We failed to kill the 'Real ID" zombie [View all]

I recently had to renew my driver's license. The requirements have been drastically heightened; some people may find them difficult to fulfill. These heightened requirements appear intended to reduce voting by some populations and also to convert driver's licenses into the kind digital "Real ID" that the public rejected back in 2012.

Unfortunately, a lot of the political activity around this issue received little or no attention in the media, and we now seem stuck with the results. See https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/yes-states-really-reject-real-id and https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/tsa-shouldnt-force-a-bad-digital-id-system-on-america .

So the explanation for why we need "Real ID' goes: "[T]he REAL ID Act will make it difficult or impossible for terrorists and other criminals to... gain unlawful access to federally-regulated commercial aircraft, nuclear power plants, and certain federal facilities" (see https://www.keesingtechnologies.com/documentchecker/north-american-ids/real-id/ ).

This is obviously false. Real ID will at best make it difficult or impossible for terrorists to commit terrorism and escape identification afterward -- assuming they had a US driver's license and used it to gain access to such aircraft or facilities. How many terrorist acts had you heard of prior to the implementation of Real ID requirements that remain unattributed? I'm pretty sure we generally managed to identify them after the fact, even before Real ID.

I don't see how Real ID adds anything at all to the deterrence of terrorists. What it does do is tighten the net of surveillance and control over the rest of us.