Today is the day everyone is required to have that RealID/enhanced ID if you want to fly anywhere. It’s an incompetently managed sham.
The DMV Experience
I applied for mine two months ago, when I went to the DMV to renew my driver’s licence. I’m still waiting. Today I received email from the DMV saying they were rejecting my application, because I hadn’t included enough bank account information. Apparently you now need a verified bank account to drive or travel anywhere, so I’m going to have to resubmit the entire application all over again, and wait a few more months. This is particularly galling because I did go in person to the local license bureau (not any problem at all, this is a small town, no waiting) and had everything verified right there. I have a valid passport, so I could fly if I wanted to, but the airports are so chaotic that I don’t want to.
My wife has been struggling to get her realID for a while now, but she keeps getting rejected. She showed up at the license bureau with her birth certificate, social security card, etc., but she made the terrible mistake of changing her name when she got married, so they won’t accept it. We ordered a certified marriage license from King County, but they just sent us a photocopy, which doesn’t count.
On the bright side, ladies, I guess I’m now single and available. Except you can’t travel anymore.
This nation with the impressive interstate freeway system and huge airports in every major city is now effectively killing travel within our borders. We’re also not going to be getting much traffic from international travel, either. Tourism, who needs it? Next stop will be armed guards at the boundaries for each state, and you’ll have to show your papers if you visit any city…except that you can’t, because the bureaucracy is too incompetent to issue them.
Stay home, everyone.
Boy, I’m glad I got mine in 2021 at the height of covid. Not that I intend to ever get on an airplane again.
But it’s not a problem for Trumps backers, because they all have private jets.
As a military spouse, I have a DOD ID and a passport, so I’m hopeful that I won’t have a problem.
We’re flying to White Plains, NY next week for our grandson’s college graduation.
I’m usually not at all nervous about flying, but this time I’m a bit worried. I am glad that we aren’t going through Newark, but we’re worried that the small airport at White Plains will be crowded this time.
Wish me luck!
I’ll report back when we get home.
Ok am I out of the loop. Florida has been doing Real ID since early 2010. I didn’t get mine until around a decade ago. I had renewed my ID a few years before Florida became compliant so could hold off. We renew every 8 years here. I didn’t realize other states hadn’t implemented Real ID until much later than Florida.
It was a bit of a pain, but I already had an active passport. You have to bring in different types of documentation. Longer term Florida residents should have gotten this dealt with by now. I guess Minnesota didn’t get the ball rolling on Real ID until…checks notes…late 2018.
Weird, I just double-checked Missouri and they list that you can use bank documents for proof of residency but you can just use a utility bill too. My brother got rejected for his Real ID because our last name is two words and his SSN had it as two words but his old license had one word.
I had to order a birth certificate copy but they overnighted it to me so I had it in a few days (and they had a checkbox on the form that you want the one to use for a Real ID). I actually ordered 2, just in case.
@Hemidactylus hilariously Missouri had a constitutional amendment decades ago against real id style ids passed by the local GOP because of warnings about the number of the beast and big government. They had to revise that before mandating the real id. they just got the laws fixed in 2019 to even allow them, but even they didn’t make all the ones they issued real ids until today.
I’m too poor to travel anywhere.
is there an actual bank account requirement in that state? Virginia will accept a bank statement for proof of residency, but certainly not a requirement if there are other similar documents (like your mortgage, your rental agreement, the title insurance or the title deed, a car bill…).
requiring a bank account is a bit much…and heads into “poll tax” territory once 47 manages to make RealID a voting requirement…which you know they are going to try to do and hope half the states can’t get injunctions on it prior to Nov ’26.
kevinv @6
Damn that’s holding off until the last minute thanks to paranoid delusional ideas about Revelation. Ironically Real ID was itself a product of paranoid delusions surrounding terrorism after 9-11. Thanks bin Laden.
Weirdly enough I was able to put off getting a Real ID for quite a while, yet it had been long enough to have already renewed my Real ID compliant driver license as it was nearing expiration. We can renew once online before having to drag in all our documentation the next time around (documentation every 16 years).
A US passport in itself counts for Real-ID, ie you can travel with it by plane, both within and out of the US. There is a whole bunch of documents that can serve as Real ID, so if you have them you don’t need a Real-ID compliant drivers license.
Ok maybe I was wrong about the subsequent need for documentation:
https://www.flhsmv.gov/driver-licenses-id-cards/what-to-bring/
Well that’s ok I guess, now I have my star.
I agree with acroyear @#8.
Also, the who mishegoss around plane travel has just gone far beyond the pale for me. Airlines and passengers are constantly complaining that there is too much carry-on baggage, so Southwest decides to eliminate its free checked bag service. The proper response to 9/11 was secure doors to the flight deck, but the pilots union fought that tooth and nail, so now we passengers have to pay for body scans and ridiculous ID requirements. I am done with plane travel unless somebody sane gets control over it.
