have a drivers license or state ID that they would have had to renew. That’s also true for passports, but far more people have and use drivers licenses day to day.
Yeah, any new license or renewal in my state is a real id. I think it costs the same, but I wasn't sure since it was 10 years since the last time I renewed.
Other than the hassle, is there a reason to not get the new id when license renewals come up?
It was barely a hassle when I did it but I also have a certified copy of my birth certificate already so it may be harder for people that have to go get that for the citizenship requirement. The more annoying thing was just finding and printing the address proofs NCDMV wants because most of my bills are digital or in my wife's name now.
My state is the same as long as you're doing it with a regular renewal. I did it last time I renewed my license, because I already had a passport. Even though it certainly seems that it'll never be enforced.
The fact that the US Government does not have an actual ID card is absurd. A lot of problems - especially voting related ones! - can be solved by having an actual method of identification (not SSN). We're the only country where this is still a problem.
> Hailing this as necessary to prevent voter fraud is just as preposterous as the mark-of-the-beast nonsense covered by another child comment.
It's not needed to prevent voter fraud in the US because there is very little voter fraud to prevent. What it could help with is reducing voter suppression.
Several states, claiming that it is necessary to prevent fraud (which they cannot actually find any significant examples of) have instituted voter ID requirements.
In many of these there has been a pretty good correlation between what ID they accept and whether or not the people who tend to vote for the party enacting the ID require are more likely to already have that form of ID than the people who tend to vote for the other party.
These are often accompanied by changes to how IDs are issued that make it significantly harder for many people who vote for the other party to obtain ID. For example, state IDs are often issued by the same department that issues driver's licenses. Some states, citing budget issues, have closed such offices, with the closures hitting hardest is largely minority areas, and reduced hours in the offices remaining open eliminating weekend and evening hours.
This makes it so that for many people in those areas that lost their offices getting an ID means losing a day of work or more, which many of them cannot afford and so have to give up voting.
A Federal ID that is easy to obtain for all citizens, very cheap or free, and that states are required to accept as voter ID could go a long way to helping eligible voters actually be able to vote.
> easy to obtain for all citizens, very cheap or free
This is the key point, though, and harder than it sounds. It needs to be (at least approximately) free-as-in-beer with a small time investment, while still gathering adequate evidence of identity. My best idea is to build it as an outgrowth of the passport infrastructure without the relatively onerous forms and other costs. Doing it through the post office like passports is as good an idea as any, but you need to make sure they all have (working![0]) cameras and trained personnel. Not cheap.
I'm all for the idea, I just don't want people to underestimate the difficulty, because that will make it more likely to fail.
[0] When I went to get my passport, the camera at the post office was broken. I had to run across the street to the drug store. Not fatal, but a pain, and not something you could tolerate at scale for voter id.
If you are an American, you already have a federally issued ID it just isn’t very good. If you are an American who has traveled internationally you have at least two distinct federally issued IDs, which can get out of sync and cause a huge headache. At least 3 if you ever interacted with the IRS, 4 if you have a KTN, 5 if you have a TSA redress number…
There are plenty of places where just a drivers license isn’t acceptable (getting a passport for instance) and requires you to play the stupid 1/2 from category A/B game.
I agree that bringing up voting is a red herring, that’s a state thing and the several states should solve that for themselves. The US federal government needs a unified ID system which was designed as a robust, centralized ID system that can then be mandated for federal agencies to use.
> If you are an American, you already have a federally issued ID it just isn’t very good.
What ID is that? If you're talking about a Social Security Card, that's not ID at all. I don't think I would call it "ID but not very good", even.
Ultimately there are a lot of people who go through life in the US who never have a federally-issued ID at all. Simply never traveling outside the US will do it for most people. And there are more people than you'd expect in the US who never leave the country.
Also agree re: voting: elections are administered by states, so a federal ID is just not even necessary here. States are perfectly capable of issuing ID, as we all know. (Granted, drivers licenses and non-driving state IDs usually don't have anything to say about citizenship status. A state-issued ID serves as authentication, not authorization, where voting is concerned.)
In what way is your social security card not an ID? It is used as a credential to identify yourself, and is one of very few such identifiers that most organizations take (i.e. I can use it to get many other IDs). Many state DMVs list it on a page called “identity documents”. All Americans have been issued their card at least once, and more to the point not having the card doesn’t mean you don’t have the ID as many people will take the number. It’s a very weak ID for a lot of reasons, but that fact alone doesn’t make it not one. It just makes it a dangerous one.
