Imagine a world where you carry all your personal information on one card, where your medical records are stored on a chip under your skin, and you access your home, car or work station with a fingerprint.

If this sounds like an episode of "Heroes" or "24," think again. These technologies are already in use, and soon, they may even affect your driver’s license, thanks to the Real ID Act.

Passed by Congress in May 2005 as part of an emergency appropriations bill providing funding for tsunami relief and troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Real ID Act mandates that states begin issuing machine-readable, federally approved ID cards by January 2010.

The new cards will be required to board a commercial aircraft or enter a federal facility. For most people, the card will be a driver’s license issued by the state Department of Motor Vehicles. It will contain your name, date of birth, sex, ID number, address, a digital photo and, possibly, a fingerprint or retinal scan. When you renew your license, you’ll have to show documents that prove who you are, your date of birth, your legal status in the U.S., your Social Security number and your address.

Touted by the Department of Homeland Security as "a nationwide effort intended to prevent terrorism, reduce fraud and improve the reliability and accuracy of identification documents," Real ID sounds like a reasonable idea on the surface. But there are a lot of troubling things about this initiative.

The Real ID Act is essentially an unfunded mandate. Limited federal grant money is available to help states implement the program, but much of the cost will likely be passed on to cardholders in the form of a higher license renewal fee. It’s ironic: Here’s a counterterrorism measure with an indisputable link to 9/11. According to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, 18 of 19 9/11 perpetrators had U.S. identification documents, including state driver’s licenses. With a small fraction of the money we’ve spent in Iraq, we could have given states money to improve their ID systems _ in addition to enhancing counterintelligence programs and improving security at our borders and airports.

I’m concerned that, rather than mandate a national ID card, the federal government is asking the states to do its dirty work. This plan may be backfiring; several states (but not New York) have already passed laws refusing to comply.

I’m also concerned about privacy. At best, the standardized, machine-readable technology _ either a bar code or radio frequency ID chip _ will give the marketeers more opportunities to manipulate us; at worst, it will put us at greater risk of identity theft. Chertoff claims Real ID will combat identify theft by making licenses harder to clone and forge and by requiring more-stringent background checks for DMV employees. But, with copies of all our important documents on file in one office and one database, I find this hard to believe.

I share the concerns of community organizers who believe Real ID unfairly targets America’s immigrant population. Real ID is inextricably tied to an immigration debate that’s as complex as it is passionate. Though it is intended to target terrorists, it will also affect the millions of law-abiding, undocumented immigrants who drive to work and need a driver’s license to obtain liability insurance. Some states have addressed this issue by creating special licenses that carry driving privileges but can’t be used as ID. It’s unclear whether this practice could continue under Real ID.

The thing that concerns me most is the possibility that, despite all these issues, Real ID, or something like it, may be a necessary part of the world in which our children will grow up.

It’s hard to accept some of the sacrifices we may have to make in the name of security. The small inconveniences are a no-brainer: Certainly, most people would pay an extra $20, wait half an hour longer at the DMV or track down a lost birth certificate on the chance that they could help save even one life through a thwarted terrorist plot.

But just how much of our privacy and freedom are we willing to give up? Can we trust a government we know has lied to us with protecting our best interests? How far from our melting-pot roots are we willing to stray? These are the real questions posed by Real ID.

___

Lisa Miller is a freelance writer who lives in Oneonta. She can be reached at lisamiller44@hotmail.com.