- WASHINGTON - The federal
government is moving ahead with a blizzard of new identification card proposals
affecting military personnel, government workers and even ordinary Americans
renewing their driver's licenses.
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- Privacy advocates say the identification cards reflect
Washington's embrace of fancy new "smart-card" technologies allowing
pictures or fingerprints to be read by computers. But critics argue the
cards give a false sense of security because they can be either forged,
faked, bought - or just ignored by terrorists with a determination to kill
Americans.
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- On Tuesday, President Bush endorsed moves in Congress
to tack federal regulations for state-issued driver's licenses onto the
bill authorizing $81 billion in additional spending for the war in Iraq.
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- In a letter to the House-Senate conference committee
now considering the legislation, the administration said the so-called
Real ID Act would strengthen procedures under which states issue driver's
licenses.
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- The Real ID Act requires all new driver's licenses to
include digital photographs, anti-counterfeiting features and "machine-readable"
information verifying a person's identity.
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- The cards, which would be issued as current licenses
expire, would be required for Americans using airplanes, trains, parks,
federal courthouses and other places under federal control. The legislation
also requires county courthouses to take new steps to safeguard birth records
and other personal data used to verify identity and citizenship status,
information that will be needed to get driver's licenses.
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- The Pentagon already has begun issuing "smart"
ID cards to military personnel with a chip embedded in the card giving
information on the person's security clearances and identification.
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- Starting in October, U.S. agencies are expected to begin
issuing new counterfeit-proof identification cards to federal employees.
New security cards are also required for civilian employees in airports
and port facilities.
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- Civil liberties groups and conservative organizations
are fighting to stop the Real ID Act from becoming law.
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- "If they want to make a federally issued ID, then
take the states out of it and have the federal government issue it. This
is just going to make it darn difficult to get a driver's license,"
said Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the libertarian
Cato Institute in Washington.
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- He predicted citizens who lose their licenses will face
formidable bureaucratic difficulties trying to prove their identity.
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- Leaders of the National Conference on State Legislatures
say Congress doesn't realize that many county courthouses, particularly
in rural America, don't have the manpower or the facilities to secure birth
certificate data.
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- Nevertheless, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of
Nevada predicted the Real ID Act will become law. "They are going
to stick it on the supplemental and it will stay there," he said.
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- Reid said the measure's real intent is to prevent illegal
aliens from getting driver's licenses, making it more difficult for undocumented
workers to move around the United States "You can't do immigration
piecemeal, but they're going to do it," he said.
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- The AFL-CIO says the legislation is being pushed through
Congress without any hearings to expose its flaws.
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- "This is a draconian, mean-spirited law that will
not benefit any worker, American or immigrant,'' said Ana Avendano, head
of the AFL-CIO's immigrant worker project.
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- Avendano said the intention of the legislation is to
crack down on illegal immigrants, even though all of the 9/11 hijackers
were admitted to the United States on legal visas.
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- "This has not had a thorough hearing,'' she said.
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- Ari Schwartz, associate director of the Center for Democracy
and Technology in Washington, said the government is pushing for card identification
systems without developing policies on how to use the new technologies
and on what privacy protections to provide.
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- "There's a push to use more technology in cards
without an idea of what we are using it for," he said.
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- He said tests have found some identification cards cannot
always be read by machines.
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- In a recent report, the Center for Democracy and Technology
found some technologies like facial recognition are expensive to run and
have error rates of up to 45 percent. On the other hand, iris recognition,
which uses data collected from 266 distinctive characteristics in a person's
eye, has better accuracy rates.
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- The United Arab Emirates used iris recognition technology
to store information on 355,000 people and subsequently expelled 6,220
people trying to enter the country improperly.
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- Federal labor unions are concerned the new identification
cards to be given federal employees this year could be used as worker-control
mechanisms. For instance, workers may be required to use the cards to open
doors as they move through a building.
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- ID cards currently given federal employees can be easily
forged and lack security features. Federal agencies will conduct background
checks on their employees before issuing the new cards to ensure they are
properly on the payroll.
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