New Yorkers able to buy driver’s licenses w/ a radio chip allowing them travel btwn U.S. and Canada or Mexico without passport

Chipping away at border wait
New York hopes new Enhanced Drivers License appeals to travelers

ALBANY — Starting Tuesday, New Yorkers will be able to buy new driver’s licenses containing a radio chip that will let them travel between the U.S. and Canada or Mexico without a passport.

The new Enhanced Drivers License, which will cost an additional $30 on top of the standard $50 license fee, also will allow those on boats or ships to travel to Bermuda and Caribbean nations without a passport.

Starting in June, federal law will dictate that passports or other proof of citizenship — or an enhanced license — will be needed to visit neighboring countries, including Canada and Mexico.

“This is an opportunity for individuals, at their option, to get through the borders more quickly,” said Ken Brown, a spokesman for the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

The new licenses are expected to draw the most immediate interest in border regions such as Buffalo and Plattsburgh. DMV Commissioner David Swarts is planning to unveil the new licenses Tuesday in the Buffalo area.

“Some of the clerks are anticipating a big crowd,” Rensselaer County Clerk Frank Merola said, although he doesn’t expect a rush of applications at his Troy office.

In 2006, New Yorkers made 1.7 million visits to Canada, according to state records.

The enhanced license will be the first state-issued form of identification containing a radio chip, which has civil libertarians concerned about some aspects of the plan.

The chips emit a radio frequency that can be detected by customs and border patrol agents as a driver approaches the border, Brown said.

The frequencies are encoded so they don’t reveal the identity of the license holder — and only authorized agents can enter a secure database that will match the driver with the frequency.

While they cited no specific dangers, the state Civil Liberties Union has said it has questions about how well the identities of license holders are protected, and they wonder what might happen if individuals with radio tracking devices were to start searching for the chip signals.

“We’re concerned that it’s a technology that could potentially expose users to tracking or monitoring,” said Udi Ofer, a lawyer with the NYCLU.

Ofer also said his group wants the state of offer details and assurances about how it will prevent unauthorized people from linking the radio signals to specific motorists.

He is also worried that surveillance technology is becoming more widespread.

Radio emissions from the licenses, however, can be blocked by storing the licenses in a metallic sleeve similar to the foil-like bags that motorists can use to disable their E-ZPass toll sensors, Merola said.

Times Union | RICK KARLIN | Saturday, September 13, 2008

ID cards scheme ‘is open to fraud’

A government-appointed panel of experts is warning that the new ID cards system will be open to fraud by the people running it.

In a potentially damaging revelation, which undermines claims that the scheme will enhance national security, the group has concluded that it will be prone to corruption.

A new report by the Independent Scheme Assurance Panel (Isap), set up to advise the government on the implementation of ID cards, states: ‘Based on the likelihood that the scheme will aggregate a lot of valuable data, there is the risk that its trusted administrators will make improper use of this data.’ It adds: ‘The scheme will be subject to data errors and errors in decisions made.’

The acknowledgements come as the government has admitted it is to contract out the taking of fingerprints and photographs of ID card applicants to the private sector to save money.

The news has alarmed opponents of the scheme, who say this will increase the risk that the data of individuals will be illegally shared with third parties. ‘By cutting costs and cutting corners, the Home Office has fundamentally undermined the integrity of the scheme,’ said Phil Booth, spokesman for the campaign group, No2ID.

The Isap report goes on to warn that the scheme may not be embraced by government departments, suggesting the cards are not being well received in some Whitehall departments.

The panel also warns the initiative is struggling to fulfil its remit. It states that the scheme lacks a ‘robust and transparent operational data governance regime and clear data architecture’, suggesting there is confusion over its roll-out. And it goes on to say: ‘Though the tender process is supposedly well advanced, requirements for information, communication and technology systems, processes and operations have still to be adequately specified and the rationale for key design decisions is unclear.’

The report is potentially damaging to the government as it battles to convince the public of the necessity for the cards. The Conservatives have pledged to scrap the scheme and spend money on building prisons instead.

A spokesman for the Home Office said the decision to outsource the biometric part of the ID cards contract to the private sector was taken on cost grounds. ‘Using the private sector to provide biometric enrolment will give applicants a choice of competing services which should maximise convenience and drive down price,’ the spokesman said.

And he said there was no risk to security. ‘The private sector will provide the Immigration and Passport Service with the photograph and fingerprints of applicants but will have no decision-making powers over who is eligible for a passport or identity card,’ the spokesman said. ‘This will be made by security-cleared civil servants.’

