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Does anyone have a handle on how we’re getting screwed by RealID? The state governments are pushing it surprisingly strongly and without really explaining what

by ein0p 2y ago

Does anyone have a handle on how we’re getting screwed by RealID? The state governments are pushing it surprisingly strongly and without really explaining what is wrong with the IDs we already have.

kstrauser 2y ago
When I lived in a state without REAL ID, I showed up at the DMV with a couple of easily forged papers and walked out with a drivers license. Did you know there's not actually an official government standard for a christening document, and you could make one at home on a laser printer if you wanted to? Getting a REAL ID was the first time I ever felt like I'd truly proved my identity to a reasonable standard. I'm sure some states without REAL ID already make it hard to get a license. That wasn't my experience though. Missouri and Nebraska were more like, "oh, you've got a letter from your neighbor vouching that you're really Rusty Shackleford? Here you go, Mr. Shackleford!" I think states and the feds have a legitimate non-nefarious interest in proving a person's identity under the appropriate circumstances.
- Spooky23 2y ago
  It’s all theatre. At the end of the day, you’re presenting proof that was essentially obtained the same way, a long time ago. The letter from your neighbor is surprisingly reliable. Certainly more reliable that a record of birth from Texas.
  - kstrauser 2y ago
    Does Texas have a hard time tracking birth records?
    - Spooky23 2y ago
      Texas allowed midwives to personally issue birth certificates. The political machinery in Texas has been historically pretty egregious on their abuse of these sorts of systems. They’ve cracked down in recent years. Birth certificates in general are pretty awful. IIRC there are like 12,000 known entities that issue them. Big states have required central registration for decades. For example, in New York the local municipality issues the birth certificate, but files a copy with the NYS (or NYC) Department of Health. Some smaller states left it to the town clerk in some tiny village. (Or did until relatively recently) There are many many corner cases with these sorts of records. Normie middle class people born in the US with two parents have very neat chains of custody of their records. There are millions who have very messy backgrounds or who don’t have their DOB or name officially recorded at all. Thats why voter ID laws are awful. You don’t have a fundamental right to an ID or obligation to have one, but you do have a right to vote. Putting friction in front of that is a means to disenfranchise people, it’s a form of poll tax.
      - kstrauser 2y ago
        Huh, I didn't realize there was that much variance. I was also a little anxious that you were going to complain about Texas previously allowing trans people to update their gender or something similar. I totally agree about voter ID laws. I'm sympathetic to at least the claimed reasons for wanting them, but in practice there's statistically insignificant amounts of provably invalid voting. It's not worth disenfranchising millions of legitimate voters to stop the handful of frauds.
        Spooky23 2y ago
        Exactly. The problem with voting is that nobody does it! ID is a weird issue that unites the extreme left and right of the spectrum. The reactionaries are worried about the mark of the beast nonsense. When they cared about civil liberties beyond firearms, that would come up too. The left wingers are worried about disenfranchising the poor and elderly. Thats one of the reasons why the ID landscape is and has been so crazy - there was opposition to central birth records 100 years ago. Texas isn’t alone - in point it out because a few years ago a few thousand people, including serving military officers, were effectively stripped of citizenship. They were likely born in Mexico and issued a birth certificate on a fraudulent basis as an infant.
srockets 2y ago
REAL ID is a federal standard for verifying identity and producing matching IDs. State identification cards and driver’s licenses that doesn’t conform to REAL ID only follow the standards of the state that produced it, and not the federal one (hence the pending regulation that federal orgs, including the TSA, would only accept REAL ID compatible identification, and not the state-only regulated identification cards).
- ghaff 2y ago
  Like it or not, it's effectively a federal ID. Look at some old state drivers licenses and they would be laughably easy to forge today without even photos. And that's not even getting into the back-end information exchange. I mean, if your position is that state IDs shouldn't really mean much, that's fine. But say that. But without REAL ID we'd require at least passport cards for air travel and a lot of other federal-related purposes. Which is fine I guess but probably a more expensive and heavyweight process than it needs to be.
  - ein0p 2y ago
    We already are able to travel without any “passport cards”, with the IDs we already have. And with pervasive facial recognition they already know who we are. If I were to guess it’s not just the ID that’s changing, it’s also the backends, which would no longer be per-state. But I’m just hypothesizing here. I’d appreciate if someone knowledgeable chimed in
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - ghaff 2y ago
      There was definitely some standardized data exchange stuff involved though I never dove into the details. REAL ID effectively does as a federal ID, albeit in a somewhat more politically palatable way in a country where a lot of people have an aversion to federal IDs and databases at least as they relate to domestic travel.
Spooky23 2y ago
RealID essentially ties your identity from a state id perspective to your SSN. The Feds are trying to mandate it, hence the push. The issue with it is that many people, especially the elderly, poor people, and kids in complex non-custodial families have a hard time getting their physical social security card. Replacement of that document is a major pain in the ass. It’s a big waste of money, tied to even bigger wastes of money like voter id.

