Illinois and dozens of other states dodged a bullet when the federal government late last week again extended the deadline for states to adopt new driver’s licenses and identification cards that meet federal standards. In announcing the delay, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security noted that most states would not meet the May deadline.
“Real ID” remains federal law, but now states will have until January 2013 to comply. Before the extension, states were supposed to be in compliance by May. Illinois would have missed the May deadline, and an Illinois 
House State Government Administration committee resoundingly rejected a bill, by a vote of 14 – 0, that authorized the state to take the steps to get into compliance.
The estimated cost to bring Illinois into compliance with Real ID is $100 million over five years, according to reports. The state would have had to redesign facilities, upgrade security and install digital transmission lines and other equipment to handle and store data and documents needed to issue Real ID cards, according to Secretary of State Jesse White
White’s office prepared legislation that would have authorized the state to comply with the Real ID program. Among other things, the bill set a $75 fee for Real ID cards. Drivers’ licenses now cost $20.
Have we ever come across a Democrat that didn’t LIKE a potential revenue source?
All 50 states are required under a from the directive of the Obama Administration’s Department of Homeland Security, to federalize their driver’s licenses, effectively converting what was a uniquely, “local” state drivers’ license into what amounts to a “National ID Card”—or, as some opponents to the concept during the Clinton years called it, “a United States Internal Passport.”
REAL I.D. was enacted in 2005, to make it more difficult for people who are not citizens, to secure a state-issued driver’s license. The law was due to take effect in May 2011. At that time, every States would be required to create a drivers’ license that conforms to new federal “standards.”
In short: REAL I.D. allows the government to convert your state issued drivers’ license into a REAL Communist-style National Identification Card, with all the scary attributes of an Internal Passport like people in Communist-Europe were required to carry at all times. The new law also requires those who do not drive to have a state-issued “non-driver” ID card.
Not just the federal government, but all fifty states (that’s right, Barack, fifty states, not fifty-seven) will be able to quickly (at a moment’s notice!) share 18 different points of private information about you. Can we stop this stealing of our personal identity? You can, by e-mailing every single member of the U. S. Congress to Repeal this personal invasion of your privacy. Yes, identity theft has already happened – thanks to the federal government, Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Dick Durbin and Nancy Pelosi.
