Loss of Privacy

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has said that she wants to work with state governors to repeal the REAL-ID Act.  REAL-ID is popular within Washington, but the rest of the country has fought against it since its inception.

Napolitano, former governor of Arizona, said she has met with governors of both parties recently “to look at a way to repeal Real ID.” She said she wants to substitute the federal law with “something else that pivots off of the driver’s license but accomplishes some of the same goals. And we hope to be able to announce something on that fairly soon.”

Security Consultant, Ed Giorgio believes that security and privacy are a zero sum game.  He is often quoted over this matter, however, it is undeniably untrue.  Florida Customs agent, Rafael Pacheco, can attest to this fact.   Pacheco took bribes from drug smuggler, Fidencio Estrada, and then checked federal databases for Estrada.

The factual background in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals’ recent decision to uphold a lower court’s conviction of Estrada details how in early 2000, Pacheco accessed DHS’s billion-record Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS) database looking for any information that the feds had on Estrada…Pacheco also went into the FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database in order to dig up information on the warrants that were out for Estrada’s arrest. Pacheco then fed the info back to Estrada, who was better able to elude law enforcement in as he plied his narcotics trade.

This brings up huge privacy concerns over the millions of innocent citizens who have had their information collected and placed into government databases.  Despite the fact that these two men were bust and are now serving time, it brings to light the reality that the US government is rushing far to quickly into obtaining databases on innocent people without spending the time to guarantee their rights.

This single act by Pacheco reveals that creating databases on innocent people, such as REAL-ID and OneDOJ are horrible plans that were never well-thought out.  There are already fears of identity theft with REAL-ID so great that the DHS keeps pushing back the deadline for its full implementation.  It also helps that many states have plans to reject it or have already passed legislation in their states refusing to comply.

After the debacle in the United Kingdom, we can no longer call it fear mongering when we talk about all this information being stored on a single disc or hard drive.  It is easy to copy the information.  It is becoming easier to get the information as the speeds of Internet connections increase.  Your information could be taken from the database and sold off many times before the breach is ever discovered.

These databases are not making us any safer.  They are, instead, creating problems for individual Americans that should never exist.  We now have to worry about our information being placed in a database we have no control over and have to trust that every single person that has access to it will be completely honest in dealing with the database.  That isn’t going to happen.

As in this case, Pacheco was bribed with only $18,000 so he could pay off his auto loan.  What happens when they find someone deeply in debt or has a severely sick kid?  Everyone has their price.  Everyone is corruptible.  You might convince yourself that you’re only looking at one person’s file, and it’s their file, but what happens when they give you enough money to keep an eye on their neighbor’s file?

Borodin: Do you think they will let me live in Montana?
Capt. Ramius: I would think they’ll let you live wherever you want.
Borodin: Good. Then I will live in Montana. And I will marry a round American woman, and raise rabbits, and she will cook them for me. And I will have a pick-up truck, or umm… possibly even…a recreational vehicle, and drive from state to state. Do they let you do that?
Capt. Ramius: Oh yes.
Borodin: No papers?
Capt. Ramius: No papers. State-to-state.

Starting next year, if you live in a state that is defying REAL-ID, you’re going to need a passport to enter a national park.  Think that’s bad?  You’re also going to need a passport to fly on a domestic flight.

The Department of Homeland Security insists Real ID is an essential weapon in the war on terror, but privacy and civil liberties watchdogs are calling the initiative an overly intrusive measure that smacks of Big Brother.

More than half the nation’s state legislatures have passed or proposed legislation denouncing the plan, and some have penned bills expressly forbidding compliance.

“For terrorists, travel documents are like weapons,” Chertoff said. “We do have a right and an obligation to see that those licenses reflect the identity of the person who’s presenting it.”

Uh, yes.  And the 9/11 hijackers had valid IDs.  This is not going to change such conditions.

Chertoff said the Real ID program is essential to national security because there are presently 8,000 types of identification accepted to enter the United States.