Functionally, a social security number is closer to an alternate name than an ID. It doesn't contain evidence that can feasibly be used to prove that the person showing it to you is who they claim to be, the way the picture/physical descriptors on a photo ID card do. And it's not even an unpredictable name, so you can't even treat it the way you would a long unpredictable token in a security context.
> social security number is closer to an alternate name
`s/is/should be/`
If I have your social security card I can pretend to be you quite effectively as many people will accept it as an ID. They don’t care that you don’t think it is one. The ones that don’t will frequently take an alternative (read: derived) that I can get with just it.
> It doesn't contain evidence that can feasibly be used to prove…
We can split hairs over semantics, but personally I'm going to continue saying that something is what it actually does, and anything after that is merely the folly of man. Thus a social security number is an identifier, no matter how many powerful fools treat it as a credential.
The state of West Virginia will give you a (non-RealID) drivers license with a social security card and 2 pieces of mail. Card to prove your identity and mail to prove that name went with a W.Va address.
It’s an ID, issued by the Federal Government, and every American has one. Now that all the insanity and gymnastics are over can we please just make it better?
That's not even good hair splitting. According to you on the other sub-thread, WV doesn't even use it as an ID. For all the logic they're applying, you could just write your name on an index card and use that instead. Even if they were using it in a superficially reasonable way, I would still class them under "powerful fools", pretending the SSN is something it's not. I find it's a clarifying perspective to call that sort of thing what it is, rather than trying to keep one foot in and one foot out of the collective delusion.
So your argument is that you’re right and the state of West Virginia is wrong? All of a sudden the thing isn’t what it actually does because you disagree with whether it should?
> I would still class them under "powerful fools"
Cool, but your opinion of them is irrelevant. They get to decide what forms of ID they’ll take, and they’ve decided to take this one.
> you could just write your name on an index card and use that instead
Of course you couldn’t, the rule is very clear that you can identify yourself with specifically a social security card. You’re the one pretending. Your insistence that it’s not an ID will be small comfort when someone fakes yours and used it to identify themselves as you to steal your identity.
Again. The fact that it’s a terrible form of ID is my point. It being a bad ID doesn’t mean it’s not one.
Edit: I copy/pasted my point about W.Va from one thread to another. Both say, as the law does, that it identifies you. The mail ties the identified person to an address authorized for a license (i.e. an address in the state). It’s authn vs authz.
What places requiring government-issued photo ID will accept a social security card? Sure, you can social engineer lots of things, but I'm very skeptical that presenting a social security card in place of a driver's license or passport will generally pass muster.
Though don't actually know as I haven't had one in decades.
The state of West Virginia will give you a (non-RealID) drivers license with a social security card and 2 pieces of mail. Card to prove your identity and mail to prove that name went with a W.Va address.
At one point the lifelock guy had something like 200 W.Va licenses since in the mid-aughts they didn’t actually check to see if that SSN had a license already.
W.Va license gets you a passport. Passport gets you anything you want.
The only thing standing between you and full-blown has-a-passport identity theft is your Social Security Card.
Edit: You can intuitively prove that everywhere doesn’t require a photo ID because some piece of ID has to come first.
I lost my SSN card many years ago, and have not needed it to do typical things like vote, work, travel in USA and out of USA, start businesses, and file lawsuits. It's irrelevant.
The fact that you don’t use yours doesn’t make the thing you lost not an ID. If you lose your house key and always go in through the garage, the key you lost is still a key.
> If you are an American who has traveled internationally you have at least two distinct federally issued IDs, which can get out of sync and cause a huge headache.
What IDs are you referring to and what’s the headache? Presumably one ID is a passport. From your first sentence, I would assume the second ID is a social security number, but how does it become “out of sync” with a passport?
I know people who have spent literally years trying to correct misspellings and incorrect DOB issues with State and SSA.
Get a passport as a minor, change your name as an adult, realize SSA has your wrong bday, descend into bureaucracy hell as now both name and DOB don’t match.
As far as I can tell, birth certificates are issued by states and name changes are done through states, so it isn’t clear to me how a name is a federally issued ID or even an ID.
While I am sure the bureaucracy surrounding such discrepancies is enormous, I’m not for sure I understand how it relates to a discussion about national IDs. A passport is effectively an optional national ID, so none of these issues would be solved by a national ID.
Huh? A name is something which is on a federal ID, obviously it is not in and of itself a federal ID.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) issues IDs at the federal level, which are applied for using state or county issued birth certificates (as well as other ways). They sometimes make clerical errors. Those errors can propagate into other federal identity databases, such as the taxpayer record system operated by the Internal Revenue Service or the passport database operated by the Department of State.
The linkages between these systems are fragile or nonexistent, and if you are not careful about manually propagating changes between them you can end up in an inconsistent state which requires court action to rectify.