Let’s all support train travel, people!
I don’t have Real ID either yet, but just checked the requirements in my state.
AFAICT, what you need is proof of address and residency.
They want two different ones of this sort of proof.
That would be utility bills, title deed for a house, property tax bill, etc..
It all looked sort of complicated.
I did once a decade or two ago, have to show my birth certificate to get my driver’s license renewed. It was after 9/11 and had something to do somehow with proving that I wasn’t a terrorist or whatever.
Also, the who = Also, the whole
“It was after 9/11 and had something to do somehow with proving that I wasn’t a terrorist or whatever.”
Right, because terrorists don’t have birth certificates. They hatched from eggs, or sprouted in cabbage patches, I guess.
I got mine in 2021. I don’t recall any questions about bank accounts. I know I had a valid passport, a certified copy of my birth certificate, and whatever else they asked for.
Yeah, I gave up on plane travel about 10 years ago.
I used to fly a lot.
Then, I just got tired of the Security Theatre, the body searches, and the lack of a lot of direct flights to where I was going.
The places I went to a lot ended up requiring at least one plane change and were really indirect. I could spend 8 hours to fly 500 miles.
At that point, it dawned on me that I could drive that distance in about the same amount of time and have my car at the end of the journey, while missing all the airport hassles.
I drive those distances and it is always a lot easier.
@raven they generally want proof of identity, proof you’re in the US legally, proof of social security number, residency, and if you’re name has ever changed the trail of paperwork showing the name change.
a us birth certificate or unexpired passport are sufficient for the first 2 (with a bunch of other documents that can be used as well if those aren’t available). Oddly for all the documents they list as acceptable for proof of SSN (like a W-2 form) mine all list only the last 4 digits of the social security, not the whole thing. I’m attempting to order a replacement card from SSN but they are a disaster right now.
Proof of residency can just be a utility bill or even a letter from a government agency or a letter from a homeless shelter. Missouri requires 2 of these from the list, so a water bill and a power bill would count.
as this is, in part, a voter disenfranchisement scheme, expect it to be hardest in states with strong conservative presence in local government. WA state wasn’t too bad. hardest part was getting a certified copy of my birth certificate from california, which took two months. they were flexible for me about the ssn card requirement, not sure why. i have one, but it was lost in a box at the time i did all this.
and yeah, you can just use a passport instead, so save urself hassle if u have one.
Reginald Selkirk @16
Maybe that’s the documentation PZ for that category. Not the same county as PZ but:
https://www.co.nicollet.mn.us/DocumentCenter/View/4309/Real-Identification-PDF
For List A an unexpired passport should be sufficient. A birth certificate would be redundant. For List B a SSN proving document. For List C the ID/DL you already have AND one of several other items that can prove residence. Looks like PZ chose the banking info, but it is not an actual sole requirement from what I can tell. A utility bill should work or a pay stub with home address or vehicle title (assuming it shows address) or homeowners insurance etc. I’d bring several of these beyond the ID in case one gets rejected.
Maybe I’m missing something but I don’t see that financial info is a requirement itself. It seems not necessary, but sufficient as fulfilment of one of the two required items proving address.
Wait, this seems more up to date from the MN website:
https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/assets.dps.mn.gov/s3fs-public/dvs-real-id-document-requirements.pdf
Still no requirement that one provide financial institution info, just that one could choose this if one prefers.
This is the long shadow of Americans surrendering their civil liberties to Dubya and his buddies for deliberately vague natsec reasons.
Voter disenfranchisement was certainly one goal, as Bébé pointed out, but I think the main thrust of it was to consolidate all ID in a federal system without alerting people to the fact that it’s a national ID, and, incidentally, to make it harder for poor people to travel for any reason.
I only had to show my passport. In and out, no hassles.
I showed up at DMV with my passport, my Soc Sec. card and my DL (expired by one day). They would not accept my DL as proof of address. I went out to the car and got the registration and they accepted that. The whole thing was silly, since I had the valid passport. I wonder who’s making bank on this.
I suppose it’s possible that, if you used a bank statement to get your DL years ago and used the DL to apply for a Real ID, they found that to be sus. Especially if they are running it by X-AI instead of human with a functioning brain. I had trouble getting a Real ID a few years ago, our DMV had to send it on to the feds to sign off. Took about six months.
I brought a boatload of documents. gas/electric bills, credit card statement, bank account statement, SS card, birth certificate, driver’s license. After sorting through all my documents, the DMV person smiled when she saw my state issued Nursing License. Had my real ID for about 2 years now.
Trump is ahead of the game, he has already cut the Air Traffic Control people, airplane accidents are happening more frequently, not to mention Newark airport, so he will be bankrupting the airlines along with car manufacturers and a few other major employers. We can sit back and enjoy the 3+ years he will have to destroy everything.
