Action Alert for Weds. Hearing on Pass I.D. Act

By Jeralyn, Section Legislation
Posted on Mon Jul 13, 2009 at 01:36:33 PM EST
Tags: Pass I.D., Real I.D. (all tags)

Share This: Digg!

First, my huge thanks to Big Tent Democrat for his excellent blogging of this morning's Sotomayor hearing. Not only is his analysis right-on, he manages to hit the highlights and lowpoints of each round of questioning.

If I may divert for one post, please contact these Senators today and ask them to oppose the Pass I.D. Act, a flawed fix to the Real I.D. Act. A hearing is being held Wednesday before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

The ACLU and 17 other civil liberties groups sent a letter to Congress today. Their action alert is here. We need to repeal, not fix, the Real I.D. Act of 2005. [More...]

The advocates believe that in the most significant measures the Pass ID Act is the same as the Real ID Act. Beyond creating a National ID, both the bill and the law invade American’s privacy, endanger victims of domestic violence by failing to adequately shield their addresses, raise fees associated with identification cards, expose consumers to identity theft and fail to boost security. Like the privacy groups, many states oppose the de facto national ID as a waste of state tax dollars that will put privacy at risk without any security benefits. Since the Real ID Act passed, 14 states have passed statutes barring participation and 24 states in total have rejected the 2005 law.
“This bill should repeal, not fix, the Real ID Act of 2005,” said Calabrese. “The only fix in the Pass ID Act is the name. Congress might hope that the states who voted against implementing the Real ID Act will give them a pass on Pass ID, but that would be ill-advised.”

The groups joining the ACLU in the letter: the Campaign for Liberty, Citizens Against Government Waste, Consumer Action, Cyber Privacy Project, DownsizeDC.org, Inc., Electronic Frontier Foundation, Equal Justice Alliance, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Liberty Coalition, National Immigration Law Center, National Network to End Domestic Violence, Privacyactivism, Privacy International, Privacy Journal, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, Rutherford Institute and U.S. Bill of Rights Foundation.

Don't be fooled by the name change. Pass I.D. is a national I.D. card. Cato has more.

Consider more carefully also what PASS ID and REAL ID are about in terms of biometrics. Both require states to “[s]ubject each person applying for a driver’s license or identification card to mandatory facial image capture.”

States across the country are using driver license photos to implement facial-recognition software that will ultimately be able to track people directly - nevermind whether you have an RFID-chipped license or show your card to a government official. They are aiming at preventing identity fraud, of course, but with advancing technology, before too long you will be subject to biometric tracking simply because you posed for an unsmiling digital photo at the DMV. REAL ID and PASS ID are part and parcel of promoting that.

Does PASS ID address “most of the major privacy and security concerns with REAL ID”? Not even close. PASS ID is a national ID, with all the privacy consequences that go with that.

Call your Senators today and tell them:

1.You are opposed to the Real ID Act and the PASS Act
2.You are opposed to being enrolled into a biometric identification system
3.You do not want our social security numbers in state DMV databases
4.You do not want RFID chips in our drivers licenses
5.You are opposed to the federal government intervening in the issuance of state driver’s licenses

Those of you that have twitter and Facebook accounts please get the word out.

< The Al Franken Decade | Judge Sotomayor's Opening Statement >

Legal

Nothing on this site should be construed as legal advice. TalkLeft does not give legal advice.

TalkLeft is not responsible for and often disagrees with material posted in the comments section. Read at your own risk.

Action Alert for Weds. Hearing on Pass I.D. Act | 4 comments (4 topical)

Readers Must Login or Create an Account to Comment

Letter to senator? (none / 0) (#1)
by diogenes on Tue Jul 14, 2009 at 08:14:18 AM EST

Answers to questions

Why?
What is wrong with biometrics? Do I have something to hide?
People steal batches of SSN's all the time/VA's, medicare numbers, employers have them in databases with associated hack risks; someone who wants mine can find it with an advanced internet search.
Why not an advanced chip to decrease potential forgability?
Since driver licenses are good in every state, there is much more basis for the feds to standardize driver licenses then most federal meddling in state actions.

Think about it (none / 0) (#2)
by Dark Avenger on Tue Jul 14, 2009 at 08:49:40 AM EST

What is wrong with biometrics? Do I have something to hide?

Then you wouldn't mind having all your movements tracked at all times?

This would've been Stalin's wet dream, if it had been available in his time.

People steal batches of SSN's all the time/VA's, medicare numbers, employers have them in databases with associated hack risks; someone who wants mine can find it with an advanced internet search.