Passports are often used in lieu of social security cards because people are (correctly!) leery about using their SSN directly. I know people who have no intention of traveling internationally who have gotten passports because it’s extremely convenient to have a federally issued photo id.
When I got married and changed my name, I ended up having to spend a couple hours a day arguing at the passport office for three consecutive days. There are all kinds of arcane rules about it and the staff are not allowed to tell you what they are because they have been literally classified as state secrets since early in the Obama era. Plus, in my case they wouldn't even have a re-look at the rulebook to make sure they were getting it right, they were just going by memory.
Eventually I was able to track down the underlying laws that the relevant rules were based on and call the head office in Charleston who put things right, but who knows what would've happened had I not been a native English speaker.
Some of this may have changed, it looks like "8 FAM 403.1-4(D)" would've been the rule that I needed back when I did this, and it does not appear to be currently classified, but lots of other rules still are. Point is, it may not be as simple as you'd think to "just" get a new passport.
If you change your name, you need to update your information with social security and with the state department. That's how the two IDs can get out of sync. E.g. if someone was like "please bring your social security card and passport for verification" you could potentially have a name mis-match if you only updated your passport but didn't update your social security.
What scenario do you need to present both a passport and social security card? Those “three column” identification documents that I have seen always accept passports standalone.
The thing that will need to match is the name/DoB on your passport and your file with SSA. You will need them to match when you have to get the window attendant at SSA to help you figure out why your monthly social security check is wrong. Good luck proving you’re you when the records are 40 years old and 6 states away.
For renewing a driver's license to a RealID-compliant driver's license I did need more than a passport. But I think that was more of a state thing that required a utility bill to my address and maybe something else.
Ah, the ol' utility bill stuff. Lol. Such a pain at times, but I guess I understand for some things where people definitely try to skirt the system where they don't live where they say.
I have neglected to get my state's real ID since it requires me to go into a location, which are soul sucking. Luckily, my global entry card is a Real ID. It only took two years to get that one. And when I had to go in for that ID, they didn't even check my driver's license or passport for ID. They just took my picture and that was it. Pretty poor due diligence.
I actually usually use my Global Entry for TSA now. I lost my driver's license once at the airport and my Global Entry card is the federally-accepted ID I don't otherwise actually need.
Funnily enough I was able to fly without an ID when I lost my license--which was surprisingly hassle-free. But I had a hell of a time checking into my hotel.
Wait until you find out about the photo matching they do to true up license and Global Entry identity. Why have a human (who can be social engineered) do that in person when an algorithm can do it behind the scenes?
Well, I'm not disappointed that they actually did something. If it wasn't clear, I thought not checking was poor procedure, and I guess it makes sense it they have automated procedures. Still doesn't seem right to not have a human validate when it takes no extra time to do so.
Why do social security cards exist? I have no idea, but presumably they are required for something. They don’t contain your photo, so asking for photo identification seems like a totally valid follow up.
Because they were invented to not be an ID, even though they got turned into one almost immediately (because of course they did). Then people dug in their heels about making a better national ID because reasons. So we’ve trudged along with a terrible one instead.
Even if your SSN is not an ID, there must be a use for the card/number is my point. If there is a use for the SSN, then you still need an ID to verify that you are the person to whom the SSN belongs to. So you still need the name on the SSN card to match the name on your ID. So you need to keep your SSN in sync with your other IDs.
The fact that you do not physically possess your social security card does not mean that the federal government did not issue you one. So you Have it, you simply don’t have it on you.
You haven’t needed it since it’s such a bad ID that if you know the number you often don’t need to possess the paper.
No. I'm not sure what the circumstances would be where I would have to present an actual social security card. Certainly never encountered one. Whereas it's easy to imagine circumstances where not having a driver's license on me could cause issues--even if it might technically not be required.
Voting ID rules isn't just a state thing. On June 17, 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that states cannot require proof of citizenship in cases of voter registration for federal elections unless the state receives federal or court approval to do so. That is the feds have said the states can't just solve that for themselves.
The state I live in (Arizona) requires proof your presence is authorized to get state ID. If you are a citizen, that means proof of citizenship. But then loop back to supreme court decision above.
Edit: firstly, this is a distraction (i.e. a red herring) from the debate about national IDs. We have a national ID issue which needs to be fixed.
That ruling doubles down on it being a state thing by saying leave citizenship (which is a federal thing) out of it. If a state creates for itself a catch-22, that is the states fault and is therefore the states responsibility to fix.
Arizona needs to stop shirking it’s responsibility to its residents and come up with a solution to this problem, just like virtually every other state has.
