Privacy advocates' efforts to stop legislation that would create a federally-approved electronic ID card failed today. A military spending bill which contained the so-called Real ID Act driver's license reform passed unanimously in the U.S. Senate. Snip from Declan McCullagh's report at News.com:

President Bush (...) is expected to sign the bill into law this month. Its backers, including the Bush administration, say it's needed to stop illegal immigrants from obtaining drivers' licenses. When the act's mandates take effect in May 2008, Americans will be required to obtain federally approved ID cards with "machine readable technology" that abides by Department of Homeland Security specifications. Anyone without such an ID card will be effectively prohibited from traveling by air or Amtrak, opening a bank account, or entering federal buildings.

Link to "Senate approves electronic ID card bill."

See also coverage at Wired News by Kim Zetter: "No Real Debate for Real ID." snip:

The legislation is raising questions not only about privacy and costs but about the ways in which critical legislation gets passed in Congress. That's because lawmakers slipped the bill into a larger piece of legislation -- an $82 billion spending bill -- that authorizes funds for the Iraq war and tsunami relief, among other things, and is considered a must-pass piece of legislation.

It's not the first time Congress has slipped contentious bills into larger legislation that is almost guaranteed to pass. In 2003, Congress augmented Patriot Act surveillance powers with wording slipped into the Intelligence Authorization Act, a bill that authorized funding for intelligence agencies.

Critics, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, say lawmakers slipped the Real ID Act into the relatively uncontroversial spending bill in order to avoid a congressional debate over the ID measure.

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