The US Real ID act of 2005 was enacted to address fraud and security flaws on state-issued identification. Unfortunately, the US government is taking the unnecessary step of denying access to commercial airplanes, federal buildings, or any secure facility to individuals whose ID cards are "not for identification purposes" The cost to upgrade the cards to federally-compliant ones is extremely high. Congress should repeal that law and instead, encourage states to produce more secure identifications for their use in those places. The US government should not create a class of people with identification deemed valid and other without valid ID for purposes like boarding a plane or applying for a passport.



