washington legislature passes anti-real id bill

this post is coming a bit late, as the washington state legislature passed the bill early last month. i didn't know that states were opposing the federal real id act of 2005 until i browsed the aclu website today. as far as i understand the act, it doesn't create a national identification system so much as force states to meet certain requirements that might as well turn state driver licenses, id cards and their databases into national ones. the ala has joined the anti-national id campaign, and some of the details are here. a few of the reasons the ala gives for opposing it are higher risk of identity theft and security risks due to its machine readable content. the ala gives a pretty scary image of the shared database:

"Under the REAL ID Act, states and federal government would share access to a vast national database that could include images of birth certificates, marriage licenses, divorce papers, and more, including detailed information on the name, date of birth, race, and Social Security Number for more than 240 million individuals, with no requirements or controls on how this database might be used."

while some of the content can already be found through public records, having so much information in one place can only cause problems for the privacy of individuals. but it is heartening that states are beginning to take a stand against the act.