[CitizensTruth] ARTICLE- Real ID

[Walterb306 at cs.com]

All,

FYI,

Beverley

REAL ID: CONNECTING THE DOTS TO AN INTERNATIONAL ID 
By Representative Sam E. Rohrer 
August 24, 2008 NewsWithViews.com 

History offers many examples of societies which have sought to increase 
security by sacrificing freedom. America itself provides many pertinent 
instances. However, our founding fathers have not left us without wisdom on 
this issue. Ben Franklin has famously stated, "People willing to trade 
freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both." REAL ID 
undoubtedly exemplifies a scenario in which a difficult tension exists 
between freedom and security. By commandeering every state's driver's 
license issuing process, REAL ID threatens the results warned by Franklin - 
loss of both freedom and security. It has become the biometric enrollment 
phase of a plan to implement a terribly invasive tracking system, largely 
without public knowledge or approval. 
REAL ID is merely the current face of a far larger, international government 
and private economic effort to collect, store, and distribute the sensitive 
biometric data of citizens to use for the twin purposes of government 
tracking and economic control. At issue are much more than standardized or 
non-duplicative driver's licenses. This effort extends worldwide, 
threatening every person alive today. Although very legitimate security 
concerns exist in this age of terrorism, this Act extends far beyond 
terrorism prevention or protection of the innocent. Keeping that broad 
picture in mind, let us move to some background behind the face of REAL ID 
implementation in America. 
The REAL ID Act passed Congress in 2005 buried in a "must-pass" war funding 
and tsunami relief bill. The little debate in the House and total absence of 
debate in the Senate ensured that many Congressmen did not realize the full 
implications of REAL ID. Importantly, the desire by government and economic 
interests to implement a national tracking and ID system did not start with 
the REAL ID Act in 2005. Under the guise of security, it has been attempted 
numerous times in the past, even during Ronald Reagan's administration. When 
former Attorney General William French Smith proposed to implement what he 
called a "perfectly harmless" national ID system as well as when a second 
cabinet member proposed to "tattoo a number on each American's forearm," 
Ronald Reagan responded, "My God, that's the mark of the beast," signaling 
an abrupt end to the national ID debate during the Reagan years. 
The significant opposition to a national ID system in the past extends to 
the REAL ID issue today. This conviction has united both Democrats and 
Republicans as well as such normally opposed groups as the ACLU and the 
ACLJ. Whether the concern is privacy, religious rights, states' rights, or 
cost of implementation, REAL ID has galvanized broad and deep resistance, 
currently including an estimated six hundred groups. Today, over twenty 
legislatures have passed resolutions or legislation variously opposing 
implementation of the REAL ID Act. Eleven of those legislatures have gone 
further by passing laws specifically prohibiting compliance with REAL ID. 
What does REAL ID do? REAL ID attempts to mandate a standardized process and 
format for all state drivers' licenses to achieve increased security. Most 
importantly in this standardized process, REAL ID mandates a certain picture 
quality. A footnote issued by the Department of Homeland Security 
establishes this quality as compliant with the ICAO Document 9303 biometric 
format. The global body setting this format, the International Civil 
Aviation Organization (ICAO), is a specialized agency created under the 
United Nations. Biometric data can be produced from a simple digital 
photograph of this quality by running the picture of a person's face through 
a software program which measures and analyzes the unique, personally 
identifiable characteristics of that face. The process results in a unique 
numeric code which identifies a person according to facial measurements. You 
read that correctly. A unique number or "code" is developed from an 
algorithmic formula which converts a digital biometric sample to biometric 
"face print" data. Under REAL ID biometric facial recognition technology, 
you become a number literally worn on your face - a number which is read by 
computer, tracked by surveillance camera, and distributed worldwide. 
Clearly, this international standard provides global compatibility of 
American citizens' biometric data collected through REAL ID. 
Having this background, we should observe that many Americans still do not 
know why the provisions of the REAL ID Act must be rejected and aggressively 
opposed because they do not understand the full implications of REAL ID. 
