Stay Covered Colorado

Real ID:The Government's Latest Swipe at our Privacy

Watch our video. Listen to our town hall meeting. Contact your representatives.

Real ID Town Hall Meeting

Featuring: Jim Harper, Cathryn Hazouri, Mike Krause and Bruce Schneier
Moderated by David Sirota

Missed the Town Hall? Listen to KRFC's radio coverage.
Download MP3s here: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

Last Year, thanks in part to the lobbying efforts of the ACLU of Colorado, the state legislature unanimously passed a resolution condemning the Real ID program. Read HJR-1047 yourself. For 2008, we're working on a binding statute ensuring the Colorado residents are protected from this misguided federal law.

How misguided? The Department of Homeland Security just released its Final Regulations on the Real ID bill. This is the document that explains how the government bureaucrats plan to actually carry out the laws passed by the politicians. In this case, DHS essentially acknowledged that there is no way states could actually implement these policies in the alotted time frame, and thus they grant near-automatic extentions...until 2014! When Real ID passed, the administration argued with dissenters by saying this law was vital to America's security. If it's so vital, then why can it wait for the better part of a decade?

The ACLU National Office has released its own report- a scorecard on the Real ID Final Regulations.

Real ID is a Real Nightmare. From increasing the risk of identity theft to causing massive delays at DMV offices while bankrupting our state, the federal government’s Real ID program is a seriously bad idea. But don’t just take our word for it. We organized a panel of privacy and security experts from across the political spectrum to discuss the dangers of this misguided legislation. That’s right, the ACLU, the CATO Institute, and the Independence Institute all think Real ID is bad news...

The Panel

Mike Krause directs the Justice Policy Initiative at the Independence Institute. He has written for National Review Online, Reason magazine, and American Outlook magazine. He is a graduate of the University of Nebraska, and served in the United States Coast Guard from 1987-1991. He is a contributor to several books, including the recent monograph, The Drug War Against Civil Liberty and Human Rights.

Jim Harper is the Director of Information Policy Studies at the Cato Institute. A member of the Department of Homeland Security's Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee, he has appeared on Fox News Channel, CBS, and MSNBC. Recently, Harper wrote Identity Crisis: How Identification Is Overused and Misunderstood.

Bruce Schneier, founder and CTO of BT Counterpane, the world's leading protector of networked information, is an internationally renowned security technologist and author. He has testified on security before the United States Congress on many occasions. Described by The Economist as a "security guru," Schneier is the author of Secrets and Lies and Beyond. He also publishes a free monthly newsletter, Crypto-Gram, with over 130,000 readers.

Cathryn Hazouri is the Executive Director of the ACLU of Colorado. A former attorney with over 20 years of trial experience and a community activist since childhood, she is a frequent guest of Colorado media outlets as a commentator on civil liberties and privacy issues.

The Moderator

David Sirota is a political journalist, best-selling author of Hostile Takeover and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist. He blogs for Working Assets and the Denver Post's PoliticsWest website. He has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, CNBC and NPR. His writing, which draws on his experience as a progressive political strategist, has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, TheNation, and Washington Monthly.