But No2ID said the sysyem was open to corruption. ‘Ministers pride themselves on biometrics and security,’ Booth said. ‘But now this is going out to all and sundry.’

Guardian | Jamie Doward | Sunday, May 11, 2008

Franchi Questions Tom Ridge in New Hampshire

All UK citizens in ID database by 2017

All British citizens will have their fingerprints and photographs registered on a national ID database within 10 years under plans outlined by the Government.Millions in sensitive jobs, including teachers, carers and health workers, will be among the first to be entered on to the identity register.

In a bid to kick start the project - the world’s biggest - foreign nationals working in Britain will begin to be issued with cards from November. Starting next year, the first British citizens will be enrolled beginning with some airport staff, power station employees and people working on the London Olympics site.

Fingerprint kiosks, modelled on existing photograph booths in stations and shops, could be set up around the country to help people enrol. Plans outlined by Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, yesterday envisage a fee of £30 for a stand-alone card, and more than £100 for a combined ID card and passport.

But ministers have been told by their own expert that enrolment should be free if the scheme is ”to win hearts and minds”.

A report commissioned by Gordon Brown from Sir James Crosby, a former banking chief, raised the prospect of the taxpayer stumping up the full cost. The Government has insisted all along that the multi-billion pound scheme would be funded through fees and not taxes.
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Sir James also came out against including a digital image of the cardholder’s fingerprints on the microchip in each ID card. For security reasons, the card and database should only hold some elements of a biometric, he said.

His report was published alongside a new Government timetable for introducing a universal ID scheme by 2017.

From the start of 2010 young people will be able to get an identity card if they chose and will be issued with a unique personal identity number. Later that year the scheme will be opened up to voluntary applicants of any age.

From 2012 - after the next general election - anyone applying for a new passport will automatically be fingerprinted and 49 pieces of personal information logged on the database. This is three years later than planned when the scheme was first proposed after the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

In another change from original plans, Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, said it will be possible to decline the card itself and rely upon a passport as an identity document. Ministers might even revive the idea of linking the database entry to the driving licence.

There had been suggestions that Gordon Brown was cooling on the ID project because of the cost and civil liberties implications. But far from being a retreat, the announcement was designed to show that the Government is still committed to the project.
# Commentary: Timetable has slowed, but goal remains the same
# Police take student’s DNA for £2.40 fare fine

Miss Smith said the aim was to make coverage of the population ”universal” by 2017. Officials said by that date, around 80 per cent of adults would be covered.

At that point, or possibly earlier, there will be a vote in parliament to include the rest of the population still not on the register.

Miss Smith said there would be greater involvement of the private sector in delivering the scheme. There would also be a drive to encourage more people to join the scheme voluntarily. As a result, Miss Smith said the Home Office could scale back the projected £5.4bn cost by around £1bn.

The Tories have promised the scrap the scheme if they take power after the next election, likely in 2010. David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said: “The government may have removed the highly visible element but they have still left the dangerous core of this project.

“The National Identity Register, which will contain dozens of personal details of every adult in this country in one place, will be a severe threat to our security and a real target for criminals, hackers and terrorists.

“This is before you take the government’s legendary inability to handle people’s data securely into account.”

Shami Chakrabarti, director for Liberty said: “Yet another re-launch of the ID scheme looks suspiciously like a new sales pitch for the same bad product. ‘

‘ID cards remain disastrous for our purses, privacy and race relations. A slow soft sell won’t change this thoroughly bad idea.”

Phil Booth of NO2ID, which campaigns against the scheme, said: “This is a marketing exercise.

“Whether you volunteer or are coerced on to the ID database, there’s no way back. You’ll be monitored for life.

“That’s why the Government is targeting students and young people, to get them on before they realise what’s happening.”

Telegraph | Philip Johnston | Friday, March 7, 2008

Feds warn states of ID deadline, travel hassles

WASHINGTON - Homeland Security officials are pushing recalcitrant states to adopt stricter driver’s license standards to end a standoff that could disrupt domestic air travel.States have less than a month to send a letter to the Homeland Security Department seeking an extension to comply with the Real ID law passed following the 2001 terror attacks. Some states have resisted, saying it is costly, impractical and an invasion of privacy.

Four states - Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and South Carolina - have yet to seek an extension.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff argues that the law fixes a critical gap in security identified by the commission that investigated the 9/11 attacks: the ease of obtaining government-issued ID. It will also hinder would-be con artists and illegal immigrants, he said.

