As Bush's ID Plan Was Delayed, Coalition Formed Against It

The National Governors Association calls Real ID an $11 billion unfunded mandate. States say the federal government, not license holders, should pay the tab. It wants up to 10 years for states to enact laws, pass budgets, develop technology, hire staff members and educate the public to phase in changes.

Last month, Maine's lawmakers voted to stop the initiative, saying it would cost $185 million -- six times the Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles' annual budget. Measures are pending in at least 21 states to oppose or question the law.

Matthew Dunlap, Maine's secretary of state and head of the bureau, said the message from the lawmakers was: "We don't care if you give us bags of money. We don't want it."

An unusual and powerful alliance of civil liberties groups and libertarian groups important to the political bases of both parties has also mobilized. They describe Orwellian scenarios in which Real ID integrates nationwide databases storing personal information without adequate security safeguards, and they ask who will own and control access to the system.

"Real ID is a real nightmare," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's Program on Technology and Liberty. "No one should be fooled that just because the data resides in 50 different states it's not all functionally one big database, because all the data is linked together."

Steinhardt said he fears that private companies that demand to check driver's licenses for commercial purposes could sell unencrypted data they get from the licenses to big data brokers. Means to prevent that could be even more costly and raise other security risks.

There are other worries. If Maine wants to include gun-permit information on its driver's licenses, Dunlap asked, will a Maine gun owner whose ID is swiped in a traffic stop in another state face extra scrutiny?

Practical problems also loom. Computer systems that would let state workers electronically verify birth certificates, Social Security numbers or citizenship status do not yet exist, Dunlap said, calling them "science fiction."

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), ranking Republican on Lieberman's panel, and Rep. Tom Allen (D-Maine) are seeking to delay or repeal Real ID and let security experts, privacy advocates and the states renegotiate the rules.

That is what Congress started to do in 2004. But in 2005, Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), then chairman of the Judiciary Committee, rewrote the law to keep illegal immigrants from getting licenses and to let the Homeland Security Department define the rules for the program.

"If that process had been allowed to finish, we would have been done by now," said David Quam of the National Governors Association.

Instead, work bogged down in the overstretched department, whose top officials failed at first to give it enough attention, current and former officials said.

Stewart A. Baker, assistant homeland security secretary for policy, defended the department's effort: "We've moved this as fast as possible given the importance of the issue to so many different constituencies."

Michael E. O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, blamed the administration and the previous Congress for squandering the consensus on security that formed after Sept. 11.

"It's a very badly mishandled case overall of a homeland security reform that was logical, important and yet not sufficiently promoted at the right time," O'Hanlon said. "We've lost the sense of urgency."

Staff writer Ellen Nakashima contributed to this report.