Real ID, a federal law intended to give states a minimum standard for issuing driver’s licences and identity cards, was supposed to be technology’s answer to the political hot potato known as the national identity card.

But technology, like politics, contains its own conflicts and cross purposes. Ongoing uncertainties surrounding the four-year-old Real ID Act are making it hard for many states to reach the law’s goal of launching new technologies by the end of 2009 to secure driver's licenses against fraud and terrorist activities.(Full Story)