What's the solution, though? I live in California, and my state-issued ID doesn't say anything about my US citizenship. When I registered to vote (online), I had to certify that I was eligible to vote. Yes, the penalties for lying are steep, but if the state can't verify if I'm lying or not, how will I get caught?
If SCOTUS says states can't require proof of citizenship for voter registration, how can they exclude non-citizens from voter rolls? The state hasn't created a catch-22; the federal judiciary has told the states that they effectively can't use citizenship as a requirement for voting.
I feel like I'm missing something here, because this can't be the state of things.
> We have a national ID issue which needs to be fixed.
What issue is this? Why do we need a national ID? What purpose would one serve? Plenty of Americans go through their lives just fine without any sort of federally-issued ID. Pretty much all you have to do is never travel outside the US, and many Americans don't.
Aside from the hundreds of other cost-and-convenience reasons, eliminating the SSN (and associated fraud) would be easily worth it on its own.
Even if it were true that plenty of people get through life without a federal ID, that doesn’t mean all do. As I have said other places in this thread, the rickety machinery of federal identity replication grinds up plenty of people.
Thanks for the reference. Your idea is that maintaining an official national database of people, linked to driver's licenses, would make it harder to commit fraud; is that right?
This was a genuine question. It's not obvious to me why it would matter which primary key people used in their customer databases, but fraud is also not something I worry about or really even think about.
Nope. As I’ve said other places in this thread we should replace the social security card and number with a modern identity system.
Currently your SSN is your client secret, but it’s a terrible one and we should replace it with a more robust secret. I shouldn’t be able to steal your identity by knowing a short number with minimal entropy.
I think a ID card is easier than a driver's license. Not everyone needs or wants a driver's license. If you don't have a driver's license, how can you vote in the US? Do you need a passport?
It depends where you are. Some states, like mine, require ID to vote. Some don't. Some have strict rules on absentee ballots. Others allow "vote by mail" or ballot drop boxes.
I just filled out a piece of paper to register to vote, mailed it in, and then when I showed up at my polling place I signed next to my name on the voter roles. Post covid they they just mail you a ballot now and you mail it back or take it to a drop box. If you want to vote in person you take your mail-in ballot and surrender it and they give you a regular ballot.
Pretty much every functioning democracy in the world has a national ID system, because that's how any functioning country works. The US is not special in that regard. In fact, most major countries in the world without an ID system are... all former colonies of the UK.
But I guess you can keep on being scared of leaking your SSN (that everyone unofficially uses as an ID anyways) and keep on using different cards depending on the state. There's a reason identity theft is so prevalent in the US, and pretty much nowhere else in the world.
Living in the USA not having to carry an ID all the time is a breath of fresh air. Not having to call the cops to tell them I moved to that their records are up to date and so that they can come to my place of residence to see whether I actually live there is a breath of fresh air.
I don't want to government to know that much about me. It has been proven over and over that less is better.
> Not having to call the cops to tell them I moved to that their records are up to date and so that they can come to my place of residence to see whether I actually live there is a breath of fresh air.
Eh. In most states you are required to get a new DL if you move. So, in fact, you have to tell the state where you live.
Whereas with a national ID, that wouldn't be tied to a place of residence.
> Whereas with a national ID, that wouldn’t be tied to a place of residence.
Why would you assume that? our current substitute for a national ID (state issued ID compliant with the federal REAL ID Act) requires current address, and has higher standards for proof of address than many pre-REAL ID state IDs did.
Can't reply to toomuchtodo so dropping this here; your passport is tied to your address via your SSN which is tied to tax returns. They frankly probably know where you live better than the state you reside in. I know lots of people that haven't updated the address on their driver's license, but I don't know anyone that gives the IRS an incorrect address.
My passport and global entry card do not require a physical address. Just give me a US version of Estonia’s identity smart card and make it work with Login.gov.
Having a national ID and carrying it are two separate things. Many Americans already have a national ID (passport) and do not carry it.
Conversely, the most common state ID (driver's license) is effectively mandatory to carry at all times for most Americans because it is required to drive a motor vehicle and driving a motor vehicle is required to move around outside of major urban areas.
The consequences of identity theft in many EU countries are dramatically less severe than in the US, though.
This is mostly due to not using a short, immutable identifier (like the US SSN) effectively as a bearer token, as far as I can tell.
Even getting a copy (or even the original!) of somebody's passport or driver's license is not enough to open a bank account or a credit card in many EU countries; in Germany, you need to actually appear in front of a bank employee (or subcontractor), personally or in a video chat, verify your identity, and confirm your intention to open a new account.
