License to spy

License to spy
A national driver's license - in reality, a national ID card - would let the
government track and restrict all our movements. And that's un-American.
BY RICHARD SOBEL
http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/other_stories/documents/04621988.asp

TODAY, TRAVELING by T or bus is a simple cash or pass transaction. But that
may not be the case much longer, if a "Real ID Card" proposal in the US
Senate becomes law. Cast as a security measure that would create a national
driver's license by moving the power to issue licenses from the states to
the federal government, the bill is really a major step on the path to a
national ID card. If it passes, it will mark a profound change in American
society - and a drastic restriction of our civil liberties.

Ostensibly, the law would create a national driver's license (NDL) by
imposing federal "standards" on the states, which traditionally have set and
enforced their own criteria for licensing motorists as part of their "police
powers." The "Real ID" bill would change all that by giving the Department
of Homeland Security power to mandate a nationally computer-linkable federal
license. The measure provides for minimal "consultation" with the states on
regulations and no real privacy protections. Under the Real ID, state driver
's licenses and ID cards would become federal documents. By converting state
licenses and ID cards, which just about everyone has, the government could
make the change to national IDs seem less obtrusive and objectionable than
making everyone apply for a new document.

The NDL would play a dual role as part of a national ID system: it would
function as both a federal travel license and a
government-benefits-authorization card. It could be required for most
travel - not just for driving or car rental, but to board planes at Logan
Airport, to travel by Amtrak from South Station, or to take the T, MBTA
buses, or the commuter rail. Indeed, the T-pass system, soon to be upgraded
into the T's "CharlieCard," could be reworked to deny travel to people
without an NDL. In that case, even people with cash couldn't travel without
a license.

The NDL could also be required to receive federal benefits like Social
Security, to get a passport, or to enter a government building. (Unlike
current Social Security cards, an NDL would require a photo and probably a
biometric identifier, such as a fingerprint; it would also be electronically
checkable in a national databank.) The demand for your NDL could become as
common as requests for a Social Security number or credit cards.

AMERICANS TAKE travel rights for granted. In 1966, the Supreme Court
declared in United States v. Guest that "freedom to travel throughout the
United States has long been recognized as a basic right under the
Constitution." In political terms, travel freedom is key when citizens want
to petition government leaders. Even more fundamentally, however, the NDL
would compromise the basic "right to be let alone" when not doing wrong,
famously exalted by Bostonian and Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis. As
ACLU of Massachusetts executive director Carol Rose notes, "Historically,
governments use national ID systems to control populations rather than to
protect them.... Examples include the apartheid government in South Africa
and the East German Stasi [Secret Police].... The phrase 'Your papers,
please' is antithetical to traditional American values of privacy and
freedom of travel."

What would we gain for this infringement of our rights? The bill's
proponents tout it as a security measure. Congressman James Sensenbrenner
(R-WI) proposed the NDL as part of immigration and asylum restrictions
passed by the House (the Massachusetts House delegation voted against the
bill, although it passed on a largely partisan vote of 261 to 161). But
Americans will be the ones to suffer the restrictions. International
"visitors" intending to do harm won't be eligible for an NDL. Indeed, the
September 11 hijackers all had passports and visas.

The NDL bill is a flawed approach to security. As news stories about
unheeded airline warnings before 9/11 suggest, coordinated use of
intelligence and improved airport screening would better prevent terrorism.
An FBI system to connect information like the Arizona and Minnesota
flight-school warnings would improve security, too.

Fortunately, people across the political spectrum oppose the NDL as both
ineffective for security and injurious to our basic liberties. These
opponents go well beyond the ACLU to the American Conservative Union and
Liberty Coalition. Coalition director Michael Ostrolenk notes that the Real
ID bill could become "a law that 'federalizes' our state-issued driver's
licenses, creates tri-national [i.e., US, Canada, and Mexico] interlinked
databases, and turns driver's licenses into an internal passport. All of
these ... will place our privacy, autonomy, and, ultimately, security in
jeopardy."

It remains to be seen how the bill will fare in the Senate. The Real ID
proposal may be attached to the Iraq spending bill or conference report to
force its passage. But a bipartisan coalition - led by conservative New
Hampshire senator John Sununu and New Jersey's liberal Frank Lautenberg -
has opposed similar proposals. A cross-partisan coalition of New England's
senators could also provide national leadership in opposing the act. And
those concerned about the implications for travel freedom are contacting the
Senate and White House.

Outside the legislative realm, challenging the constitutionality of an NDL
under principles of federalism and privacy offers another avenue of
opposition. In the media, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal have
editorialized against the bill. On the state level, meanwhile, the Montana
House has already refused to adopt any national standards that would
restrict state licensing powers.

Bostonians may believe that local travel cannot be restricted: "It can't
happen here." But didn't the T's plan to ask people for IDs and to search
bags during the uneventful Democratic Convention raise that specter?

Over two centuries ago, when foreign troops threatened this area daily, Ben
Franklin warned Josiah Quincy on September 11 that people who give away
essential liberty for "a little temporary safety deserve neither." We would
do well to heed his warning.

Richard Sobel researches privacy issues locally and nationally. His articles
on national IDs are available at
http://www.epic.org/privacy/hiibel

===============
Warning on spread of state surveillance

Richard Norton-Taylor
Thursday April 21, 2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5175745-103681,00.html
Guardian
Governments are building a "global registration and surveillance
infrastructure" in the US-led "war on terror", civil liberty groups warned
yesterday.

The aim is to monitor the movements and activities of entire populations in
what campaigners call "an unprecedented project of social control".

The warning came from the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group,
including the American Civil Liberties Union, and Statewatch, a UK-based
bulletin which tracks developments in the EU.

They point to the system whereby all visitors to the US are to be digitally
photographed and fingerprinted. The EU has agreed that member states must
fingerprint all passport holders by the end of 2007. The information will be
held on databases.

National ID cards, they warn, will become a "globally interoperable
biometric passport". The setting up of airlines' passenger name records
(PNRs) could include more than 60 different kinds of information, including
meal choices which could reveal personal, religious or ethnic affiliations.

The US and EU governments are expanding legal powers to eavesdrop and to
store the product of intercepted personal communications, the groups warn.

They also point to an agreement between Europol - the EU's incipient police
headquarters - and the US giving what they say will be an unlimited number
of American agencies access to sensitive information on the race, political
opinions, religious beliefs, health and sexual life of individuals.

The groups point to increasingly close cooperation between national police,
security, intelligence, and military establishments.

To achieve their ends, they say, governments have suspended judicial
oversight over law enforcement agents and public officials, concentrated
unprecedented power in the hands of the executive arm of government, and
rolled back criminal law and due process protections that balance the rights
of individuals against the power of the state.

These initiatives, say the civil liberty groups, are not effective in
identifying terrorists.
Guardian Unlimited