Evidently, any Republican who's not from Pittsburgh wouldn't carry a weapon, far less think of using it. They'd just rely on the dept of homeland security to protect them and their families.
Toward a national ID
States' rights have taken a beating since 9-11 from the conservative
wing of the Republican Party, once one of their greatest defenders.
The latest state prerogative to take a hit is the right to set
standards for getting a driver's license.
Pushed by House GOP conservatives, Congress is about to enact
federally mandated standards for issuing driver's licenses, including
a requirement that persons seeking a new license or renewing an old
one produce a birth certificate, photo ID, proof of a valid Social
Security number and a document with full name and address. Moreover,
the state motor vehicle departments will be charged with verifying the
authenticity of the documents, a requirement that state officials say
is too costly - $500 million by one estimate - and complicated.
Bipartisan Senate critics call the bill's provisions "unworkably rigid."
A variety of civil liberties, gun and libertarian groups say that
these driver's licenses, fed into a central database, are national ID
cards, which, in effect, they are. This bill has the potential to make
the states surrogate issuers of federal driver's licenses, and that
really is big government.
http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll ... 40330/1003____
National ID cards on the way?
Published: February 14, 2005, 4:00 AM PST
By Declan McCullagh
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
A recent vote in Congress endorsing standardized, electronically
readable driver's licenses has raised fears about whether the proposal
would usher in what amounts to a national ID card.
In a vote that largely divided along party lines, the U.S. House of
Representatives approved a Republican-backed measure that would compel
states to design their driver's licenses by 2008 to comply with
federal antiterrorist standards. Federal employees would reject
licenses or identity cards that don't comply, which could curb
Americans' access to everything from airplanes to national parks and
some courthouses.
The congressional maneuvering takes place as governments are growing
more interested in implanting technology in ID cards to make them
smarter and more secure. The U.S. State Department soon will begin
issuing passports with radio frequency identification, or RFID, chips
embedded in them, and Virginia may become the first state to glue RFID
tags into all its driver's licenses.
"Supporters claim it is not a national ID because it is voluntary,"
Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, one of the eight Republicans to object to the
measure, said during the floor debate this week. "However, any state
that opts out will automatically make nonpersons out of its citizens.
They will not be able to fly or to take a train."
Paul warned that the legislation, called the Real ID Act, gives
unfettered authority to the Department of Homeland Security to design
state ID cards and driver's licenses. Among the possibilities:
biometric information such as retinal scans, fingerprints, DNA data
and RFID tracking technology.
Proponents of the Real ID Act say it adheres to the recommendations of
the 9/11 Commission and is needed to frustrate both terrorists and
illegal immigrants. Only a portion of the legislation regulates ID
cards; the rest deals with immigration law and asylum requests.
"American citizens have the right to know who is in their country,
that people are who they say they are, and that the name on the
driver's license is the real holder's name, not some alias," F. James
Sensenbrenner, R-Wisc., said last week.
"If these commonsense reforms had been in place in 2001, they would
have hindered the efforts of the 9/11 terrorists, and they will go a
long way toward helping us prevent another tragedy like 9/11," said
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas.
Now the Real ID Act heads to the Senate, where its future is less
certain. Senate rules make it easier for politicians to derail
legislation, and an aide said Friday that Sen. Patrick Leahy, the top
Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, was concerned about portions of
the bill.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on a terrorism
subcommittee, said "I basically support the thrust of the bill" in an
e-mail to CNET News.com on Friday. "The federal government should have
the ability to issue standards that all driver's licenses and
identification documents should meet."
"Spy-D" cards?
National ID cards are nothing new, of course. Many European, Asian and
South American countries require their citizens to carry such
documents at all times, with legal punishments in place for people
caught without them. Other nations that share the English common law
tradition, including Australia and New Zealand, have rejected such
schemes.
A host of political, cultural and even religious concerns has
prevented a national ID from being adopted in the United States, even
during the tumultuous days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that
ushered in the Patriot Act.
