News-Record.com

The dead tree edition of the paper carried a story today about a nascent effort to opt North Carolina out of the federal ID law.

You can read the legislation in question by clicking here.

As noted in the story, there are some civil liberties concerns with REAL ID: having a gigantic federal database with a lot of information about private citizens, etc...

But this feels to me to be a worry about money. Rep. Nelson Cole says the choice is simple: do the stuff to comply with REAL ID or pave roads. He'd rather pave roads.

North Carolina is not the first to kick up a fuss and you can get some good background on the federal program by clicking here.

If I were forced to read between the lines of what everyone was telling me last week, I'd say the states who are passing these sorts of measures are stalling for time. Recognizing that the Dept. of Homeland Security has already effectively delayed implementation of the program until the end of 2009, states are hoping that a new president and new Congress will tweak the rules to their liking or get rid of the thing entirely.

That said, I get the feeling that if Congress were to pony up $450 million or so to help states defray the cost of putting the systems in place, they'd have somewhere around 45 of 50 on board as soon as the checks were in the mail.

Congressman Howard Coble, a Greensboro Republican, said he was "disappointed" North Carolina was making noise like it didn't want to play, but he understood the dilemma budget writers were in. Congressman Brad Miller, a Raleigh Democrat, had this to say in an e-mail:

The concept of a national identification system with centralized repositories and tracking capabilities has always been controversial. I am wary of national security plans that may be exploited to undermine the rights of our citizens and could ultimately undermine privacy rights as well as the right to travel.

However, in order to make Real ID less burdensome, states should have more flexibility and funding to update their systems to meet objectives similar to those of Real ID. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security should also consider allowing states reciprocity for people who have already been verified for certain federal identification cards. We must do everything we can to ensure the safety of our citizens against the threat of terrorism. But the states should not be forced to take on this responsibility alone.

I was trying to get a sense on Friday of how this bill might fair in the short session. It's very much the type of thing that could get squirled away in the budget, so it wouldn't have to run on its own. That's probably the nicest thing you can say about a piece of legislation right now, since most folks on Jones Street are still saying this session will run faster than a lard-slicked Slip 'n Slide. I didn't get the sense that it was on either the House or Senate leadership's radar as either a bill to kill or expedite.