Please read Section 201(3)-(4) of the Real ID Act:
(3) OFFICIAL PURPOSE- The term 'official purpose' includes but is not limited to accessing Federal facilities, boarding federally regulated commercial aircraft, entering nuclear power plants, and any other purposes that the Secretary shall determine.
(4) SECRETARY- The term 'Secretary' means the Secretary of Homeland Security.
Source: https://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/real-id-act-text.pdf
In other words, the Secretary of Homeland Security has unilateral authority to expand the uses of real IDs. In their 2008 rule, DHS even doubled down:
"DHS does not agree that it must seek the approval of Congress as a prerequisite to changing the definition in the future (except of course to remove one of the three statutorily-mandated official purposes) as § 201(3) of the Act gives discretion to the Secretary of Homeland Security to determine other purposes."
That could include voting, accessing medical care, etc. Do you trust Kristi Noem with this power? Do you trust every future secretary with this power?
If not, I urge you to not get a real id if you don't have one, or turn in your real id for a state one if you do have one, and instead get a passport. The DHS cannot enforce anything if the majority of Americans refuse to get real ids. Let us not just bow down to a national id that invades our privacy and could be used to control us.
Yeah, I've heard that from other people as well. What you should do: if you live in Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, or Wyoming, you can only get a real id. Contact your state legislators and governor to demand a state id. If you don't live in those states, specifically request a state id and only bring what you need for a state id. In Illinois for example, you can prevent a real id from being issued to you by mistake by bringing only 1 proof of address instead of 2.
I don't live in one of those states, so I'm not sure why it was done the way it was.
I started the DL application online and took the requested docs to an office to finalize it without seeing any option to select the type of license I wanted.
The woman who processed it actually told me I didn't bring the right documents, but that it didn't matter because I could just sign an affidavit stating that I really, actually do live here.