Many wrongly assume that the legitimate need for security trumps all other 
considerations. However, REAL ID is not primarily about a secure driver's 
license or terrorism prevention. The full and dangerous implications of REAL 
ID may be fleshed out through a discussion of why each American must 
vigorously oppose this Act's most basic tenets. It poses dangers in the 
following three areas: 
1 - REAL ID violates Constitutional rights. 
2 - REAL ID compromises national and state sovereignty. 
3 - REAL ID threatens the safety of all Americans. 
I- First, let us note that compliance with REAL ID would violate our 
constitutionally protected freedoms. 
Amendment I - Freedom of Religion 
REAL ID violates freedom of religion for some citizens by forcing inclusion 
into a system which requires a picture - and more - just to access public 
services. The Amish and some Mennonites provide examples of religious groups 
who view the mere taking of photographs as idolatry. REAL ID conditions 
their freedoms, such as entering a federal building, upon a provision which 
violates their religious beliefs. Because this "government" identification 
system limits travel and access to certain public places, and could even 
become a debit card, other more mainline religious groups view REAL ID as 
the advent of the "mark of the beast." 
Particularly because this technology assigns a unique number to represent 
each person's biometric face print, these concerns are hardly unfounded. 
A Powerpoint presentation from L-1 Identity Solutions, the major biometrics 
company in the U.S. today, bolsters this claim. A slide in that presentation 
includes a graph which charts future likely applications for biometrics. 
Phase 1 of this "blueprint" for biometric implementation utilizes the 
authority of Federal agencies to impose such requirements as REAL ID. Phase 
utilizes bureaucratic leveraging on regulated industries to implement 
biometrics. Phase 3 anticipates mass implementation on the citizens at large 
for such everyday activities as buying and selling. As an example, under 
Phase 2 DHS is attempting to force airlines to pick up the costs of 
collecting biometrics from foreigners at airports. In Texas under Phase 3, a 
company is experimenting with using the driver's license as a debit card. 
Whether one is personally alarmed at some or all of these concerns, REAL ID 
would prohibit the free exercise of religion for many people. 
Amendment IV Freedom of Privacy 
REAL ID also violates the Fourth Amendment's guarantee of freedom of 
privacy. First, by mandating the collection, storage, and dissemination of 
personally identifiable data without any informed consent, REAL ID tramples 
on this right. In reality, this practice constitutes government-sanctioned 
identity theft and seriously breaches the "security of person" guaranteed to 
every U.S. citizen. No sufficiently compelling need exists to warrant 
government mass collection and storage of such sensitive information about 
its citizens. Concern heightens even further when private corporations 
control the databases being set up to house this information. As an example, 
L-1 Identity Solutions houses a database of U.S. driver's license 
information. This company, which has consolidated a virtual monopoly on the 
driver's license issuing market in the U.S., will handle all private 
information collected during the license issuing process. 
Secondly, REAL ID threatens freedom of privacy because this warehoused data 
cannot be confidently secured. Even the Department of Homeland Security's 
own Privacy Impact Assessment fails to guarantee that the database linking 
and networking that will result from REAL ID will be secure. Many privacy 
experts agree that REAL ID will actually increase identity theft! In 
reality, the database and access to it will create an electronic 
superhighway for potential mass identity theft. 
Thirdly, REAL ID violates the Fourth Amendment in that the process of 
collecting personal biometric data without consent violates the very laws 
that exist to protect against such measures. This is probably one of the 
most significant Constitutional issues. Current US law allows the collection 
of biometric information only in the case of criminal activity. However, 
REAL ID institutionalizes the capture of facial recognition biometrics for 
every driver, regardless of criminality. 
Fourthly, REAL ID ripens the climate for aggressive efforts to control the 
masses via information and leading-edge technology, regardless of crucial 
privacy considerations. Data collection and surveillance is simultaneously 
occurring across several diverse fronts, each one a potential privacy danger 
painting the broader picture of where REAL ID will take us as a country. For 
instance: 
1- In Rhode Island, a school district is allowing a company to place radio 
frequency tracking (RFID) chips in students' book bags. 