No, UK not only has no ID card but also doesn't have the equivalent of an SSN. The National Insurance number serves the same primary purpose as SSN, for associating tax payments, but it doesn't otherwise serve as a unique identifier for each citizen - it's not used on credit card applications for example. UK has lower %age of drivers than US due to strong public transport, so mandating a drivers license for ID isn't feasible.
The UK just bought in new ID rules for voting which bizarrely allow for things like a senior citizen rail card to be used. (it's being brought in by our conservative government for same reason as US - to disenfranchise certain voter blocks - hence why a senior citizen rail card is fine but a youth or normal adult one is not)
In the US we say "driver's license" because 90+% of the population has one, but the portion of the population who doesn't wish to drive can get a State ID card. The only difference between an ID card and a driver's license is on the back where it lists what types of vehicles you are allowed to drive and what types of restrictions have been placed on your driving them.
In the UK how do you prevent minors from buying alcohol if you don't have some sort of ID with DOB on it?
Voting is pretty bizarre. I voted for some local elections and they didn't even check my ID. I had to tell my name they checked my name on the list and I could vote. I could then come back a few hours later again in name of a flat mate of who was on vacation.
One underappreciated benefit of the lack of national ID is it forces the system to deal with a plethora of different IDs, and therefore makes the lives of those with rare forms of ID (such as foreigners) much simpler.
A nice idea, but in my experience that's not the case.
Quite a lot of financial institutions will still only accept a US state-issued driver's license to open an account with them, even though they generally accept foreigners.
I've even encountered one that accepts only driver's licenses and not (also DMV-issued) learner's permits or non-driving IDs!
I'd rather have a federated ID system like what we have currently with state drivers licenses/voter id systems. Social Security Number/TIN is already used as a unique identifier for all financial transactions anyways.
It's messy and complex at times, but in the long run I'd rather deal with a bunch of small state level bureaucracies than a giant federal behemoth that barely functions (looking at you IRS).
The single time I've ever had an issue with the IRS - I forgot to sign a 1080X - They sent me a letter, I signed it, and everything was perfectly fine. They collect a massive amount of payments and paperwork every year. I don't know how you could say they're barely functioning.
The DMV on the other hand is the joke in American culture about incompetent bureaucracies.
Count yourself very lucky that you never had an issue with the IRS. I had to deal with a mistake that the IRS made erroneously and even after 4 years it is still not resolved. Every 6 months I get a letter that the IRS still hasn't bothered to look into it and I'm guessing they likely never will.
DMV is the butt of all the jokes, but atleast you can walk into a DMV office and a real person, however annoyed they might be will try to help you.
Is the IRS well known as a barely functioning behemoth? There's no shortage of animus towards them, but it's generally seemed closer to "I don't like the agency that takes my money" than "this agency is incompetent."
They're seriously understaffed. Forget about the partisan politics for the reasons behind it but a terrible side effect of this lack of resources is that they only go after the low hanging fruits to audit. Like Joey Banana who forgot to report a few hundred dollars of income will get audited but complicated tax evasion schemes go unaudited.
Isn't a lot of the reason that they are impractical that there are powerful organizations lobbying for taxes to be painful and complicated to pay. E.g. Turbotax and the Americans for Tax Reform
I’m Californian and I have a much easer time dealing with Federal departments than state departments. For one, Federal websites actually work properly.
ID card is not needed. There is no reason to hold one since they already have access to your data, and authenticate by your picture and other. Using a card just allows more fraud crimes, something that is already very bad in the US.
When I traveled to Saudi Arabia a few years ago they took my fingerprints at customs. When exiting the country, I didn't give them my passport - they just scanned my thumbs and asked me to confirm my name.
Delegating ID to states (ID & driver's license) and states delegating to local jurisdictions (birth certificate) for identity actually makes sense. At the Federal level, they confirm and issue IDs for employees, people who work at Federal locations, and people who want to travel outside the US.
Amusingly ICAO (the UN aviation standardizations organization) has specified the ID card format for Machine Readable (Official) Travel Documents. And the passport card conforms to those specifications. But the only use of it that they officially encourage countries to accept is the Crew Member Certificate.
In all other cases, acceptance would be based on agreements between the involved countries. In theory, any country could choose to accept any such document without an agreement, but they have little reason to do so, and it is not really compatible with paper visas. Furthermore, they should refuse it if there are unmatched conditions printed on the back of the card, like the passport cards have. The result is that they are of pretty limited use, and most countries that do use them will restrict them to specific scenarios where there are agreements in place.
