A lot of people have not even heard of an event that is at risk of changing everyone’s thought of privacy. The Real ID Act was proposed in 2005 after the 9/11 attacks and has been prolonged till January 2013 for a decision. This Act was signed in 2005 as part of President Bush's "war on terror." This Act is trying to make general standers for the individual states driver license on a federal basis, making every state have a database with all the personal information scanned in order to be able to share it with every other state. The main focus is to avoid terrorist having the availability to “forge a birth certificate and obtain a DL which can be used to rent cars and place explosives” (1). This seems a little bit too drastic in my opinion. Over 600 groups nationwide oppose to it, but Majority are from foundations liberals and democratic.

If this Act gets approved the government will be able to track our every move if they insert the RFID chip, and if a state doesn’t approve the act the people will be considered non-citizens even if they are from USA, denying any access to courthouses, trains, airports. As Americans we feel the right to keep our privacy not by storing it in a database for everyone to see and access. This will create a general database where everyone will be able to share our information, but what will happen if this gets “hacked?”

I see this as if they are trying to restrict our civil liberties and a abuse of surveillance since the national ID system will facilitate monitoring citizens movements, speech and political activities when fully operational. I don’t think that a terrorist would have any need to use an identity card or fear being identified if his mentality is to damage our nation.

Many states are going through economic struggles with unemployment, unable to pay teachers, and in order to go through with this Act, states need to make changes. The Department of Homeland Security is giving out up to 150 grants equaling $175,000,000 to implement Real ID requirements; can’t we use that money for something else?

They are even using the excuse of the arrest of Khalid Aldawsari in Texas as a reason to implement immediately the “REAL ID.”  In the governments affidavit they indicated that he planned to acquire a false birth certificate and multiple false driver’s licenses, assumedly to assist in his getaway after executing his formative bombing plans. Fortunately a company in North Carolina reported to the FBI that he attempted to buy a chemical.  He was not caught due to false documents.

Is this act really going to benefit us or is it going to give us bigger security issues in a future? I guess we can only hope for the best.

(1)   http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20039631-501465.html