Conservatives and libertarians typically argue that a national ID card
will increase the power of the government, and they fear the
dehumanizing effects of laws enacted as a result. Civil liberties
groups tend to worry about the administrative problems, the
opportunities for criminal mischief, and the potential irreversibility
of such a system.
Some evangelical Christians have likened such a proposal to language
in the Bible warning "that no man might buy or sell, save he that had
the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name." That
mark is the sign of the "end times," according to evangelical
thinking, which predicts that anyone who accepts the mark will be
doomed to eternal torment.
Those long-standing concerns have become more pointed recently, thanks
to the opportunity for greater tracking--as well as potentially
greater security for ID documents--that technologies such as RFID
provide. Though the Real ID act does not specify RFID or biometric
technology, it requires that the Department of Homeland Security adopt
"machine-readable technology" standards and provides broad discretion
in how to do it.
An ad hoc alliance of privacy groups and technologists recently has
been fighting proposals from the International Civil Aviation
Organization to require that passports and other travel documents be
outfitted with biometrics and remotely readable RFID-type
"contact-less integrated circuits."
The ICAO, a United Nations organization, argues the measures are
necessary to reduce fraud, combat terrorism and improve airline
security. But its critics have raised questions about how the
technology could be misused by identity thieves with RFID readers, and
they say it would "promote irresponsible national behavior."
In the United States, the federal government is planning to embed RFID
chips in all U.S. passports and some foreign visitor's documents. The
U.S. State Department is now evaluating so-called e-passport
technology from eight different companies. The agency plans to select
a supplier and issue the first e-passports this spring, starting in
Los Angeles, and predicts that all U.S. passport agencies will be
issuing them within a year.
The high-tech passports are supposed to deter theft and forgeries, as
well as accelerate immigration checks at airports and borders. They'll
contain within their covers a miniscule microchip that stores basic
data, including the passport holder's name, date of birth and place of
birth. The chip, which can transmit information through a tiny
included antenna, also has enough room to store biometric data such as
digitized fingerprints, photographs and iris scans.
Border officials can compare the information on the chip to that on
the rest of the passport and to the person actually carrying it.
Discrepancies could signal foul play.
In a separate program, the Department of Homeland Security plans to
issue RFID devices to foreign visitors that enter the country at the
Mexican and Canadian borders. The agency plans to start a yearlong
test of the technology in July at checkpoints in Arizona, New York and
Washington state.
The idea is to aid immigration officials in tracking visitors'
arrivals and departures and snare those who overstay their visas.
Similar to e-passports, the new system should speed up inspection
procedures. It's part of the US-VISIT program, a federal initiative
designed to capture and share data such as fingerprints and
photographs of foreign visitors.
A "Trojan horse"
The legislation approved by the House last Thursday follows a related
measure President Bush signed into law in December. That law gives the
Transportation Department two years to devise standard rules for state
licenses, requires information to be stored in "machine-readable"
format, and says noncompliant ID cards won't be accepted by federal
agencies.
But critics fret that the new bill goes even further. It shifts
authority to the Department of Homeland Security, imposes more
requirements for identity documents on states, and gives the
department carte blanche to do nearly anything else "to protect the
national security interests of the United States."
"In reality, this bill is a Trojan horse," said Paul, the Republican
congressman. "It pretends to offer desperately needed border control
in order to stampede Americans into sacrificing what is uniquely
American: our constitutionally protected liberty."
Unlike last year's measure, the Real ID Act "doesn't even mention the
word 'privacy,'" said Marv Johnson, a lobbyist for the American Civil
Liberties Union.
"What I think the House is planning on doing is attaching this bill to
tsunami relief or money to the troops," Johnson says. "When they send
it to the Senate, the Senate will have to either fish or cut bait.
They can approve it or ask for a conference committee, at which point
the House can say 'they're playing games with national security.'"
In response to a question about a national ID card, White House
spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters on Friday that "the president
supports the legislation that just passed the House." McClellan
pointed to a statement from the White House earlier in the week that
endorsed it.