“It is simply unreasonable to expect our border inspectors to be able to detect forgeries on documents that range from baptismal certificates from small towns in Texas to cards that purport to reflect citizenship privileges in a province somewhere in Canada,” he said.

So, now Chertoff is saying he doesn’t expect border security to be trained to detect many different forms of ID.  If you are transiting through America, then your border security damned well better know what foreign documents look like.  His arguments above have no reflection upon why Americans need REAL-ID.  It is merely a diversion to make it appear that border security are overwhelmed with 8,000 forms of ID to learn.

Besides a loss of privacy, American citizens get to pay for, through taxes, for a mandate they do not even desire or need.

NCSL spokesman Bill Wyatt said the requirements are “almost physically impossible.” States will have to build new facilities, secure those facilities and shell out for additional equipment and personnel.

Those costs are going to fall back on the American taxpayer, he said. It might be in the form of a new transportation, motor vehicle or gasoline tax. Or you might find it tacked on to your next state tax bill. In Texas, Wyatt said, one official told him that without federal funding, the Lone Star State might have to charge its citizens more than $100 for a license.

The EFF and ACLU are the most vocal about privacy issues, stating that it will be a one-stop shop for thieves, a surveillance database that will make it easy to obtain your personal information, and a convenient way to track, monitor, and regulate individuals.

Once REAL-ID is required for federal purposes, look for them to be required for everything from buying gas to toll booths to riding the subway to buying a gallon of milk.

While the federal government denies that they are planning on creating a federal database, you are, essentially, doing just that.  There is no way to avoid it because problems are going to arise where one person’s record is cleared in one state, but the update doesn’t get to another state, creating problems for individuals to clear their name.  Their only option will be to carry papers attesting to their innocence or being caught up in the snafu of technology until someone else sorts it out.

Realnightmare.org has listed several negative implications of REAL-ID, that were not thought out before passing it into law.  They include conflicts with state constitutions [pdf], not allowing states to control the information kept on the cards, allowing anyone with a reader (assuming for legitimate purposes) to read what’s listed on the card, such as social security number (why would a bartender need this information, for example), and who collects and stores the information, and for how long.

The best part of the requirements to obtaining your own REAL-ID is that you can use a passport as one of the 4 forms of ID to prove who you are to get REAL-ID.  However, if you don’t have REAL-ID, you can just use your passport to get into these federal places and forget about all the other forms of ID.

Your birth certificate is also one of these forms of ID needed to obtain a REAL-ID.  99 times out of 100, all you need to get an official copy of your birth certificate is a photo ID, which is still easily forged.

For an advanced look at what a fiasco REAL-ID is going to be, have a look at the case of Alabama, who tried to get a jump on compliance with the new regulations.

Despite growing opposition to REAL-ID from the States, the federal government continues to embrace the idea that REAL-ID is the answer to preventing terrorism.

Cheerleading for the mandate was led by the retiring Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), who called a nationalized ID card a top priority. He asked the four Bush administration officials present to divulge whether they supported the idea, which was recommended by the 9/11 Commission but has sparked rebellion from numerous states and civil liberties advocates concerned about its cost and potential for abuse.

One by one, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, FBI Director Robert Mueller, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and National Counterterrorism Center Director John Redd–said they fully endorsed the idea. Each ranked it as a high priority.

To compound the problem, the exact, and final, details of REAL-ID won’t be released until sometime in October, which is past the October 1st deadline for states to file reprieves.  Most opposition from the states concern costs of the program, while individual Americans abhor the idea of having a national ID card that they must carry when they travel.

The deadline has also been changed several times since originally passing in Congress as a rider to the 2005 emergency spending bill, with no discussion and, in many cases, no knowledge of its existence until it was too late.  Currently, states have until the end of 2009 to outline to the federal government how it intends to implement REAL-ID, which is now required to be implemented by 2013.

DMV employees can also look forward to federal background checks in order to keep their jobs because they will be required in order to “protect the privacy” of individuals’ data in their DMV database.