California may be our only hope for privacy

A few months ago, I wrote about how Montana had rejected the REAL ID implementation.  This law would create a de facto national ID card, the "papers" that are referred to in the caricatures of a Soviet saying "your papers please."  

California has now said that it does not intend to implement REAL ID.  As Wired's Threat Level points out, its easy for the federal government to tell the several million people who live in New Hampshire, Maine, and Montana that they will need passports to board an airline or enter a federal building, but it will be much harder to fuck with the 36 million Californians.