EMBARGOED -- do not release before Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Privacy Activism Joins Over 40 Groups Announcing Anti-Real ID Public Comment Campaign

Embargoed until -- May 1, 2007

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Montreal -- Forty-three organizations representing transpartisan, nonpartisan, privacy, consumer, civil liberty, civil rights, and immigrant organizations have joined to launch a national campaign to solicit public comments to stop the nation's first national ID system-REAL ID.

The groups joining in the anti-REAL ID campaign are concerned about the increased threat of counterfeiting and identity theft, lack of security to protect against unauthorized access to the document's machine readable content, increased cost to taxpayers, diverting of state funds intended for homeland security, increased costs for obtaining a license or state issued ID card, and because the REAL ID would create a false belief that it is secure and unforgeable.

This effort builds on the momentum that is signaling broad opposition to the REAL ID in the states. Montana has become the fifth state, following Maine, Idaho, Arkansas, and Washington, to prohibit cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security in implementing the REAL ID national identification system.

Under the Act, states and federal government would share access to a vast national database that could include images of birth certificates, marriage licenses, divorce papers, court ordered separations, medical records, and detailed information on the name, date of birth, race, religion, ethnicity, gender, address, telephone, e-mail address, Social Security Number for more than 240 million with no requirements or controls on how this database might be used. Many may not have the documents required to obtain a REAL ID, or they may face added requirements base on arbitrary and capricious decisions made by DMV employees.

"The breadth and diversity of the opposition is real testimony to how harmful Real ID is to so many different communities," said Deborah Pierce, Executive Director of PrivacyActivism.org and one of the founders of the Stop Real ID Now! activism campaign. "By getting people and groups who are usually excluded from the debate involved at the grassroots level, we can stop Real ID."

"The Real ID Act of 2005 turns our state driver's licenses into a national ID card, costs over $20 billion dollars, infringes privacy, and imposes major burdens on taxpayers, anybody renewing a driver's license, seniors, immigrants, transgender people, and state governments -- while doing nothing to protect against terrorism," said privacy activist Jon Pincus, another founder of the Stop Real ID Now! activism campaign. "This commenting process is a great chance for the American people to tell DHS and Congress the Real ID Act is a bad law that needs to be repealed."

• Online: through PrivacyActivism's Instructions page
• Fax: via Electronic Frontier Foundation's online FAX page or to 1-866-466-5370.
• Postal mail
  Department of Homeland Security
  Attn: NAC 1-12037
  Washington, DC 20528
  

List of groups supporting this campaign

1.    American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations
2.    American Library Association
3.    American Policy Center
4.    American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
5.    Association of American Physicians & Surgeons
6.    Bill of Rights Defense Committee
7.    Center for Digital Democracy
8.    Center for Financial Privacy and Human Rights
9.    Citizen Outreach Project.
10.    Citizens Against Government Waste
11.    Common Cause
12.    Computing Professionals for Social Responsibility
13.    Consumer Action
14.    DownsizeDC.org
15.    Electronic Frontier Foundation
16.    Electronic Privacy Information Center
17.    Fairfax County Privacy Council
18.    Give Me Back My Rights Coalition
19.    Government Accountability Project
20.    Gun Owners of America
21.    Immigrant Workers Union
22.    Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
23.    Liberty Coalition
24.    National Center for Transgender Equality
25.    National Council of Jewish Women
26.    National Council of La Raza
27.    National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
28.    National Immigration Law Center
29.    OpenCarry.org
30.    Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays
31.    Patient Privacy Rights Foundation
32.    People for the American Way
33.    Privacy Activism
34.    Privacy Rights Clearinghouse
35.    Privacy Times
36.    Republican Liberty Caucus
37.    Rutherford Institute, The
38.    The Arc of the United States United Cerebral Palsy
39.    The Multiracial Activist
40.    US Bill of Rights Foundation
41.    Virginia Citizens Defense League
42.    Virginia Gun Owners Coalition
43.    World Privacy Forum

-end-

About PrivacyActivism

More information is available at <http://www.privacycoalition.org/stoprealid/>.

Last updated October 31, 2007