Happy REAL ID Day!

One of the silliest laws Congress has passed this century is finally coming into force today: the REAL ID Act, which standardizes state ID cards for commercial air travel and other purposes. One indication of its silliness is that the capitalized “REAL” in the act’s name looks like an acronym, but it doesn’t stand for anything.

The law is still only sort of coming into force. The TSA says that today is the deadline after which it will no longer allow non–REAL ID documents to be shown when boarding flights, but its regulation from January says that it has the flexibility to take a phased approach to enforcement until May 5, 2027.

The regulation says that, as of January 2024, the Department of Homeland Security believes only 56 percent of IDs currently in use are compliant with the law. “Because of a history of REAL ID deadlines being extended, DHS believes that the public may continue to expect that additional extensions are likely and not feel urgency to obtain a REAL ID-compliant card.” No kidding.

The law is often referred to as having been passed in response to 9/11, but Congress didn’t pass it until 2005. It did so as a rider on a must-pass spending bill, not as a separate measure to improve national security.

Considering that the federal government delayed its enforcement for 20 years, the measure can’t be too terribly important to national security. The law was initially supposed to take effect in 2008. That was delayed because many states did not comply.

The federal government never really gave them a compelling reason to do so. No one can explain exactly how federal takeover of ID requirements is supposed to make Americans safer when boarding airplanes. But the federal government basically waited the states out. The first states weren’t compliant until 2012. The last state to comply, Oklahoma, didn’t do so until 2020, and the last territory to comply, American Samoa, didn’t do so until 2024.

To give some perspective on how long the federal government has been waiting to enforce this supposedly vital national security law, when the REAL ID Act was signed in 2005:

• Charles, Prince of Wales, and Camilla Parker Bowles, now king and queen of England, had been married for only a month.
• Hurricane Katrina had not yet struck.
• Rosa Parks was still alive.
• The MLB All-Star Game MVP was Miguel Tejada, and the World Series MVP was Jermaine Dye.
• The Super Bowl MVP was Deion Branch.
• The top-grossing movies were Harry Potter: Goblet of Fire and Star Wars: Episode III.
• The top-charting songs were “We Belong Together” by Mariah Carey and “Hollaback Girl” by Gwen Stefani.
• General Motors and Ford were Nos. 3 and 4 on the Fortune 500. General Electric was No. 5.
• MySpace was popular, YouTube was launched, and Twitter was not yet founded.
• The Office had just begun its first season on NBC.
• You were 20 years younger.
• I was finishing kindergarten.

If the REAL ID requirement causes problems over the next few days, don’t worry. The federal government can always delay it again.