Montana Governor: DHS 'Blinks' on Real ID
Saturday, March 22, 2008 at 05:43PM Montana governor Brian Schweitzer declared victory Friday after the Department of Homeland Security sent his state an extension to the Real ID act, despite his insistence Montana will never comply with a mandate he describes as a "boondoggle."
If I were writing the headline, it would be 'DHS Blinks," Schweitzer, a Democrat, told THREAT LEVEL by phone late Friday.
Montana's attorney general sent DHS chief Michael Chertoff a letter (.pdf) Friday outlining the security features in Montana's current driver's licenses, which DHS threatened to reject as valid I.D. for boarding airplanes or entering federal buildings come May 11 unless the state promised to comply with Real ID.
DHS responded by interpreting that letter as a request for an extension (.pdf) of the Real ID deadlines until 2010, reversing its previous position that Montana ID cards would be rejected by federal agents.
"I sent them a horse and if they want to call it a zebra, that's up to them," Schweitzer said. "They can call it whatever they want, and it wasn't a love letter."
Schweitzer emphasized that his state's licenses already contain holograms, secure digital photographs and a magnetic stripe on the back. But says he has no intention of sharing his state's residents' data with the federal government, as required by Real ID.
The information the government wants the states to keep and share in Real ID is ripe for abuse, despite the government's privacy and security promises, he said.
Reader Comments