Not useful for international air travel but remarkably usable as general ID when traveling abroad. When I’ve been asked for an ID for random purposes and showed it while traveling, it’s worked just fine. Worth the $100 or whatever to not have to share my home address with some stranger
ID cards to vote would disproportionately obstruct legitimate voting of older people and racial minorities.
You need to understand that adding barriers to vote in the US has a 100+ year history of nefarious things like preventing eligible black people from voting as their primary purpose, then a firm understanding of the motives of such modern discussions falls quickly into place. Silly people who complain about "wokeness", maybe many of them here on HN, will say I'm being paranoid or outdated in that description, but the history is dark, ugly, and very real.
That is not an argument. The same way wokes say “look at Europe” when it comes to healthcare, conservatives say “look at Europe” when it comes to id cards.
All through the EU, id cards are the norm. If we can do it, so can you. This whole “but think of the black people” is bs. What are you, some kind of racist? You don’t think black people can get ids?
Obviously there's no shortage of ugly history in Europe, but Europe doesn't have this particular historical context. I would expect Europeans to be naive about this. I've had this discussion before.
> You don’t think black people can get ids?
Statistically, they are less likely to do so.
Edit: For me, an eye opening tidbit was this admission by a Republican strategist that the late 20th century discourse was about shifting from overt language about racism to more covert, abstract, economic talking points that are still rooted in racism. This is a left wing source but has the actual audio recording of that admission. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwa... -- the takeaway is that you can't take a surface level read on a proposal and trust that no direct mention of race implies that it is not racist.
I think what Atwater predicted in this clip somewhat came true. Enough time has passed that young people have unironically embraced the dog whistles as idealized abstractions about small government and economics, states rights or federalism, without realizing they used to be dog whistles and not genuinely held when popularized.
Holy shit mate, do you hear your self? This is literally 13/52 talk.
Black people can get ids, they should get ids, just like everyone does in every other civilised country. I honestly can’t understand how anyone can oppose such a simple and natural thing.
> Minority voters disproportionately lack ID. Nationally, up to 25% of African- American citizens of voting age lack government-issued photo ID, compared to only 8% of whites.
I did not make up the statistic.
I do not endorse it or wish it to continue, but numerically, that is what it is. This is probably the largest reason one side of the American political spectrum, the one who would benefit from lower racial minority turnout, supports tightening the laws.
In tight elections like we routinely have, that statistical disparity can be enough to alter electoral outcomes.
Bruv, that is literally what racists say about crime stats. Black people account for only 13% of the population yet commit 52% of the crime. And they say “I did not make up the statistic.
I do not endorse it or wish it to continue, but numerically, that is what it is.” and then go on to suggest segregation or some other ridiculous thing. Just like you are suggesting ridiculous things like opposing id cards. They work, everyone uses and yes you god damned racist, black people can get them, they’re not retarded ffs!
There's a huge difference between blaming black people for crime and wanting to prevent voter disenfranchisement that the status quo says disproportionately affects black people.
They can get ID cards.. but they are less likely to. There are all sorts of factors involved in that, which are lamentable but we won't be able to solve overnight. Taking away voting rights will probably not help us get there either.
I swear this is literally the meme with the soyjack at the end crying “no, not like this!”
There is literally no functional difference between using racial statistics to argue for segregation or against id cards. The only difference is, you like one policy and dislike the other.
I completely agree. You are denigrating black people by implying they’re retarded and can’t get something as simple as an id card, and I am protecting voting rights by supporting a measure that will aid in increasing trust in the elections.
ACLU is no longer an unbiased source and regularly peddles regime propaganda.
"Studies of the effects of voter ID laws on turnout in the United States have generally found that such laws have little, if any, effect on turnout." [0]
"A 2014 study from the University of Iowa found no evidence that strict voter ID laws reduce minority turnout.[127] A 2012 study found that, although the Georgia voter ID laws lowered overall turnout by 0.4%, there was no racial or ethnic component to the suppression effect." [0]
Sorry, I tried a few drafts and I'm not sure how to say this. I am blown away by your reference to "the regime". It destroys your credibility immediately. It marks you as a very paranoid person.
I don't agree with everything ACLU says or does either. I don't start accusing them of conspiracy theories. I feel like pockets of HN are much more pro right wing conspiracy theory vs. just one year ago.
Anyway, the Wikipedia article you link to also has my argument represented, too ... Maybe read more of it.
If someone says ACLU is "propaganda for the Biden regime" I would say that person is pretty conspiracy theorist adjacent and not expressing themselves like someone in touch with reality.