2- Nationwide, Great Britain has installed an estimated 4.2 million 
surveillance cameras utilizing facial recognition technology to keep tabs on 
all citizens. These cameras, of which there is 1 for every 14 citizens, can 
observe a person up to 300 times in a normal day in the city of London. 
3- China is aggressively pursuing country-wide surveillance of its citizens 
using facial recognition technology purchased from a contractor supplied by 
the previously mentioned L-1 Identity Solutions. 
4- According to a June 28, 2008 New York Times article, US and European 
officials are nearly agreed upon a "binding international agreement" which 
would allow "European governments and companies to transfer personal 
information to the United States, and vice versa." Under the cloak of 
terrorism prevention, European governments could request "private 
information - like credit card transactions, travel histories, and Internet 
browsing habits" about American citizens. 
5- Homeland Security Presidential Directive 24 issued by the President on 
June 5, 2008, "establishes a framework to ensure that Federal executive 
departments and agencies use mutually compatible methods and procedures in 
the collection, storage, use, analysis, and sharing of biometric and 
associated biographic and contextual information of individuals." This step 
shows the President's extensive authority and disregard for privacy in 
streamlining the biometric sharing process. 
6- The FBI is currently building a billion-dollar database to house an 
enormous amount of biometric data. While officially aimed at housing 
criminal and terrorist data, this database already retains finger prints, 
iris scans and other individual biometrics that the government collects on 
ordinary citizens. Who knows the extent of the private information that will 
be stored in this massive database? REAL ID-collected "face prints" are just 
one more piece of the data collection and tracking system. 
These examples only serve to underscore the aggressive global government 
efforts to track and control citizens. In every case, REAL ID violates the 
freedoms guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment. 
Amendment X States' Rights 
REAL ID violates the Tenth Amendment in that the federal government is 
attempting to force the states to collect private data on their citizens, 
only to allow that data to be shipped out-of-state and shared worldwide. 
This action forces the states to work against the very interests of the 
citizens they are to protect. When states accede to this pressure under REAL 
ID, they allow the transfer of state authority to the federal government. 
The separation of powers built into our Constitution then crumbles as the 
federal government makes the rules, interprets the rules, and enforces the 
rules regarding all state drivers' licenses. 
II- In addition to the three ways REAL ID would violate the Constitution, 
compliance with the REAL ID Act would undermine our national and state 
sovereignty. While REAL ID reads like a manual for a national ID card, the 
Department of Homeland Security's own rules for REAL ID reveal that it 
implements an international ID system based on biometric identification. 
Complying with the requirements under REAL ID would violate U.S. national 
and state sovereignty by forcing states to adopt international biometric 
facial image standards and to document standards set by international 
organizations. 
As mentioned previously, the ICAO, affiliated with the UN, sets the 
standards for facial image captures (photos). Besides tracking the movements 
of international travelers, the ICAO also has assumed the responsibility of 
creating a common international passport system that stores individual 
personal and biometric information on a RFID chip built into the passport. 
The American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA), which 
recognizes ICAO standards, "enables" this scheme. This international body 
and private organization sets nearly all the standards for REAL ID document 
scanning, storage, data encryption, barcode and layout design to comply with 
their 2005 international driver's license system. Under REAL ID, AAMVA is 
the hub and backbone of the database system being set up to share 
information between states. From a broad perspective, the system created by 
REAL ID destroys national sovereignty and constitutional authority by 
removing control of government from the people and establishing government 
control over the people. 
Furthering AAMVA's control strategy here in North America, implementation of 
REAL ID is "de facto" enrollment of each state into AAMVA's Driver's License 
Agreement (DLA). AAMVA has pushed the DLA, which meets REAL ID 
specifications, for nearly ten years. The implementation of this DLA is 
crucially important to the global effort because it mandates the sharing of 
all U.S. drivers' license information with Mexico and Canada. This egregious 
step places U.S. citizen's data at the mercy of Canadian and Mexican privacy 
controls, further exacerbating the identity theft problem, and violating 
Constitutional law and national sovereignty by essentially having states 
form a treaty with a foreign nation. 