Refusing to recognise you and give you an ID card means you don’t get to vote next time. Thats the whole idea. Step one on the trail to a totalitarian dictatorship.
F that “Real-ID” crap.
Use a passport. It’s good for longer, and is more “authoritative”. Don’t even need to get it re-issued if you move. When you renew get BOTH the passport booklet AND the passport card, so that when an a-hole fascist ICE type tries to hold your passport hostage, you have a backup.
My pre-election advice (that got me yelled at on lefty blogs):
1. Make sure your passport is up to date.
2. Hone your shooting skills
3. Vote like your life depends on it.
That’s my advice and I’m sticking to it.
I live in the Soviet of Washington State where a EDL (aka Real ID) will set you back $116.00 & its only good for 5 years. A passport is $165.00, $130.00 to renew & is good for a decade. My passport took two weeks from application to getting it in my hands. No waiting lines.
Also too, everyone should have a passport. You know why
I found getting the California DMV to give me one to be easy, and I didn’t have a passport at the time.
Freest country in the world!
You don’t get it Morales. You’re free to wait for your flight with an AK-47. A well regulated militia being necessary to a free state.
(/snark)
You actually can get on a plane with your AK-47 in the USA.
But you can’t have it in the cabin with you.
I don’t know. For some reason, this doesn’t make me want to start flying in passenger jets again.
Last time I renewed my passport, I got the book and the card. On the rare occasions that I fly (just under a year since the last flight, and the previous one was over 2 years before that), I use the passport card. I also use it when asked for ID for a silly reason–e.g. buying alcohol to prove I’m over 21…when I’m actually 76, or if I’m simply annoyed at whatever is going on. Most common places that ask for ID are expecting a drivers license (which I have) and may not be really equipped to deal with a passport card.
In one instance I was asked for ID and I inquired about how good an ID they wanted. The response was on the order of, best you’ve got. So I pulled out my passport card. The person wanting ID did agree that is pretty much as good as they come.
Old trick from my cycling days… If you’re on a bicycle and you’re stopped for any reason, do NOT present your drivers license as ID. That can get you points. You don’t need a DL to ride a bike. A passport is an excellent alternative.
@ 33 raven:
Back when the world still used the 707, it was possible to reach the forward cargo compartment (they’re pressurized) from the cabin, through a hatch in the floor of the cockpit, right behind the captain’s seat, just ahead of the cockpit jumpseat. Climb down, crawl through the electronic equipment bay, open a narrow door, and you’re in!
So I suppose in theory one could have fought passengers and flight crew to get down there, find their checked bag (if it was in the forward cargo pit) and get their gun!
@ 27 garydargan:
“totalitarian dictatorship”
Is there any other kind?
I see a lot of people in this thread assuming that the bureaucracy works as designed, and that the people administering it both know what the rules actually are, and apply them correctly and consistently. You may want to review those assumptions.
Yes, lots. Totalitarianism is a flavour of political philosophy, whereas dictatorship is a mode of governance. They’re orthogonal.
Personally, I don’t think the US is on the road to totalitarian dictatorship, because totalitarianism requires some animating philosophy. What I think the US is currently on track for is patrimonial dictatorship.
I recently had to renew my DL in person (needed a vision test due to my age). I went the Real ID version since I sometimes transport a senior to the local VA medical center, which is on a military base. I had my recent voter registration card which they used as another proof of address. Had my new ID card with its star within two weeks.
Dunc – that may be true of Trump, but Trump won’t be around that long. So I’m not sure that you can say that is where the US is heading. I don’t see how the Fundamentalist Christians, the Opus Dei mob and the Libertarians can form a stable coalition in the future, so I think there may end up being at least a cold civil war when Trump is gone.
Well, yeah, sort of.
I can see where that fits with the MAGA cult of personality. Stalin or Mao would get it.
What do you call a dictatorship by a senile old white man with age related cognitive impairments and a theft by deception habit?
Kleptocracy captures part of it.
Gerontocracy captures part of it.
So we are living in a Geriatric Kleptocracy.
This is not how I wanted to spend my life.
Trump is just the current avatar of a tendency that’s been increasingly apparent in US politics for decades. I don’t believe he’s the weird outlier that everybody seems to want to pretend that he is.
The real worry is that the next avatar may not be a complete fucking idiot.
With the shit going on with the FAA, you couldn’t pay me to fly.
@40,
“but Trump won’t be around that long”
He doesn’t have to be, by the time he keels over the USA will be a blackhole in education and science already, and whoever succeeds him will just continue the fascist dictatorship. And beware if you ever find a competent successor. Marg and JD are not it.
Hi Nerd.
I hope you are well.
@41, raven : Kakistocracy – rule by the worst I’d say.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakistocracy
Plus best wishes and hope you are as okay as possible and doing well to Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls from me as well.