|
Bill prompts new national ID card fears { February 9 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=%5CCulture%5Carchive%5C200502%5CCUL20050209b.htmlhttp://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=%5CCulture%5Carchive%5C200502%5CCUL20050209b.html
Bill Prompts New National ID Card Fears
By Jeff Johnson
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
February 09, 2005
(CNSNews.com) - Congress is considering legislation that conservatives and libertarians warn will create a national ID card system, calling it a backdoor attempt to remove privacy protections gained in a law passed only last year.
The Real ID Act of 2005 (H.R. 418), introduced Jan. 26 by House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), would eliminate existing privacy protections and give the secretary of Homeland Security expanded powers to control states' driver's licenses and ID cards, and the data collected while issuing them.
The proposal would replace a more restrictive 2004 law and give the federal government additional control over the design and content of driver's licenses and ID cards, limit to whom and under what circumstances states are allowed to issue them and mandate participation in a network of identification databases open to some foreign officials.
Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) wrote a "Dear Colleague" letter to House members Wednesday entitled "What will you tell your constituents?" Paul shared his belief that the Real ID Act could "make terrorism and illegal immigration more likely."
"What is to stop a corrupt foreign official from selling or giving the most sensitive information about your constituents - their name, address, date of birth, Social Security number, and other identifying characteristics - to Mexican drug lords, to terrorist cells that most experts believe are operating in Mexico and possibly Canada, to terrorist organizations overseas, to human traffickers who will use their identities to create even more convincing fraudulent documents?" Paul asked (emphasis in original). "Nothing will stop them."
Paul detailed the current controversy over the widely forged Mexican Matricula Consular identification cards and some Mexican authorities' active promotion of illegal emigration to the United States.
"What will your constituents think when they find out you voted to give their personal information to corrupt Mexican government officials?" Paul asked.
That possibility, among others, also concerned Gun Owners of America (GOA), which sent out an email alert to its members and supporters Wednesday morning.
"Realizing government's tendency towards mission creep, no one should be surprised if this database grows to contain far more information than that which is relevant to driving," the GOA alert warned.
"H.R. 418 requires that the database shall contain 'at a minimum,' all information contained on the driver's license as well as driving history," the email continued. "There is no limit to what other information may eventually be contained in the database; something which should definitely concern gun owners."
The legislation would withhold related funding unless states allow federal officials and law enforcement authorities at the state and local levels to access information contained in their driver's license and ID card databases and to share that information with the Mexican and Canadian governments.
Rolling back privacy protections?
Privacy advocates and civil libertarians opposed similar provisions regulating state driver's licenses and identification cards in last year's Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (S. 2845), believing that they were an attempt to create a national ID card. The legislation passed only after protections for states' autonomy and individuals' privacy were added.
The 2004 law forbids the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to "require a single design to which driver's licenses or personal identification cards issued by all states must conform."
It also mandates "procedures and requirements to protect the privacy rights of individuals who apply for and hold driver's licenses and personal identification cards." Finally, the law prohibits the federal government from infringing "on a state's power to set criteria concerning what categories of individuals are eligible to obtain" a state driver's license or ID card.
Sensenbrenner believes greater federal authority is necessary to prevent terrorists who enter the country on short-term temporary visas from getting long-term identity documents that would help them "blend in and not raise suspicion or concern.
"[9/11 hijacker] Mohammed Atta received a 6-month visa to stay in the U.S. yet received a Florida driver's license good for 6 years," Sensenbrenner exclaimed.
"The Real ID Act will end this by establishing a uniform rule for all states that temporary driver's licenses for foreign visitors expire when their visa terms expire, and establishing tough rules for confirming identity before temporary driver's licenses are issued," he added.
Groups supporting liberal immigration laws have already spoken out against the restrictions on driver's licenses for immigrants.
An analysis of the bill by the American Immigration Lawyers Association said the section "usurps the states' authority to set eligibility requirements and imposes a long list of 'minimum' federal standards, including restrictions on immigrants' access to driver's licenses.
"Preventing immigrants from obtaining driver's licenses undermines national security by pushing people into the shadows and fueling the black market for fraudulent identification documents," the AILA argued.
"Moreover, it undermines the law enforcement utility of Department of Motor Vehicle databases by limiting rather than expanding the data on individuals residing in a particular state," the AILA added.
The making of a national ID card
Opponents believe the requirements of the Real ID Act prove that it is an attempt to create a national ID card.
The legislation would require each state to:
* Employ technology to capture digital images of identity source documents so that the images can be retained in electronic storage in a transferable format;
* Subject each person applying for a driver's license or identification card to mandatory facial image capture; and
* Limit the period of validity of all driver's licenses and identification cards that are not temporary to a period that does not exceed 8 years."
The proposal also requires that any state not meeting the requirements mark its driver's licenses and ID cards with the words "may not be accepted by any Federal agency for any official purpose." It also requires special colors or markings, as mandated by DHS, to distinguish the documents as federally unacceptable.
Another area of concern for privacy advocates in the REAL ID Act is called "Additional Powers of Secretary" and states that "The Secretary [of Homeland Security], in the Secretary's discretion, may, in addition to the requirements [described above] prescribe one or more design formats for driver's licenses and identification cards ... to protect the national security interests of the United States."
Writing in his "Texas Straight Talk" constituent newsletter, Paul described his concerns about the federal government having that type of power.
"A national identification card, in whatever form it may take, will allow the federal government to inappropriately monitor the movements and transactions of every American," Paul warned. "History shows that governments inevitably use the power to monitor the actions of people in harmful ways."
Paul's "Liberty Committee," 22 members of the House who have joined Paul in a coalition to promote individual freedom and limited government, detailed the group's opposition to the Real ID Act in an Action Alert.
"The Real ID Act or Real National ID Act will impose a Soviet-style internal passport on law-abiding American citizens," spokesman Kent Snyder wrote.
The group believes that the bill "punishes law-abiding citizens."
"Criminals will ignore it," Snyder continued. "H.R. 418 offers us a false sense of greater security at the cost of taking a gigantic step toward making America a police state."
The Real ID Act of 2005 is on the House calendar for consideration Wednesday. The bill had 137 cosponsors when Congress began considering it Wednesday afternoon.
|
|
