By Lucas Knowles

Staff Writer

    Maine has been at the forefront of the opposition
against the Real ID Act, which mandates that states switch driver’s
licenses and state identification cards into national ID cards that
would be part of a nationwide database.

    A local discussion about that topic took place this past week.

    Last Sunday, the public was invited to a forum being
hosted by the Scarborough and Cumberland County Democratic Committees
at Scarborough Town Hall. The subject was “The Real ID Act and Other
Threats to Civil Liberties.”

    The Real ID Act was passed in May 2005 by the United
States Congress as part of the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations
for Defense, the Global War on Terror and Tsunami Relief.

    It requires that, starting in May 2008, states must
have identification cards or driver’s licenses that conform to
standards for a “national ID card.”

    As part of the Real ID Act, Americans would need to
present their national ID cards to board an airplane, open a bank
account, collect social security payments or take advantage of a host
of federal government services. States would need to reissue licenses
and identification cards that comply with Department of Homeland
Security rules.

    Another part of the legislation stipulates that all
national ID cards must be “machine readable,” which could mean they
would come with a magnetic strip, bar code or identification chip.

    In January 2007, Maine became the first state to
voice opposition to the Real ID Act when the legislature voted (34-0 in
the senate, 137-4 in the house) in support of a resolution asking
Congress to repeal the legislation and refusing to implement the
legislation in Maine.

    Shenna Bellows, executive director of the Maine
Civil Liberties Union, was one of the speakers at the forum this past
week. She said the MCLU’s major concerns lie with two parts of the
legislation, one of which being the “machine readable” technology and
its ramifications.    “Once readable technology becomes
a reality, its use can be expanded and perverted in a number of ways,”
Bellows said. “You might have to use the ID card, for example, at a big
box retailer or on highways…the technology is unclear, but also
limitless.”

    The other major portion of the MCLU’s opposition to
the Real ID Act, according to Bellows, is concern about the
ramifications a nationwide database could pose.

    “When you have this compilation of a huge amount of
personal information in a centralized location, it becomes a one stop
shop for identity theft,” Bellows said. “Once the database is in place,
the possibilities are limitless.”

    Bellows said the MCLU makes safety a high priority, but not at the expense of personal freedoms.

    “We all want to be safe, but we don’t want to
sacrifice our liberties for a false sense of safety,” Bellows said.

    Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap said his
concerns about the Real ID Act are “more mechanical than philosophical”
and that they center on “whether (the legislation) can be done and will
it work?”

    He said one reason for questioning the legislation
is that he believes it places too much pressure on states to perform
federal government functions.

    “The act focuses entirely on how states issue
driver’s licenses,” Dunlap said. “It places the onus entirely on the
states…you have all these immigration documents that no one can
distinguish real from fake and then you ask a service rep at a local
motor vehicle branch to be the last line of defense?”

    Dunlap said he would “like to bring a touch of reality” to the debate on the Real ID Act.

    Scarborough Democratic Committee chairman Neil
Jamieson said his organization wanted to present a forum that “educated
people and gave people a chance to have an opinion on something that is
happening.”