A forthcoming national identification card will do little to thwart future terrorist attacks and instead will endanger Americans’ privacy, speakers at a conference warned.

The digital ID card requirements, scheduled to take effect in May 2008, are likely to spark a revolt among states concerned about the complexity of the federal rules and the cost of complying with them, said Jim Babka, president of DownsizeDC.org, at the Liberty Forum conference.

The 2005 Real ID Act says that drivers licenses and other ID documents issued by state governments must comply with a stringent set of rules devised by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that have not yet become public. But dozens of state legislatures are debating whether to stand up to the federal government and oppose federalized IDs, a step that Maine’s legislature took in a vote last month.