[Infowarrior] - DHS official moots Real ID rules for buying cold medicine

[Richard Forno]

DHS official moots Real ID rules for buying cold medicine
Slippery slope
By Dan Goodin in San Francisco → More by this author
Published Tuesday 5th February 2008 23:18 GMT
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/05/real_id_for_cold_medicine/

A senior US Department of Homeland Security official has floated the idea of
requiring citizens to produce federally compliant identification before
purchasing some over-the-counter medicines.

"If you have a good ID ... you make it much harder for the meth labs to
function in this country," DHS Assistant Secretary for Policy Stewart Baker
told an audience last month at the Heritage Foundation. Cold medicines like
Sudafed have long been used in the production of methamphetamine. Over the
past year or so, pharmacies have been required to track buyers of drugs that
contain pseudoephedrine.

His comment came five days after the agency released final rules
implementing the REAL ID Act of 2005 that made no mention of such
requirements. It mandates the establishment uniform standards and procedures
that must be met before state-issued licenses can be accepted as
identification for official purposes.

Beyond boarding airplanes and entering federal buildings or nuclear
facilities, there are no other official purposes spelled out in the
regulations. And that's just what concerns people at the Center for
Democracy and Technology. They say Baker's statement underscores "mission
creep," in which the scope and purpose of the REAL ID Act gradually expands
over time.

"Baker's suggested mission creep pushes the REAL ID program farther down the
slippery slope toward a true national ID card," CDT blogger Greg Burnett
wrote here. He says requiring people to produce a federally approved ID to
buy cold medicine is a good example of the "significant ramifications"
attached to the act.

So far, 17 states have formally opposed REAL ID, which takes effect on May
11. Residents of those states will be subject to additional searches and
other inconveniences when flying and may be barred from entering federal
buildings and nuclear plants.

Baker's statement belying the official DHS position on REAL ID isn't the
first time the agency has made confusing remarks about the legal
requirements surrounding identification. According to travel writer Edward
Hasbrouck, DHS officials continue to plant the misunderstanding that
residents from states which don't comply with REAL ID requirements won't get
on planes. They will, Hasbrouck asserts here. In fact, he says, airlines are
prevented by law from requiring any kind of ID.

Nonetheless, the DHS website continues to claim a photo ID is needed to pass
through security checkpoints. Hasbrouck has his suspicions about the motives
for such statements.

"The most obvious explanation is that they want to use the implied (but
legally and factually empty) threat of denial of air travel to intimidate
states into 'voluntarily' complying with the Real-ID Act and its rules," he
writes. ®