Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, weighed in this week on the growing need for reshaping federal law in the local fight against crimes involving identity issues.

The Los Angeles Times reported that Sheriff Baca traveled to Washington, DC to testify before a Senate panel on the matter.  At issue is whether the Real ID act, passed in 2005 should be revised to allow individual states more flexibility in order to comply with federal deadlines.

The Times reported:

“Baca, who leads the largest sheriff’s department in the nation — with more than 18,000 officers and staff — said he hoped to express the  “critical need” for national ID standards from a local law enforcement perspective… He noted that local law enforcement personnel are typically the first to experience suspicious activities and respond to any terrorist event and that local law enforcement routinely deals with counterfeit identification, often impossible to detect.”

Sheriff Baca supports a revision of the current REAL ID Act, which essentially creates a national identification card for US citizens and puts those without one under greater scrutiny and suspicion.

One of the challenges is that the cost of implementation could run as high as $11 billion over five years according to the National Conference of State Legislators.

Both Baca and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano have expressed support for a revision called PASS ID, which she claims would eliminate the need for states to spend money on untested technologies while including consumer privacy protection assurances.

Sheriff Baca testified that PASS ID is more realistic than REAL ID and he backed Napolitano’s core belief that these revisions to REAL ID are critical to improving identification security.

In a post 9/11 world, realism and improvement should be non-negotiable.