Real ID-compliant driver’s licenses would have several layers of new security features to prevent forgery. They would also be issued after a number of ID checks, including verification of birth certificates, Social Security numbers and immigration status. Officials acknowledge it will take years to phase in all the different security measures.

To bring the states in line, Chertoff warned that any state that does not seek an extension by the end of March will find that, come May, their residents will not be able to use their licenses to board domestic flights.

Chertoff’s assistant secretary, Stewart Baker, sent letters to several governors Monday reminding them of the looming deadline, and urging the holdouts to seek an extension.

In recent years, 17 states passed legislation or resolutions opposing Real ID, but now only a handful appear willing to challenge the government publicly.

Officials in Maine and Montana insisted Monday they would not seek an extension. A spokesman for South Carolina’s governor said he was still considering it. New Hampshire passed a law last year prohibiting the state from participating in the Real ID program, and Gov. John Lynch wrote Chertoff last week asking him not to impose the requirements on New Hampshire citizens.

A fifth state, Delaware, has sent a letter asking for an extension, but DHS officials are still weighing whether the wording of the letter legally adds up to an extension request.

If the states do not seek an extension by March 31, their residents will be subjected to secondary screening by security workers before boarding any domestic flight beginning May 11.

“We’re not going to buckle under here,” said Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer. “My guess is the people of Montana would be proud to walk through that line.”

Schweitzer called the Real ID proposal a bureaucratic boondoggle that will cost his state a fortune and give a false sense of security without actually making ID more reliable. He has sought to rally opposition to Real ID, but the vast majority of states have decided not to test whether Washington is bluffing.

As the high-stakes game of chicken continues, federal authorities are not publicly saying whether seeking an extension actually counts as complying with the law. In his recent letters, Baker said only that the 45 states that have sought extensions are “on track toward improved security.”

AP | Monday, March 3, 2008

Real ID Act a real intrusion on rights, privacy

With the announcement last month by Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff of the final implementing regulations for the much-delayed Real ID Act, the debate over this thinly veiled national identification card project moved into high gear.The federal government for several years now has been fighting a guerrilla action with citizen groups and a number of state legislatures over imposing on the states and the citizenry this privacy-intrusive and costly mandate. With the announcement Jan. 11 of the final regulations, the debate is fully joined and pits those who support the principle of states’ rights against the legions of Big Government advocates.

Big Government advocates are personified by the current Bush administration, favoring central control of virtually every facet of activity in our society, from education to transportation and from the plumbing in our bathrooms to the bulbs in our lamps. While the Real ID debate shares some elements with its sister debate concerning voter ID, mixing the two as if two sides of the same coin dilutes the host of fundamental constitutional concerns and responsibilities affected by the Real ID Act program now being forced down the throats of the states.

Let’s leave aside for the moment the underlying federalism question - where does the federal government get the power to dictate to the states who can get a driver’s license? - to focus on civil liberties that would be undercut by the Real ID Act.

If, as proposed in the law, a person must have a Real ID Act-compliant card in order to access a federal building, access any regulated or interstate mode of transportation, or obtain any federal benefit, then we have surrendered to the federal government (that is, federal bureaucrats) the power to deny citizens all manner of activities guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Consider:

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A person not possessing a Real ID Act-compliant identification card could not enter any federal building, or an office of his or her congressman or senator or the U.S. Capitol. This effectively denies that person their fundamental rights to assembly and to petition the government as guaranteed in the First Amendment.
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A person seeking to exercise their right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment could henceforth be denied that ability if they do not possess a precious Real ID card, because the federal bureaucracy known as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives probably will decree that such a form of identification is necessary to meet federal requirements for purchasing a firearm.
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Very possibly the Real ID card will be required in order to vote in any election for federal office.
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A veteran may be denied access to a VA hospital because he or she lacks the requisite Real ID card, perhaps because they did not have the money required to purchase it or because they could not locate the background forms the Department of Homeland Security required to obtain one.
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A business traveler, unable to afford to travel by private jet, is denied the ability to make a living because their job requires air travel and they do not have a Real ID card - even though they demonstrably pose no danger whatsoever to their fellow travelers.
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Even though individual states, such as Georgia, may provide greater legal protection for private information of its residents than other states or the federal government, this will mean nothing in the Real ID Act world, because all the data under that law will be subject to the lower federal standards, thereby subjecting residents to a higher likelihood of identity theft than they would risk under the laws of their state.
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And, they would have no recourse to correct erroneous data, or prevent identity theft pursuant to the Real ID regulations.

