Congress passed the REAL ID Act in 2005 in an effort to fight terrorism and cut back on fraud by standardizing the information that appears on state driver's licenses.

However, concerns about the cost of implementing the act and concerns about citizen privacy have brought together some politically strange bedfellows, with the law meeting resistance from both conservatives and liberals.

So far, at least 17 states have passed either resolutions expressing their concerns about the REAL ID Act or laws ordering state agencies not to comply with its mandates. State Sen. Clark Barnes, R-Randolph, is proposing adding West Virginia to that list with a bill instructing the West Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles not to comply with the act.

"Somewhere along the line, people have got to say enough is enough," he said.

Barnes has partnered with the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia in bringing forth the bill. He also has 15 senators signed on as co-sponsors of the bill, many of them Democrats.

Barnes' bill is not the only legislation concerning the implementation of the REAL ID Act in West Virginia. A separate bill has been introduced in the House of Delegates that would prohibit the state from participating in the program. Its main sponsor is Delegate John Doyle, D-Jefferson.

Passage of either bill would have consequences. Starting in May of this year, any residents of a state who do not meet REAL ID Act requirements would no longer be able to use their driver's licenses as identification to board flights, enter federal buildings or get into national parks. People would need to provide a passport or some other form of federally approved identification or otherwise undergo a time-consuming secondary screening to determine they are who they say they are.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security also states on its Web site that it may consider expanding the list of things a REAL ID-compliant license is needed for in the future to "maximize the security benefits" under the act.

While states originally were supposed to comply with the act by May, DHS recently announced new rules that allow states to extend that date until Dec. 31, 2009.

Many state leaders already have said they have no intention of complying and are asking their counterparts in other states to do the same.

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat, sent a letter to 17 state governors Jan. 18, requesting that they resist efforts by DHS to implement the REAL ID Act.

"I would like us to speak with one, unified voice and demand that Congress step in and fix this mess," he wrote.

Lara Ramsburg, spokeswoman for Gov. Joe Manchin, didn't know whether West Virginia was one of the states that received the letter, although Manchin and Schweitzer both head the Democratic Governors Association. She said Manchin was waiting for a report about the REAL ID Act from the state Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety before deciding on what action to take.

Complying with the REAL ID Act wouldn't mean that all the states' driver's licenses would look the same, with the states still able to dictate the design, according to the DHS.

It would require that specific information be on each license, including space available for 39 characters of a full legal name; address of principal residence; a digital photograph; gender; date of birth; signature; document number; and machine readable technology.

Temporary REAL IDs would need to state clearly that they are temporary. Any noncompliant IDs issued by states would need to clearly state on their face that they are not acceptable for federal purposes and use a unique design or color that clearly distinguishes them from REAL ID licenses.

For Barnes, the concept smacks of a national ID card that the government could use to keep an uncomfortably close watch on its citizens.

"The whole thing will feed into a federal computer system, which every time you show that ID, there is information placed on that computer about you," he said.

It also is potentially expensive, with the DHS estimating that implementing the REAL ID Act would cost nearly $4 billion. While the federal government will pick up part of the bill, states must pick up the rest. And that is only the cost to the government, said Seth DiStefano, community organizer and lobbyist for the ACLU of West Virginia.

"It really doesn't take into account the cost of how much more individuals are going to have to pay to get their licenses," he said. "You are going to track down a lot more identification. ... Many people feel the cost of a license itself is going to be a lot more."

The DHS disputes many claims. In a widely circulated op-ed, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff wrote that many accusations made against the REAL ID Act were based on misinformation.

"A good example is the spurious claim that we're ushering in a national identity card," he wrote. "What we are actually doing is setting standards that will let the states keep issuing their own ID cards."

His agency states there will not be a national database keeping information about every person who is issued a compliant driver's license. Also, the states still will issue licenses on their own rather than have the federal government do it for them.

Chertoff likened the situation to banks that ask customers to produce an ID to cash a check or parents who request background information about their babysitters.

"Almost no one -- including privacy advocates -- denies that sometimes we need to know who we're dealing with. We need a document that reveals their identity," he wrote. "So why would anyone oppose efforts to secure identity documents from fraud and falsification?

"Put another way, what good is having identification if it cannot be relied upon?" Cehrtoff wrote. "Why check someone's ID if we can't tell if it's genuine?"