Speak Out Against REAL ID

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Stop REAL ID! Submit comments to the Dept. of Homeland Security by May 8th!

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Contents
[1] Take Action! [2] Background [3] Resources [4] Campaign Coalition [5] Web Buzz About the Campaign

Take Action!

To take action and make your voice heard, submit comments against the fundamentally flawed national identification scheme. The draft regulations to implement the REAL ID Act are open for comment until 5:00 PM EST on May 8, 2007. The comments can be submitted in one of three ways:

  1. E-mail: Send to oscomments@dhs.gov. Include DHS-2006-0030 in the subject line.
  2. Online through the Federal Rulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov (search for "DHS-2006-0030-0001" and follow the instructions for submitting comments);
  3. Fax to 1-866-466-5370. Your fax must state that you are submitting comments in response to Notice of Proposed Rulemaking DHS-2006-0030.
  4. Postal Mail sent to Department of Homeland Security; Attn: NAC 1-12037; Washington, D.C. 20538. Your letter must state that you are submitting comments in response to Notice of Proposed Rulemaking DHS-2006-0030.

Click here for sample comments you can print, sign and send in.

Portals for submitting comments:
American Civil Liberties Union
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Privacy Activism

Background

Organizations have launched a nationwide campaign to engage the public in the debate over what would be the first national identification document. These transpartisan, nonpartisan, privacy, consumer, civil liberty, civil rights, and immigrant organizations have joined in this unique public education project because the REAL ID proposal put forth by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would harm our lives in a multitude of ways every day. The proposed regulations set requirements that states must follow to have their state issued identification documents accepted for federal purposes, like getting on an airplane or entering a government building, including courthouses.

The power of the Department of Homeland Security, along with other federal government agencies, to reach into the everyday lives of people living in this country will be unprecedented.

This is the same federal agency that had responsibility for helping people following Hurricane Katrina, and proved itself not to be ready for the challenge. Creating a national identification system is a huge, complex project and there no agency in the Federal government that has proven that it could manage a project of this magnitude.

What we do know: You will make more than one trip to the motor vehicle office to apply for your REAL ID national identification card; the government has estimated that the scheme will cost taxpayers $21 billion; REAL ID requires documentation that most people will have difficulty finding; and the cost of driver's licenses and state ID cards will skyrocket. We do know that the federal government is considering expanding the REAL ID card to everyday use.

Click for more background...

Resources

Campaign Coalition

  1. American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations
  2. American Library Association
    • "There are serious privacy and security issues with the REAL ID Act," said Loriene Roy, ALA President-Elect. "ALA has expressed deep concern about standardized machine-readable driver's licenses and national identification cards because of the potential privacy implications for library users, as well as the increased potential for identity theft for all individuals."
  3. American Policy
  4. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
    • Carol Khawly, Director of Legal Advocacy at ADC, states that "as a community, we fear that the REAL ID card will be used by different government agencies as well as private parties to profile individuals who look foreign or who have a foreign name."
  5. Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund
  6. Association of American Physicians & Surgeons
  7. Bill of Rights Defense Committee
  8. Center for Digital Democracy
  9. Center for Financial Privacy and Human Rights
  10. Citizen Outreach Project
  11. Citizens Against Government Waste
    • "REAL ID raises the specter of George Orwell's 1984 the government controlling a central database of personal information, which could be used to monitor the comings and going of American citizens," said CAGW President Tom Schatz.
  12. Coalition Against Prosecutorial Abuse
  13. Common Cause
  14. Computing Professionals for Social Responsibility
  15. Consumer Action
  16. DownsizeDC.org
  17. Electronic Frontier Foundation
  18. Electronic Privacy Information Center
    • "Make no mistake, this is a national identification system that will affect your everyday life," said Melissa Ngo, Director of EPIC's Identification and Surveillance Project. "Critics of the REAL ID scheme are called anti-security, but it is not anti-security to reject a national identification system that will harm our national security and make it easier for criminals to pretend to be law-abiding Americans."
  19. Fairfax County Privacy Council
  20. Give Me Back My Rights Coalition
  21. Government Accountability Project
  22. Gun Owners of America
  23. Immigrant Workers Union
  24. Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
  25. Liberty Coalition
  26. National Center for Transgender Equality
  27. National Council of Jewish Women
  28. National Council of La Raza
  29. National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
  30. National Immigration Law Center
  31. OpenCarry.org
  32. Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays
  33. Patient Privacy Rights Foundation
  34. People for the American Way
  35. Privacy Activism
    • "The breadth and diversity of the opposition is a real testimony to how harmful Real ID is to so many different communities," said Deborah Pierce, Executive Director of PrivacyActivism.org and one of the founders of the Stop Real ID Now! activism campaign. "By getting people and groups who are usually excluded from the debate involved at the grassroots level, we can stop Real ID."
    • "The Real ID Act of 2005 turns our state driver's licenses into a national ID card, costs over $20 billion dollars, infringes privacy, and imposes major burdens on taxpayers, anybody renewing a driver's license, seniors, immigrants, transgender people, and state governments - while doing nothing to protect against terrorism," said privacy activist Jon Pincus, one of the founders of the Stop Real ID Now! activism campaign. "This commenting process is a great chance for the American people to tell DHS and Congress the Real ID Act is a bad law that needs to be repealed."
  36. Privacy Rights Clearinghouse
  37. Privacy Times
  38. Republican Liberty Caucus
  39. Rutherford Institute, The
  40. The Arc of the United States United Cerebral Palsy
  41. The Multiracial Activist
  42. US Bill of Rights Foundation
  43. Virginia Citizens Defense League
  44. Virginia Gun Owners Coalition
  45. World Privacy Forum

More Groups Join Anti-National ID Campaign:

  1. America's Right to Privacy
  2. Arizona Citizens Defense League
  3. Asian American Justice Center
  4. Artist Activism Network
  5. Constitution Party of North Carolina
  6. Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (CASPIAN)
  7. Consumer Federation of California
  8. Center for Democracy & Technology
  9. Labornet
  10. LaborTech
  11. The Loyal Nine
  12. Oklahoma Defense of Freedom Project
  13. PogoWasRight.org
  14. PrivacyRightsNow.com
  15. South Asian American Leaders of Tomorrow
  16. Young Democrats of America

Web Buzz About the Campaign

Blog Posts covering the campaign:

Visit Technorati.com to see all blog posts about the campaign. 203 blogs currently support the REAL ID campaign!



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