I am usually very agreeable toward arguments of the form "all of Europe does X, so it's ridiculous to assume the US can't too". This is one of the cases where that's not true. ID requirements have been used for centuries in the US to disenfranchise various groups of voters. That's fact. If you know of a specific way to enforce strong ID requirements while somehow changing culture and politics dramatically for a huge swath of people such that this disenfranchisement stops being a problem, by all means, please let us know. Otherwise, your idea will not work.
>>you know of a specific way to enforce strong ID requirements
Do you know of any state that even has or is proposing "strong ID requirements" in the first place, because most of the Voter ID Laws I have seen passed have very very weak ID Requirements, often not even requiring offical government ID, instead accepting all mannar of types if ID including school issued ID's, Libary ID;s (if they ahve a photo), some even accept employer made ID's
All states that have voter ID laws also include a provision to get Free State Issues ID's so there is no cost requirement.
> ID requirements have been used for centuries in the US to disenfranchise
Because something was bad in the past, implemented in a different way, with different terms, under a difference society does is not a justification for opposition today.
>>If you know of a specific way
Some of the reforms / requirements I would like to see for voting
1. Week Long Voting including at-least 1 Sat and 1 Sun separated by 5 days.
2. In Person only unless provided a medical or other reason they can vote in person
3. if we are to have "ballot harvesting" Ballot collection only by certified, sworn and bonded person. A program akin to something notary public, and the collector must sign or otherwise identify their collections on the outside of the secure envelope, collections will be recorded and made part of the public record showing how many ballots each collector collected, and for what voter
4. Work with private partners to provide more polling locations, I am unclear why every Walmart, is not a polling location as an example
5. Remove all political parties from the ballot. We vote for people, not parties.
Passport cards seem like a good way to begin to offer this. I flash mine as my “national ID” when traveling abroad (since I’m asked for one occasionally). I like that it doesn’t have an address on it which I have zero desires to share with strangers. All the people overseas care about is that it “looks official” and the passport card has some shiny US-type security features that fit that qualification
After moving to the US from Canada it's pretty shocking the number of institutions that do not accept either your passport or a federally issued ID (TTP) as valid identification.
Everyone wants a state ID such as a driver's license to open bank accounts online.
This Real ID deadline has made it a massive pain to get a California DL and of course California doesn't allow exchange of a Canadian Provincial DL unlike the reverse.
I presume you’re taking about address proofs. The secret is that they aren’t so strict about it. Change the bank or credit card address nearest to issuing next statement. Then just sign up for Google fi and use whatever address. When I needed to change an CA drivers license address to a friends while living abroad for a bit, getting these two proofs took me under a week. And my friends address was where I wanted any correspondence to go, so I considered the change genuine for my situation
Pretty much. A friend had a live-in nanny who needed state ID, but had no proof of US address. A lease qualifies, so the friend just typed up a lease with an address.
Is there really any voting related problems for ID though? Voter ID fraud is essentially 0 at this point. Only the low information people can't come to terms with that. State IDs are fine. If you want a national ID just get a passport
There was legislation, some slow movements towards ID, but nothing really happened. The general public weren’t required to carry ID. But yes the conservative and Lib Dem coalition repealed it
> Only workers in certain high-security professions, such as airport workers, were required to have an identity card in 2009,[clarification needed] and this general lack of compulsory ID remains the case today.
> But if you're unfamiliar, I'll explain that a common evangelical christian belief is that a national ID card may be somehow related to the "mark of the beast" stuff in revelations.
This is a parody by non-Christians of what most of them actually believe. For most of them the concern is over microchips, implants, or something physically on their person, not an ID Card, and even there is not uniform concern over it. Revelations itself says that it will be on their right hand or forehead, which no ID Card is. One could argue that it is a foreshadowing of things to come, if not itself it.
As for where the concern comes from, it's not the ID itself, as much as the implication that in the future, people will be required to commit apostasy in order to get an ID, or the chip, or whatever have you. Thus, they are opposed, so as to prevent such a lockout.
GP didn't say the ID was the mar of the beast, only that it was related to it. Having grown up in an evangelical household, I very much disagree that what he's said is a parody of what evangelicals believe. He is spot on.
Yes, frequently. It's not uncommon at all where I was raised (US South). We can talk to my father, or almost any member of his congregation, about how a national ID is a government plot to identify, control and harm the faithful.
Yes. They (my parents) believed any sort of centralized federal ID was a "slippery slope," though they weren't educated enough to know and use that exact phrase, towards an implanted chip, barcode tattoo, or whatever form they were convinced it would take.
really? still, to this day? one would think that evangelical Christians would skew conservative, and therefore be in favor of state/federal ID, for election security purposes.