REAL ID also violates national sovereignty because any international system 
includes and requires agreements and obligations that would weaken any 
sovereign standing. In fact, a Government Computer News report notes the 
following from Robert Mocny, acting program manager for the U.S. Visitor and 
Immigrant Status Indicator Technology program. His quote comes from comments 
about a federal plan to extend biometric data sharing to Asian and European 
governments and corporations, so as to create a Global Security Envelope of 
identity management. 
"My question is, how is it ethical not to share?" Mocny asked. "It makes no 
sense for us to develop separate systems . . . information sharing is 
appropriate around the world." Government Computer News further notes that 
he is sketching a plan for sharing biometric data that would permanently 
link an individual with data that governments and corporations hold. Since 
both governments and corporations have been infiltrated by extremists and 
terrorists and since certain governments of today may be our enemies 
tomorrow, I hardly think that worldwide sharing of our citizen's data is a 
good idea! 
Enhanced Driver's Licenses (or EDL's) provide a further example of the 
undermining of national and state sovereignty. Citizens that purchase these 
nearly REAL ID-compliant licenses, which contain biographic and biometric 
information on an RFID chip, can use them as a passport to enter either 
Mexico or Canada. This advancement establishes the international ID 
designation of REAL ID. The Canadian province British Columbia has also 
issued a new EDL which, according to their website is also, "an acceptable 
document for entry from Canada into the United States by land and water." 
REAL ID violates state sovereignty because the issue in contention is 
"national identity management", with the federal government manipulating the 
tool of state driver's licenses. Consider the following statements about 
REAL ID from Electronic Data Systems, the very company likely to maintain 
AAMVA's driver's license database: "The Real ID Act, then, is about more 
than a driver's license. It puts in place a set of standards for Identity 
Management (IdM) that can be leveraged across an entire government 
organization to create an integrated citizen identity security program." The 
international biometric standards mandated in DHS's final rules, paint the 
broader picture of an international ID card for government surveillance and 
tracking. 
III- REAL ID would endanger Constitutional rights and both national and 
state sovereignty. Finally, let us consider that compliance with the REAL ID 
Act would compromise the safety of our people. Unlike what some government 
officials might say, 9/11 and the prevention of terrorism are not the real 
reasons for REAL ID. In fact, this technology was being pushed well before 
/11. Although REAL ID and biometrics are promoted as the "cure-all" to 
terrorism and identity theft problems, many highly dispute this claim. In 
response to the post-9/11 claims of biometrics companies that their 
technology could have prevented 9/11, Jim Wayman, the former head of the US 
Biometrics Center countered, "No, the government didn't have this stuff in 
place, precisely because it had been working on it and knew its limitations 
and didn't find any value for the costs involved." He further noted, "It's 
going to be hard to know how these technologies can be applied to increase 
national security. We're not just going to turn these machines on and start 
catching terrorists." REAL ID will not assure greater safety since 
terrorists will either avoid or duplicate a REAL ID compliant drivers' 
license, although a correctly operating biometric system would certainly 
increase the difficulty of faking or forging a license. 
Despite the government's assurances about the "certain" safety benefits of 
REAL ID, no government or company can create a foolproof, perfectly secure 
system. A person who breaks the law or who desires to wreak havoc on 
American soil will find a loophole with which to avoid the requirements of 
REAL ID. One needs only consider that driver's licenses on the black market 
will continue to be readily available. 
Further, the safety of law abiding citizens will be compromised as their 
identities are stolen, stored and made accessible to thieves around the 
globe. Some people reject this idea because they hope that the government 
will be able to protect their identity once it has all of a person's 
information. The simple faith implicit in this idea is widely misplaced, 
however. As proof, consider that in 2007, a Globe and Mail report noted, "A 
security flaw in Passport Canada's website has allowed easy access to the 
personal information - including social insurance numbers, dates of birth 
and driver's license numbers - of people applying for new passports." A 
breach of security in Great Britain last December resulted in the loss of 
approximately 25 million individual records. In my state of Pennsylvania, a 
security breach which occurred two years ago at a Driver's License Center 
resulted in over 11,000 records being compromised. Such security breaches 
highlight significant personal dangers to law abiding citizens and prove 
that the only secure data is uncollected data. 
