How can I be happy about it, when I have to wear a neutral expression when they take my photo?

REAL ID is a security blanket, and at its very best will make no difference at all.  As already noted, the real terrorists got in to the US legally.  The entities that knew they were here did not share this information with the grid, and they STILL don't put the names of the real troublemakers on such lists, because that information can be viewed by people and governments we haven't decided are our Best Friends yet.  As for preventing the Bad Guys from getting a car or a gun--are they going to make craigslist advertisers and criminal fences* use REAL ID?  And if I want people to know my medical information I'll wear it on my wrist like God intended.

Where this system will really shine is when it comes time for the cops to fuck with you when you annoy the people who pay them or pay them off.  Think it's annoying getting that phished computer order off your credit report?  Try that out with a spurious Megan's Law entry.

* not mutually exclusive classifications

(is 3fingerspointback)

Any modification to a system which increases the faith of individuals in that system to not be hacked, will lower the guard of the system's physical gatekeepers in an equal and opposite amount so that the likelihood that any given system will be hacked stays the same.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

I'm not a big fan of national IDs, but I do think some of the opposition to them is a little hysterical. If someone wants to steal your identity, it's easy enough already to do so. If anything, having a single ID standard will make it a bit harder, I would think. Ditto for state surveillance fears - this hurdle was already jumped years ago (in the US, anyway, not sure about the UK situation) when it became generally acceptable (even if it's technically not supposed to happen) to use social security #'s as identifiers. I would much rather see us shift to a system where it became completely illegal to use the horridly insecure / difficult to tie to a particular person social security # as an identifier, and instead everyone had a national ID # tied to a photo ID and some other biometric information. Perhaps this leads to the feared police state, but on the other hand it becomes much harder to steal an identity when your ID number is tied to, at the very least, your photo and some identifying hair color / eye color / height characteristics.

Still, if we're going to do this, we need to do it right. The US REAL ID act and this UK solution both seem to be half assed efforts. First, there needs to be well defined accountability standards for everyone with access to the ID database and court oversight over how the data is used. I would also like to see a firewall between the database and law enforcement - the government shouldn't just be able to troll through the database for people matching a certain description or what have you. This is why I'm very, very leary about tying fingerprint or DNA data to the cards, even though this may in theory make the cards a bit more "secure". Second, there needs to be a way for people who can't easily meet the requirements to go through a process and have a card issued to them (for example, as it stands right now a legal immigrant in the US from, say, Somalia, who can't get a government issued birth certificate because his/her government no longer exists and/or the records were probably all destroyed anyway, if they were even made in the first place, cannot get a REAL ID compliant ID issued in the US, and hence will never be allowed to enter Federal buildings, etc. once this goes into effect - so how would such a person even be able to apply for asylum, I wonder?). I also wonder about other implications of the REAL ID act - say you're subpoenaed before a Federal Court or before Congress but you don't have a REAL ID - will you be held in contempt if security doesn't let you in? This is the kind of stuff that needs to be though through before we do something like this. Finally, it should never, ever be a requirement that you have your ID on you at all times. My feeling is that the best way to use an ID like this is to say, okay, you have an ID, so therefore you are subjected to a somewhat lower level of security. People who do not have an ID are allowed to do essentially the same things, but just are subjected to more security first. I know this isn't perfect, but I think it's a reasonable compromise.

Is it or is it not the case that all of the 9/11 terrorists entered the US legally?  If this is the case, how does having a REAL ID system accomplish a compelling state purpose?  That should really be the rationale for having this, or any other, national ID system.

Illegitimi non carborundum.