These people are extremely conservative - well past treating "election security" as a primary concern and far closer to "welcoming the return of Jesus / the rapture" as their single motivating force. They'll of course support most other conservative causes, but only so far as they don't conflict with salvation.
Genuine questions: (1) what about obtaining an ID would somehow imply the need to commit apostasy and, as an extension (2) what about that would be unique versus, say, obtaining car insurance or a bank account?
Even assuming an eschatological evangelical worldview, it isn't immediately clear to me what distinguishes IDs from any other engagement in society.
Let me try to explain. The government of that time will say that you must publicly affirm your association with the beast to receive an identifier. The placement of the identifier on your hand or forehead will itself be positioned as a continual affirmation of your association with Team Beast. So, if you are wearing it then you are proclaiming your association with the beast. The beast is described as hating God and hating Christians and persecuting them. If you wear its badge (mark), then you would be affirming those actions.
This, obviously, creates a problem for Christians who are commanded to love God and to love others.
If it was just an identifier that held no other meaning, then it's fine, but it's called the "mark of the beast" and it's described as a literal badge of association with this creature. It's not just a bank account number.
Hope that helps. If not, just imagine how odious it would be, especially to Democrats, if Republicans made it a requirement to wear your MAGA hat to buy food.
"In order to have a valid citizenship ID you must submit to your biannual Multivax Booster+ Gold (or Platinum) plan sponsored by Pfizer"
I'm agnostic and always found these sorts of religious doomsday proclamations to be exaggerations, but after seeing what the masses have openly embraced over the last 2 years I know I was wrong. It hasn't made me religious, but I can definitely see their concern for being forced into any number of situations in order to fully participate in society.
There are a large number of people stuck in semi-permanent limbo because their disjointed federal IDs don’t agree about some combination of birthday, spelling of name, etc. I have a friend who fills out their taxes with a birthday which is not their birthday because they can’t get the SSA change the date on file(they insist the state must be wrong and that the state should change). Getting a passport required months of effort and ultimately a lawyer because the federal and state documents disagree.
Having one master citizen record would allow us to have one place to make changes and one group to appeal to when fixing errors.
Also, to be super clear, all Americans already have at least one federal ID, it’s just a bad one. Let’s make it less bad.
I already had a Real ID but when I moved to New York and went to get my license switched they would not give me another one despite having proof of address, my SSN, my valid passport, and my existing valid Real ID. I have to go back with all of that and pay another $60 or something along with my birth certificate to get a Real ID from the state. Unbelievable hassle to get that thing.
I got to real ID like 2 years ago, and I had to argue with the DMV guy. He discouraged me from getting it, saying it was unnecessary and I should use a passport instead.
I actually had to argue with him and give him reasons why I wanted it before he would allow me to get it.
Meanwhile in other countries... Secure, easy-to-obtain, IDs since several decades.
Also, an ID is required to vote and since it is secure you don't need any silly voter registration (which is just suppression in the guise of verification).
The current system (without Real ID) isn't really any less "secure". All Real ID does is force you to show a citizenship document to travel. It's designed to put pressure on illegal immigrants to self deport and punish States like California for who issue driver's licenses to non-citizens.
There is no automatic reason that Real ID would even be required to vote, since voting is left up to the states anyway. If the state says you can use a business card to vote then you can.
Voter registration also ensures that you're voting in the right races. Because the US has so many local races, people living not very far apart may have different ballots for things like local water district. And people are terrible at updating the address on their id.
I feel vindicated in skipping the extra evidence for getting a RealID. The new enforcement date is past my renewal date, and I plan to get a non-RealID next time too.
could never get that. why get all 200mil adults drag their ass to the dmv with stupid-ass falsifiable bills as "proof" (of what? that i exist?) and make TONs of busywork for the whole country when you could just renew automatically into "real"... pure idiocy
“Proof of address” is what they’re looking for. There isn’t any other way of getting that across the country because there wasn't consistency between states on verification. I don’t why other than maybe making sure the feds have workable address databases to help with investigations
why isn't a human being enough? why do we require a paper trail to what is already here?
because we prefer to own things. it's always been all about whose is what. that's what any national ID says: "this person belongs to country which issued their passport".
but then, if I am really a free human being, why must I be treated as my country's property?
The REAL ID Act was passed by Congress in 2005, and the enforcement of its requirements for state-issued driver's licenses and identification cards began in phases, starting in 2016. As of October 2021, all states are now compliant with the REAL ID Act and have implemented the required security measures for their driver's licenses and identification cards. This means that, in most cases, you will need to have a REAL ID-compliant driver's license or identification card to board a domestic flight or enter certain federal facilities, such as military bases and federal courthouses.
Why is it still being pursued?