A bipartisan group of six Maine state legislators has introduced a bill, L.D. 160, which would repeal all of the provisions of Maine law enabling the state to issue driver’s licenses and state ID cards potentially compliant with the REAL-ID Act of 2005. L.D. 160 was introduced yesterday and immediately referred to the Joint Committee […]
There are elections today in the USA. But we don’t need to know their outcome to predict many of the issues that the Identity Project and our supporters and allies will continue to face in the coming years. For what it’s worth, everything that was on our agenda for the first Obama Administration, following the […]
Brushing off objections from the Identity Project and others, the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has issued regulations creating the framework for an all-purpose smartphone-based national digital ID and tracking system. The TSA’s new rules are piggybacked on the REAL-ID Act of 2005, and are ostensibly standards for what states will have to do to […]
Citizens of the USA and some other most-favored nations have long been able to travel to many European countries for tourism or business without visas or prearrangements and with minimal border formalities, as long as they didn’t stay too long or seek local residence or employment. This is scheduled to change with the imposition of […]
Judge Nina Morrison of the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and Long Island) has ruled that police, including officers of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), need a warrant to search your cellphone at JFK International Airport, even when you are entering or leaving the US. […]
As we discussed in our previous article, the issue in the current stage of the lawsuit challenging a Texas law requiring ID to visit some websites is what standard — “strict scrutiny” or “rational basis” review — courts should use to evaluate the Constitutionality of government-imposed restrictions on the exercise of First Amendment rights. But […]
In recent overviews, we’ve discussed the barriers to getting a passport or state-issued driver’s license or ID card (especially in states that have chosen to participate in the national REAL-ID system and database) and the difficulties faced by travelers without ID. Some cities, notably including New York and San Francisco, have attempted to mitigate the […]
In our previous article, we looked at the state of ID requirements and the the right to international travel for U.S. citizens. What about domestic travel within the USA without ID? Flying? Domestic US airline passengers are subject to demands for ID by airlines and the TSA. These demands are of dubious validity, and have […]
It’s sometimes hard to say which Federal agency does the worst job or displays the most bad faith in responding (or not responding) to Freedom Of Information Act requests. But the latest actions by the FOIA office of the Department of State certainly place near the top of our all-time scorecard of FOIA follies. In […]
This month the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN) division of the Department of the Treasury began collecting copies of passports, drivers licenses, and other ID documents submitted by officers and owners of all sorts of companies. In other words, you now have to have a government-issued ID and provide an image of it, probably including […]