This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, July 7th, 2009. I'm Caleb Brown.

Is Pass ID nothing more than a national ID card on the installment plan?

Jim Harbor, Director of Information Policy Studies at the Cato Institute offers his thoughts

on the Kinder-G gentler real ID program.

The introduction of Pass ID was intended by its Senate sponsors to solve the problem with real ID.

And that definitely remains to be seen.

I've taken a look at the bill first to see whether we're still talking about a national

ID.

And there isn't a clear definition of what a national

ID is, but I think it has three parts. First, it's national. Second, it's practically or

legally required. And third, it's for identification.

The Pass ID program is clearly a program for national standards.

It's also a program for identification.

So that takes care of item one and three. Item two is the is the

remaining one and does pass ID differ from real ID and whether it would be

practically or legally required. It's not legally required and the national

government can't require state

governments to issue a national ID, but pass ID does essentially the same thing as

real ID did, which is attempt to coerce states by threatening to refuse the use of driver's licenses, particularly at airports, but at other key

junctures as well.

Now, Pass ID has some language in it that says that the lack of an ID won't prevent you from boarding a plane at an

airport. And that's true in the first few years of pass ID but after that the law

...