Feds must drop ID plan

By: North County Times - Editorial | Thursday, March 2, 2006 7:53 PM PST ∞

Our view: Radio microchip technology poses grave security risks

It is time to write your congressman or congresswoman: The federal government is poised to require that all drivers licenses contain radio microchips capable of transmitting boatloads of highly sensitive, personal information to security agents ---- or to any criminal. Americans must put a stop to this.

After bungling port security, leaving thousands of chemical plants unguarded and squandering billions of dollars on pork projects since 2001, Congress reasoned last spring that since some of the 9/11 bombers carried fake drivers licenses, it was time to force states to change their procedures for issuing identification cards. The politics were simple: Lawmakers could look tough on terrorism without having to think much.

That was last spring. Now details of the new law make it clear that the federal government is about to endanger the personal security of nearly all Americans.

The law is called the Real ID Act. As soon as 2008, states will have to issue tamper-proof drivers licenses that contain loads of personal information about the carrier ---- Social Security numbers, date and place of birth, home address ---- a silver platter for criminals who specialize in stealing credit card numbers and raiding bank accounts.

Worse, the federal government is leaning toward a technical standard based on Radio Frequency Identification. Called RFID, it has been around for years, but you'll be hearing a lot more about it in the future.

RFID powers the clicker that opens your car doors, it lets businesses instantaneously track FedEx shipments, and it collects tolls at 65 miles per hour in the Fastrak system. Using chips a little larger than a grain of rice implanted under the skin of a pet, RFID allows animal shelters to find worried owners.

However, the technology's use in drivers licenses carries vast potential for harm.

Federal officials love RFID because it will let them track and identify people from a distance. In an airport security line, for example, agents would be able to read people's drivers licenses while they are nestled inside wallets and purses. Consumers may very well prefer the cards if speed and efficiency can be improved.

We worry that officials will be able to track the movements of Americans and store their whereabouts in vast computer networks. Indeed, the Real ID Act forces states to collect and keep vast amounts of new data on private individuals. There is nothing voluntary about needing a drivers license, so this invasion of privacy is compulsory.

All by itself, such monitoring is a violation of the basic right of people to be left alone by their government. And, given the terrible history of the federal bureaucracy's deployment of new technology, this data will almost certainly be hacked by criminals.

Yet criminals won't even need to penetrate federal computers. The tiny radio chips being contemplated by officials will let a skilled thief collect vast amounts of personal information by simply strolling through a crowded mall.

One other thing: This law, which forces state officials to check original birth certificates and other documents, will cripple California's already overwhelmed Department of Motor Vehicles. State computers date from the 1960s, so they can't begin to hold all that additional data. And foreign-born citizens may be hard-pressed to come up with birth records.

Perhaps pondering the voter outrage from even greater gridlock at the DMV, state Senate leader Don Perata, D-Oakland, called the federal law a "man-made disaster."

Just wait until people find their bank accounts emptied, call the cops, and find their names improperly placed on some government watch-list.

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7 comment(s)[-]Go to Top

Edgar wrote on Mar 3, 2006 4:33 AM:One argument against the technology might be the 4th amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits searches without probable cause. Reading a passive embedded chip may not be deemed a search by the current Supreme Court.

Stan wrote on Mar 3, 2006 11:42 AM:The chip is not passive. It transmits personal information to anyone who holds the technology to read it and is installed in driver's licenses without the holders consent or the ability for the holders to control what information is stored on the chip. Whether the information is physically retrieved or electronically retrieved makes no matter; the search is illegal because the information being retrieved is done so without the persons knowledge or consent. If we, as Americans, are so apathetic and so stupid as not to see how this technology will enable government to wield absolute power over the masses, we no longer deserve the freedoms for what our forefathers fought and died. Not only will this chip hold our information, but it will enable the government to know our location through the use of ubiqutous chip readers placed along public roads, in shopping malls, at political gatherings/demonstrations, etc. Accepting this "tracking chip" will enable regimes in the future to analyze all of what we do and then use it against us. Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin could not have dreamed of a better system to root out political adversaries and exterminate them. What?? You say it can't happen in America?? Perhaps the infrastructure is now being laid.