Another section of the Real ID Act that has raised alarms is the
linking of state Department of Motor Vehicles databases, which was not
part of last year's law. Among the information that must be shared:
"All data fields printed on drivers' licenses and identification
cards" and complete drivers' histories, including motor vehicle
violations, suspensions and points on licenses.
Some senators have indicated they may rewrite part of the measure once
they begin deliberations.
Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., chairman of a terrorism subcommittee, is
readying his own bill that will be introduced within a few weeks,
spokesman Andrew Wilder said on Friday. "He has been at work on his
own version of things," Wilder said. "Senator Kyl does support
biometric identifiers."
CNET News.com's Alorie Gilbert contributed to this report.
http://news.com.com/National+ID+cards+o ... 73414.html__
An Unrealistic 'Real ID'
May 4, 2005
The New York Times
In a more rational world, Congress would have started thinking hard
about identity cards right after Sept. 11. By now, the nation's
lawmakers could have had a long and serious discussion about how to
create a sensible national ID that would provide identification and
security while protecting privacy. This is, after all, a critical
issue in terms of both safety and civil liberties.
Too bad. What Congress is doing instead is to ram through a bill that
turns state-issued driver's licenses into a kind of phony national
identity card through the mislabeled "Real ID" provision. And in order
to make absolutely sure there's no genuine debate, the sponsors have
tied it to a crucial bill providing funds for American troops in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
Attaching a bad bill to a vital one is a sneaky business, making it
nearly impossible for thoughtful members of Congress to vote against
it. In this case, in order to provide financial support to American
troops doing dangerous service abroad, lawmakers are stuck also
supporting a plan that eliminates the chance of doing anything serious
about identity security. It also puts a new burden on the states and
potentially subverts the real purpose of driver's licenses: safe drivers.
This federal driver's license mandate will require states to verify
whether an applicant for a license or renewal is in the country
legally. Although that has always sounded like a reasonable goal, it
bumps up against the arguments of the police and highway safety
experts in many parts of the country who are concerned about the
illegal immigrants who drive. Eleven states have modified their
licenses in ways that make it easier for noncitizens to learn the
rules of the road, qualify for licenses and get automobile insurance.
The most optimistic explanation for the Congressional leaders'
irresponsibility on this issue is that it's a sop to conservatives led
by Representative James Sensenbrenner Jr., a Wisconsin Republican. The
conservatives are determined to get this bill passed before they'll
listen to any discussion of more comprehensive immigration reform. The
Real ID measure is no small price to pay to get the larger reforms,
which President Bush has yet to show any signs of seriously pushing.
http://www.civilrights.org/issues/enfor ... m?id=30840______
Bill calls for encrypted Social Security cards
Lawmaker sees proposal as a way to thwart illegal immigrants and
would-be terrorists
Edward Epstein, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Wednesday, May 4, 2005
Washington -- With Congress poised to make it virtually impossible for
illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses, Republican leaders are
preparing another crackdown on undocumented workers -- legislation to
mandate a high-tech, counterfeit-proof Social Security card that would
be required to get a job.
Rep. David Dreier, R-San Dimas (Los Angeles County), said on the House
floor Tuesday that the House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to begin
work on his proposal next week, just about the time Congress gives
final approval to an $81 billion supplemental appropriation for the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The war appropriation includes the GOP-backed immigration measures
highlighted by the "Real ID Act," which requires states to verify the
legal residency status of driver's license applicants or risk having
the state's licenses banned for such federal uses as boarding an
airplane or cashing a check. States have objected to the proposed law,
saying it would be an expensive unfunded mandate.
The requirement has a special resonance in California, where a move to
allow undocumented residents to obtain driver's licenses helped bring
down Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in the fall 2003 recall election. The
Legislature subsequently repealed the law under pressure from
Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger vetoed another
licensing bill last September after failing to reach a compromise with
legislators.