On the other side of the ledger, arguing in favor of this intrusive and expensive federal mandate, are hollow promises of “security” - not freedom or liberty - but “safety,” the promise of which trumps all else in this post-9/11 world, at least for this Congress and this administration. I, for one, commend the state of Georgia and those other states that are standing against this assault on states’ rights and the Bill of Rights.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution | BOB BARR | Wednesday, February 6, 2008

DHS official moots Real ID rules for buying cold medicine

A senior US Department of Homeland Security official has floated the idea of requiring citizens to produce federally compliant identification before purchasing some over-the-counter medicines.”If you have a good ID … you make it much harder for the meth labs to function in this country,” DHS Assistant Secretary for Policy Stewart Baker told an audience last month at the Heritage Foundation. Cold medicines like Sudafed have long been used in the production of methamphetamine. Over the past year or so, pharmacies have been required to track buyers of drugs that contain pseudoephedrine.

His comment came five days after the agency released final rules implementing the REAL ID Act of 2005 that made no mention of such requirements. It mandates the establishment uniform standards and procedures that must be met before state-issued licenses can be accepted as identification for official purposes.

Beyond boarding airplanes and entering federal buildings or nuclear facilities, there are no other official purposes spelled out in the regulations. And that’s just what concerns people at the Center for Democracy and Technology. They say Baker’s statement underscores “mission creep,” in which the scope and purpose of the REAL ID Act gradually expands over time.

“Baker’s suggested mission creep pushes the REAL ID program farther down the slippery slope toward a true national ID card,” CDT blogger Greg Burnett wrote here. He says requiring people to produce a federally approved ID to buy cold medicine is a good example of the “significant ramifications” attached to the act.

So far, 17 states have formally opposed REAL ID, which takes effect on May 11. Residents of those states will be subject to additional searches and other inconveniences when flying and may be barred from entering federal buildings and nuclear plants.

Baker’s statement belying the official DHS position on REAL ID isn’t the first time the agency has made confusing remarks about the legal requirements surrounding identification. According to travel writer Edward Hasbrouck, DHS officials continue to plant the misunderstanding that residents from states which don’t comply with REAL ID requirements won’t get on planes. They will, Hasbrouck asserts here. In fact, he says, airlines are prevented by law from requiring any kind of ID.

Nonetheless, the DHS website continues to claim a photo ID is needed to pass through security checkpoints. Hasbrouck has his suspicions about the motives for such statements.

“The most obvious explanation is that they want to use the implied (but legally and factually empty) threat of denial of air travel to intimidate states into ‘voluntarily’ complying with the Real-ID Act and its rules,” he writes.

UK Register | Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Hiding From REAL ID

Why honest people might run from a national ID card

When our sad pack of presidential candidates look you in the eye and tell you they can unite a divided America, believe them. The one thing each of them knows how to do—present the citizenry with unworkable, invasive, underfunded mandates—is the one sure way to bring together bizarre masses of humanity.Take the REAL ID Act, the sputtering effort to unite Americans under a common banner of department of motor vehicle regulations and porous databases. In common purpose, it has united the Amish, gun owners, and advocates for victims of domestic abuse, all of whom want to see it killed.

Though severely hobbled by a state-level revolt, REAL ID is set to enter its first phase in May, when states that have not applied for extensions will be required to comply with new requirements for issuing licenses. Amish groups and other religiously sensitive groups suggest that REAL ID portends the mark of the beast, and those who receive it will be thrown into eternal abyss. Appealing as it is to view REAL ID author Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) as an agent of Satan, it is probably the victims of domestic abuse who provide the best case study in the plan’s overreach. Organizations such as the National Network to End Domestic Violence contend that stores of half-guarded data would empower stalkers, violent exes, and obsessive abusers hunting for information. Abuse survivors are living repudiations of the assumption that only criminals need seek the comforts of anonymity.

But try telling that to the Department of Homeland Security. “Any state or territory that does not comply,” bellowed senior DHS official Richard C. Barth during Congressional testimony, “increases the risk of the rest of the nation.” This is easy to swallow if your chief conception of danger involves foreign evildoers bent on random slaughter of unidentified victims. It’s less so for women who fear actual human beings with whom they may share a history.

