A joint report from a coalition of state governmental organizations - the National Governors Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures and the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators - pegs the five-year cost of Real ID, which will effectively turn state driver's licenses into national identity cards, at $11 billion, not the mere $100 million touted by the bill's main sponsor, Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-Wis.

The "national impact analysis" of Real ID didn't break down costs by state, but state officials have complained about the expense of the program since it was pushed through Congress in 2005, supposedly to fight terrorism by making official identification more difficult to obtain. The Homeland Security Department said it won't have rules, or its own cost estimates, ready until the end of this year despite the goal of beginning by May 2008 to re-issue every driver's license in the country to conform with the new federal standards.

But while the federal financial "carrot" for state participation was paltry, the stick was big: Denial of access to federal services such as airport security and Social Security filings for residents with noncomplying licenses.

All Real ID will accomplish is to make licensing much harder for honest citizens while accomplishing almost nothing to actually fight terrorists since it provides no means to detect forged papers. The huge federal database of identity information it will amass will be a magnet for computer hackers and identity thieves, and cracks open the door for government tracking of the movement, habits and private information of law-abiding citizens.

Real ID is a misbegotten piece of creeping Big Brotherism that does little to make the nation more secure against terrorist attacks.