There's a difference between a 9 digit number and what is being discussed here, or are you innumerate in addition to your other abilities?

Why not an advanced chip to decrease potential forgability?

Because that is only a stop-gap measure.

I suggest you do some research, you can find other reasonable objections here, the article below here.

The states' revolt against Real ID is unprecedented in modern American history and it demonstrates the breadth of the opposition. In states across the country, political leaders from both the left and the right have rejected this dangerous and unworkable program.
Real ID suffers from serious flaws that will affect the rights of every American. It mandates that every state's database - containing Social Security cards, copies of birth certificates, etc. - be linked and accessible to tens of thousands of DMV employees.
By making our personal information accessible to countless individuals across the country, Real ID exposes it to misuse and identity theft. In addition, the new driver's licenses created by Real ID will contain a machine-readable component, allowing the government to track and monitor law-abiding citizens like we are criminals on parole. Any way you look at it, the Real ID national ID scheme is a bad law that needs to be scrapped. It is enormously expensive, offers little to no benefits, and places our personal information at risk for use in identify theft.
The Pennsylvania Senate should follow the lead of the House and send a strong and clear message to Congress that Pennsylvanians will not be bullied into accepting an unfunded surveillance mandate like Real ID.
Gov. Rendell should join in by focusing on his priorities for Pennsylvania while rejecting the federal government's plan to increase tracking and surveillance of all Americans.

information (none / 0) (#3)
by diogenes on Tue Jul 14, 2009 at 09:01:04 PM EST

You can pay about a hundred dollars on the internet to get a wealth of information from existing databases (age, marriages, divorces, residents in one's household, addresses for decades, criminal convictions, etc, etc) Anyone who really wants to track me down can pay a competent detective several dollars more to get all the rest of the information.
I myself don't think that I'm so important that someone will take the time to track me at all times. On the other hand, if this is a way to track parolees or catch people with outstanding arrest warrants (some of them violent criminals or wifebeaters) by tracking them, isn't that a good thing? Or can only law-abiding citizens be tracked?

[ Parent ]

: Your data would be avaliable to (none / 0) (#4)
by Dark Avenger on Tue Jul 14, 2009 at 11:33:06 PM EST

several thousand employees of your local Department of Motor Vehicles and also nationwide, with no cost at all to them.
I myself don't think that I'm so important that someone will take the time to track me at all times.
How would you know if you were wrong until you find yourself on a terrorist watch list purely by mistake?
Suppose someone decided to bypass shelling out cash to a detective when an underpaid state employee would be much cheaper, and they'd get your biometrics to use for their own version of Real ID, what then.
My objection is that it won't make us any safer, and if you care to do the research, you'd find that ID schemes like this one are termed 'brittle', meaning they are easily breakable and bypassable:

The more important you make one form of ID, the more incentive there is to forge it. You start to ignore other forms of identification, relying on the seemingly invincible security of the secure national ID card. But what you really get is cement; a strong, but very brittle security environment. Fake the card well enough and you can pass through anywhere unmolested. And just like the problems of gun control, the criminals, illegals and terrorists who these systems are designed to exclude have the most incentive to seek good forgeries.
On the other hand, if this is a way to track parolees or catch people with outstanding arrest warrants (some of them violent criminals or wifebeaters) by tracking them, isn't that a good thing? Or can only law-abiding citizens be tracked?
Actually, no, do you think someone on the run from Johnny Law will use his Real ID when he knows it'll be trackable? Your identity will be more valuble than his, and or to any terrorist who has a passing physical resemblance to you.
And, FWIW, it's suppose to protect us from the terrorists, and you should be aware that Tim McVeigh and the 9/11 hijackers didn't have to have fake IDs to commit their crimes, and then there's this little episode of the Tyler, TX, poison gas plot:

Feltus was a member of the New Jersey Militia. Krar was suspected of making his living travelling across the country selling bomb components and other weapons to violent underground anti-government groups.[1] Federal authorities had their eye on Krar since at least 1995 when ATF agents investigated a possible plot to bomb government buildings, but Krar was not charged.[2] Since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks their attention was focused on middle-eastern terrorist activities and were only alerted to Krar's recent activities by accident when he mailed Feltus a package of counterfeit birth certificates from North Dakota, Vermont and West Virginia, and United Nations Multinational Force and Defence Intelligence Agency IDs.[2] The package was mistakenly delivered to a Staten Island man who alerted police.[1]

[ Parent ]