Finally, REAL ID does not assure safety because biometric technology itself 
does not work predictably. At this point in time, the technology we are 
discussing does not work well; hence REAL ID and facial recognition 
biometrics can not ensure safety. As a result, no one has yet been 
successfully prosecuted via facial biometrics. The opportunity for false 
identification and therefore being, "guilty before proven innocent" is 
great. For example, the Tampa, Florida police force scrapped a facial 
recognition system in 2003 because, according to a spokesman, "We never 
identified, were alerted to, or caught any criminal. It didn't work." While 
on its face, the concept of REAL ID seems like it would increase security, 
it does not. A Privacy International Study conducted in 2004 found "Of the 5 
countries that have been most adversely affected by terrorism since 1986, 
eighty percent have national identity cards, one third of which incorporate 
biometrics. This research was unable to uncover any instance where the 
presence of an identity card system in those countries was seen as a 
significant deterrent to terrorist activity." The simple truth is that REAL 
ID cannot stop crime. 
In summary, we have seen that REAL ID threatens Constitutional rights, 
national and state sovereignty, and the safety of our people. The enrollment 
of American citizens into an international biometric system of 
identification and tracking constitutes the heart of the REAL ID issue. A 
secure driver's license is not the ultimate goal or certainly the ultimate 
result of the REAL ID Act. And it is unfortunately clear that the ultimate 
purpose is government tracking and economic control through enhanced 
knowledge and surveillance through biometric identification and tracking. 
This being established, it is clear that this aggressive effort of the 
federal government, working hand-in-hand with private commercial interests, 
must be opposed on every level. While Congress must move to quickly repeal 
the passage of the REAL ID Act, the states provide an ideal position from 
which to fight this encroachment by the federal government. The 
responsibility for the security and privacy of our own generation and the 
generations to come, however, rests upon our shoulders. 
The next action to be taken involves the following three steps. 
First, Congress must immediately repeal the REAL ID Act and resist any 
effort to pass anything remotely similar. Secondly, individual states which 
have not passed legislation preventing implementation of any provision of 
REAL ID, particularly the biometric portion, must do so without delay. As 
has been stressed throughout this article, biometrics is the core provision 
of REAL ID; consequently, the states must move to protect their citizens' 
biometric data immediately. This step is critical because the vast majority 
of statutory law did not envision the breadth of individually identifiable 
data that could be gleaned by rapidly advancing technology. Further, because 
L-1 Identity Solutions holds a virtual monopoly as contractor for state 
DMVs, they could use their position to coerce the states into implementing 
all of DHS's wishes. This scenario further endangers state's rights. 
Therefore, it is not enough for states to simply stop collecting biometric 
data. They must purge and "dumb-down" databases to preclude any government 
knowledge or use of private citizen's biometrics. Additionally, private 
third-party inspections should be ordered to ensure that all measures have 
been fully implemented. Fundamentally, the states must demand control they 
must inform the contractor what to do, not vice versa. Thirdly, citizens 
must play a role in resisting illegitimate actions of the federal 
government. They must be encouraged in their capacity as law-abiding 
citizens to whom Constitutional guarantees were acknowledged, to resist 
implementation of any effort that would compromise their individual, 
God-given rights. 
The American people remain the strongest defenders of freedom in the world. 
Many in our past have died for the liberties we enjoy today. Most of us are 
still willing to fight and die today for our freedom and the freedom of our 
children tomorrow. May we each do our part to ensure the greatest nation on 
earth remains "the land of the free and the home of the brave!" 
"Liberty has never come from the government; it has always come from the 
subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of limitation of 
governmental power, not the increase of it." -Woodrow Wilson 
Sam Rohrer is a Representative for the state of Pennsylvania and a member of 
the American Policy Center Advisory Board. 
For more information on the dangers of the Real ID Act, contact: 
Mark Lerner Co-Founder - Stop Real ID Coalition Phone: (816) 401-7615 Email: 
stoprealid at aol.com





















































   
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