This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, August 10th, 2007. I'm Caleb Brown.

States are rejecting real ID. The federal mandate some believe is the birth of the national

ID card. States are primarily complaining about the cost.

Jim Harper, Director of Information Policy Studies for the Cato Institute says there are plenty of other reasons

to oppose real ID, federal databases, due process, and federalization of identification.

Many states are now resisting Real ID.

What are their reasons?

Well, there are a number of different reasons.

I think the real catalyst for the discussion in the states was the cost.

Estimates are that about 11 billion dollars in costs would go to state governments

for implementation of real ID.

That's in addition to an equivalent amount of cost being imposed on

individuals in states for their compliance purposes. The cost really catalyzed

the debate but obviously the privacy consequences of having a system like this and having huge databases of personal information in the states accessible nationwide is another major concern of state legislators.

Some additional rules for implementation have yet to come down.

Is there any chance that any of the concerns of states will be alleviated in those regulations?

Well, I think the Department of Homeland Security will attempt to alleviate

some of those concerns. The statute itself is rather strict about what states can and can't

do. So there may be some play in the joints, but I doubt that that play in the

joints will be enough to bring states back in. Many of them have already passed legislation

refusing to participate in Real ID and I don't think even some of the some of the changes that DHS might

bring would actually return states to the real ID system. Now you mentioned in your

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