"Real ID": A Really Bad Idea?

Don't know if you noticed, but the "de facto" national ID card legislation just passed Congress. You can read the text of the REAL ID Act if you'd like. Bruce Schneier, one of the nation's best and brightest information and risk management brains, has this in part to say about REAL ID:

The United States will get a national ID card. The REAL ID Act establishes uniform standards for state driver's licenses, to go into effect in three years, effectively creating a national ID card. It's a bad idea, and is going to make us all less safe. It's also very expensive. And it all happened without any serious debate in Congress. If you haven't heard much about REAL ID in the newspapers, that's not an accident. The politics of REAL ID was almost surreal. It was voted down last fall, but was reintroduced and attached to legislation that funds military actions in Iraq. This was a "must-pass" piece of legislation, which means that there was no debate on REAL ID. No hearings, no debates in committees, no debates on the floor. Nothing. And it's now law.

Read more here.

I, for one, am floored by how this all went down. I need more time to digest the implications of a national ID card -- as I believe most of us do. It smacks of Big Brother. Armed checkpoints with soldiers eyeing suspiciously and demanding "papers please!" I even agree with this conservative pundit on the issue.