by ein0p 2y ago

kstrauser 2y ago

When I lived in a state without REAL ID, I showed up at the DMV with a couple of easily forged papers and walked out with a drivers license. Did you know there's not actually an official government standard for a christening document, and you could make one at home on a laser printer if you wanted to? Getting a REAL ID was the first time I ever felt like I'd truly proved my identity to a reasonable standard. I'm sure some states without REAL ID already make it hard to get a license. That wasn't my experience though. Missouri and Nebraska were more like, "oh, you've got a letter from your neighbor vouching that you're really Rusty Shackleford? Here you go, Mr. Shackleford!" I think states and the feds have a legitimate non-nefarious interest in proving a person's identity under the appropriate circumstances.

Spooky23 2y ago
It’s all theatre. At the end of the day, you’re presenting proof that was essentially obtained the same way, a long time ago. The letter from your neighbor is surprisingly reliable. Certainly more reliable that a record of birth from Texas.
- kstrauser 2y ago
  Does Texas have a hard time tracking birth records?
  - Spooky23 2y ago
    Texas allowed midwives to personally issue birth certificates. The political machinery in Texas has been historically pretty egregious on their abuse of these sorts of systems. They’ve cracked down in recent years. Birth certificates in general are pretty awful. IIRC there are like 12,000 known entities that issue them. Big states have required central registration for decades. For example, in New York the local municipality issues the birth certificate, but files a copy with the NYS (or NYC) Department of Health. Some smaller states left it to the town clerk in some tiny village. (Or did until relatively recently) There are many many corner cases with these sorts of records. Normie middle class people born in the US with two parents have very neat chains of custody of their records. There are millions who have very messy backgrounds or who don’t have their DOB or name officially recorded at all. Thats why voter ID laws are awful. You don’t have a fundamental right to an ID or obligation to have one, but you do have a right to vote. Putting friction in front of that is a means to disenfranchise people, it’s a form of poll tax.
    - kstrauser 2y ago
      Huh, I didn't realize there was that much variance. I was also a little anxious that you were going to complain about Texas previously allowing trans people to update their gender or something similar. I totally agree about voter ID laws. I'm sympathetic to at least the claimed reasons for wanting them, but in practice there's statistically insignificant amounts of provably invalid voting. It's not worth disenfranchising millions of legitimate voters to stop the handful of frauds.
      - Spooky23 2y ago
        Exactly. The problem with voting is that nobody does it! ID is a weird issue that unites the extreme left and right of the spectrum. The reactionaries are worried about the mark of the beast nonsense. When they cared about civil liberties beyond firearms, that would come up too. The left wingers are worried about disenfranchising the poor and elderly. Thats one of the reasons why the ID landscape is and has been so crazy - there was opposition to central birth records 100 years ago. Texas isn’t alone - in point it out because a few years ago a few thousand people, including serving military officers, were effectively stripped of citizenship. They were likely born in Mexico and issued a birth certificate on a fraudulent basis as an infant.

srockets 2y ago

REAL ID is a federal standard for verifying identity and producing matching IDs. State identification cards and driver’s licenses that doesn’t conform to REAL ID only follow the standards of the state that produced it, and not the federal one (hence the pending regulation that federal orgs, including the TSA, would only accept REAL ID compatible identification, and not the state-only regulated identification cards).

ghaff 2y ago
Like it or not, it's effectively a federal ID. Look at some old state drivers licenses and they would be laughably easy to forge today without even photos. And that's not even getting into the back-end information exchange. I mean, if your position is that state IDs shouldn't really mean much, that's fine. But say that. But without REAL ID we'd require at least passport cards for air travel and a lot of other federal-related purposes. Which is fine I guess but probably a more expensive and heavyweight process than it needs to be.
- ein0p 2y ago
  We already are able to travel without any “passport cards”, with the IDs we already have. And with pervasive facial recognition they already know who we are. If I were to guess it’s not just the ID that’s changing, it’s also the backends, which would no longer be per-state. But I’m just hypothesizing here. I’d appreciate if someone knowledgeable chimed in
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - ghaff 2y ago
    There was definitely some standardized data exchange stuff involved though I never dove into the details. REAL ID effectively does as a federal ID, albeit in a somewhat more politically palatable way in a country where a lot of people have an aversion to federal IDs and databases at least as they relate to domestic travel.

Spooky23 2y ago

RealID essentially ties your identity from a state id perspective to your SSN. The Feds are trying to mandate it, hence the push. The issue with it is that many people, especially the elderly, poor people, and kids in complex non-custodial families have a hard time getting their physical social security card. Replacement of that document is a major pain in the ass. It’s a big waste of money, tied to even bigger wastes of money like voter id.