DMVs and local governments have always been vulnerable data dumps where a stalker with a good story could potentially score an address. But DMVs were at least limited in scope; you could move from your small town where your abuser knew a guy who knew a police officer who could demand confidential information to another state with another system. The REAL ID Act would interlink all of them, so an irresponsible or incompetent official in Arkansas could track a target in Missouri. “A data breach at one DMV will be a data breach in all of them,” says Guilherme Roschke of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

DHS regulations also demand that a “residence of principal address” be printed on the cards in a machine-readable format, which presents an obvious danger to women trying to hide said residences. More recently, DHS conceded that women enrolled in state confidentiality programs can claim an exemption. According to Jill Morris of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape, that’s not enough. Few women are actually enrolled in these programs, which sometimes require participants to provide verification of abuse such as police reports or restraining orders. “There are millions of women who won’t call the police,” says Morris. “And police can be abusers too.”

There are other loose ends that leave abuse victims hanging. One way women escape their histories is changing names and having the court record sealed. This will be more risky with REAL ID in that the history of the name change may be present in the various databases. The record threatens to stymie the task of starting over and erasing the past.

Proponents of REAL ID counter that we’re already living in an age of free information, a nationalized ID system being just a single droplet in the waves of revealing data washing over all of us all the time. But the wave itself is blessedly easy to get lost in, which is, after all, part of what scared our solons into passing REAL ID in 2005. The same technology that brings you the exhibitionism of Twitter-addicted teens is also a powerful force for anonymity. Women trying to avoid detection have benefited from the ability to pay bills online, to contact help undetected, to engage with the world from behind a veil of pixels.

The REAL ID concept poses myriad civil liberties issues, and survivors of domestic abuse pose a small–and perhaps surmountable–problem in a much larger debate over national idenfication. But their predicament lays bare the hubris of a government that thinks itself so completely just, so perfectly coordinated, that no honest person ever needs to hide. DHS officials may claim that no one can be secure so long as anyone remains off the grid, but they risk destroying the lives of people for whom the only real security remains anonymity itself.

 Reason Magazine | Kerry Howley | February 1, 2008

No student loan without ID card, says government

Students will be “blackmailed” into holding identity cards in order to apply for student loans, the Tories have warned.

According to Home Office documents leaked to the Conservative party last night, those applying for student loans will be forced to hold identity cards to get the funding from 2010.

Anyone aged 16 or over will be expected to obtain a card - costing up to £100 - to open a bank account or apply for a student loan.

The document says: “We should issue ID cards to young people to assist them as they open their first bank account, take out a student loan, etc.”

The government had planned to start issuing the ID cards to people applying for a passport from 2010, but confidential documents confirm that the scheme will be delayed to at least 2012.

The biometric cards are due to be introduced for foreign nationals later this year, with the first expected to be issued to UK citizens on a voluntary basis from 2009.

From next year, they will also be issued to people in “positions of trust” such as airport workers.

The revelations have led to concerns that the government is planning to collect the fingerprints and other biometric details of more than two million young people entering higher education each year by stealth.

Shadow immigration minister Damian Green called the plans “straightforward blackmail” to bolster “a failing policy”.

“This is an outrageous plan. The government has seen its ID cards proposals stagger from shambles to shambles. They are clearly trying to introduce them by stealth.”

Guardian | Anthea Lipsett | Thursday January 24, 2008

B.C. to issue enhanced driver’s licences as passport alternative

British Columbia will issue the country’s first enhanced driver’s licences, which could serve as an alternative to passports that will be required next year for border crossings to the United States.The announcement, made Monday in Vancouver by Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell, is a response to new security measures under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative that require valid passports for all Canada-U.S. land and water border crossings beginning in June 2009.

The initiative was passed by the U.S. Congress in 2004 in a bid to plug security holes after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Canadian officials have been pressing U.S. counterparts for an alternative to passports, saying they are expensive and curtail trade and tourism.

“This new licence will encourage closer social ties with our U.S. neighbours and support economic growth on both sides of the border,” Campbell said in a news release.

Last November, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff confirmed that enhanced driver’s licences will be accepted as alternatives to passports at the Canada-U.S. border.

The B.C. government is inviting volunteers to participate in the pilot program, which will issue only 500 enhanced driver’s licences that will contain proof of citizenship. Based on their effectiveness, the enhanced driver’s licences program could apply to all Canadian citizens in B.C. in the future, the ministers said in the release.

Ontario introduced plans for similar driver’s licences in December. But Transportation Minister Jim Bradley said he still has to get final agreement from U.S. and Canadian government officials before they can be issued.

Quebec has said it will roll out enhanced driver’s licences in a year’s time.

CBCNEWS | | January 21, 2008

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