Ron wrote on Mar 3, 2006 1:04 PM:Why don't we offer illegals drivers license's with theis technology. They don't have to know when you hand them the card. But you certainly would know where their staying, long enough to round them up. And how about this technology on all Visa applicants within the U.S.? Wouldn't this have helped us locate some of strays running around the states, when we were looking for Muhommad Otta?

Rick wrote on Mar 8, 2006 11:52 AM:What a bunch of nonsense. SSN's will not be stored on the new ID. Most of the rest is already on the driver's license (address, date of birth, etc). So far all the test done on RFID in the context of how it will be used in passports has shown it to be safe and secure. There was one hypothetical, potential, not actually proven, issue with the passport of the European nations but no one has yet to show how one could reasonably crack the US approach. People are spreading total BS as if these new ID's are going to bring about some totalitarian govt. People chill out! No one is out to get you!

Interested Party wrote on Mar 8, 2006 1:00 PM:Thanks for this sane discussion of an insane development in America. The Real ID Act of 2005 was deceptively passed and poses major risks for all Americans--not only to our privacy and identity-records, but for some, it will likely cause physical harm or even death. Many people deliberately and earnestly strive to "fly under the radar" for very private reasons, including domestic violence, stalking, harassment, or worse. The Feds are heavyhandedly insisting that all of us, regardless of personal circumstances, should bow down and submit to these dictates about handing over ALL our private life-data for archiving and databasing by Feds and those with whom they subcontract. It's an outrageous dangerous plan, but it will be implemented if people do not protest and refuse to participate. To learn more, "google" terms like "abolish Real ID" and "Real ID Act" and then visit web projects that are fighting to repeal this incredibly invasive legislationn. Three such sites are: www.unrealid.com abolish.atspace.com imprivate.atspace.com Good luck!

Danforth wrote on Mar 24, 2006 1:05 PM:Most people seem to know little about how invasive the Real ID Act plans to be, at digging around in your present, prior and future existence! There is no way that many of us will be able or willing to provide such in-depth documentation, to some vague, amorphous database, which has no built-in SECURITY. The currently envisioned scheme of the Real ID Act will demand everything from your current driver-license info to your BIRTH CERTIFICATE, MORTGAGE DOCUMENTS, UTILITY BILLS, etc. etc. etc., and all for what? To satisfy some nosy bureaucrats that "you are who you say you are and you dwell where you claim to live..." There are even plans to force Americans to acquire the Real ID Driver License or lose our right to vote! (Don't believe it? Research James Baker and Jimmy Carter's recommendations about using Real ID cards for all voters...) This Real ID nonsense will in no way help "secure" America from terrorists or even prevent illegal aliens from pouring across our ill-protected borders. The Real ID scheme was concocted by Wisconsin Sen. James Sensenbrenner and others who have vested (monetary) interests in the technology to be used in the Real ID cards, such as RFID (radio frequency identification mechanisms). If you doubt that this whole scheme is nothing but a way for self-serving politicos and their buddies to make more money, do some snooping of your own. Start with Google and look up Sensenbrenner, Kotex company, Kimberly-Clark Corporation and Kimberly-Clark's involvement with RFID. The whole despiccable REAL ID ACT should be gutted and thrown the way of other soiled Kimberly-Clark products! Because that's all this whole Real ID Act is--a disgusting dirty rag, a deceptive act perpetrated upon Americans behind our back, calculated to strip us of all civil liberties and privacy, and guaranteed to enrich the people pushing it.

Noreen wrote on Jun 4, 2007 2:00 AM:Big Brother is here in this Orwellian society and if the American people don't demonstrate on this one and immigration, we will be swept into dictatorship faster than we can say the word Hitler! Bush signed an Executive order less than two weeks ago giving him dictatorial powers in case of any "emergency" which he will have the power to name! Wake up and stop asking questions, DELUGE the butthead politicians WITH EMAILS, PHONE CALLS AND SNAILMAIL who are not properly representing us but represent corporate interests. Read Thomas Jefferson and the Bible. It is happening now.

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