DoD starts enforcing REAL ID Act at military bases

Remember the REAL ID Act? If not, you could be easily forgiven. Implementation of the 2005 law — one of the federal responses to the 9/11 attacks — has been delayed and recalibrated over fights about undue encroachment of federal power so many times over so many years that the law, so far, has impacted almost no one.

But people who hold drivers licenses from the handful of states that have not yet complied to the law’s strictures are now being denied entrance to military bases. Licenses from Minnesota, Illinois, Missouri, New Mexico and Washington are no longer valid identification at DoD facilities. For most people who work at those facilities, it’s a moot point since they have separate DoD-issued ID cards. But vendors and other visitors are now being turned away, Defense officials say.

The change is because of a portion of the act that restricts the use of “non-compliant” IDs for federal purposes — including access to federal facilities. It became official on Oct. 15, but is now being rigorously enforced by base commanders. Local officials have some authority to waive the requirement for visitors who are on a pre-registered guest list for an on-base function, for example, or if they’re escorted by government personnel.

REAL ID requires states to meet a set of minimum requirements for the identifying data printed on drivers licenses and prescribe new standards for the sorts of documentation citizens need to produce at their local DMV to prove they are who they say they are. The act also spawned fears that the Department of Homeland Security was creating a national database of citizens, partially because of its requirement that state DMVs share data with one another.

Unless there’s another implementation delay, Minnesotans, Illinoisans, Missourians, New Mexicans and Washingtonians will also have trouble boarding domestic commercial aircraft as of Jan. 22, 2018. Starting then, the Transportation Security Administration will enforce the same rules that now apply to federal facilities, and travelers from the offending states will only get through TSA checkpoints if they have a passport or another form of “REAL ID.”

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