Dreier says the expected enactment of the license law, which has
President Bush's support, provides momentum for his idea of a new
Social Security card as a way to combat terrorism and crack down on
illegal immigrants. Dreier, a 13-term member who chairs the House
Rules Committee, was hammered by conservatives in his 2004 re-election
campaign for not being sufficiently tough on illegal immigration. His
margin of victory was held to 54 percent, uncomfortably low for an
incumbent.
In his House comments, Dreier said he is sensitive to criticism from
people who fear the federal government is moving toward creating a
mandatory identification card.
"It's not a national ID card,'' he said. "It will only be required for
people looking for a new job.''
His proposal also specifies that the new cards would carry the
wording: "This card shall not be used for the purpose of identification.''
Social Security cards issued from 1946 to 1972 had similar wording,
according to the Social Security Administration. Since the program's
start in 1936, 415 million cards have been issued, with about 5.5
million new cards issued annually in recent years.
Dreier said the Real ID law and his proposal would make it harder for
would-be terrorists to get government documents. "I believe we will be
much better off with these provisions,'' he said.
Social Security card fraud is a consistent problem, with some
undocumented workers using fake cards and numbers to help find
employment. The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement
estimates that fake cards can be bought for as little as $50.
Dreier's bill was developed with the National Border Patrol Council, a
union representing 10,000 border agents. It estimates that cracking
down on phony cards and licenses and tougher employer sanctions could
cut illegal border crossings by 98 percent.
Dreier's proposal, which mirrors a Senate bill introduced by Sen. Jon
Kyl, R-Ariz., would require the Social Security Administration to
replace all the current paper Social Security cards with plastic cards
carrying a person's digitized photo and embedded with an "encrypted
machine-readable electronic identification strip.''
When someone gets a new job, the new card would be swiped through an
electronic card reader or the employer would call a toll-free
Department of Homeland Security number to verify the job applicant's
identity. The bill would require Homeland Security to create an
employment eligibility database containing information on all
noncitizens living in the country legally and eligible to work.
Employers who fail to obey the law could be fined or face prison.
Critics worry that the bill marks a continuation of what they see as
an anti-immigrant trend.
"I've got my fingers crossed'' that Dreier's bill doesn't make it,
said Katherine Culliton, staff attorney for the Mexican American Legal
Defense and Educational Fund in Washington.
She said her group and other immigrant rights groups are "concerned
and disappointed by the Real ID Act,'' which they believe "will be
devastating to the Latino community.''
"These measures don't make America any safer. It's a myth that these
anti- immigrant measures have identified a single terrorist since the
Sept. 11 attacks. But they have led to more arrests and detentions,''
Culliton said.
Tim Sparapani, legislative counsel of the American Civil Liberties
Union, said that despite Dreier's assurances, the bill "takes us much
further down the road to a national ID card.''
He also said criminals will inevitably find a way to counterfeit the
proposed card. "If it has a value, sophisticated thieves and
terrorists will do what they have to do and produce documents that
look real,'' he added.
But Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American
Immigration Reform, praised Dreier's proposal and the pending license
law. "It's the only way to have meaningful employer sanctions and to
control access to public services,'' he said.
Mehlman said the public shouldn't fear the prospect of getting new
Social Security cards. He said many other government documents --
passports, driver's licenses and green cards for legal immigrants --
have been updated over the years to include new features to protect
against counterfeiting.
The House-passed license provision was not included in the Senate's
version of the war spending bill. Senators said they preferred to work
on a comprehensive immigration package.
But House negotiators in a House-Senate conference prevailed Tuesday
and the final version of the war appropriations bill -- with the Real
ID measure intact -- is scheduled Thursday for a House vote. The
Senate is not in session this week, but could take up the bill next week.
E-mail Edward Epstein at
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... CJN2C1.DTLWhen a man you like switches from what he said a year ago, or four years ago, he is a broad-minded person who has courage enough to change his mind with changing conditions. When a man you don't like does it, he is a liar who has broken his promise.
-- FRANKLIN P.ADAMS (1861-1960).
