Virginia gets serious:

I'm quoting from a Government Technology news story. Virginia's going to do some serious planning, but apparently the task force is not supposed to consider whether to get rid of Real ID altogether.


Governor Mark R. Warner yesterday announced the creation of the Governor's Task Force on the Real ID Act. ...
The Real ID Task Force will study how the new identification laws approved by Congress will affect the cost, customer service, security, and privacy of Virginia's driver's licensing and identification process. The group will also provide recommendations on how best to implement the new law in Virginia. DMV Commissioner D.B. Smit will serve as chairman.

Specific task force responsibilities include:

* Reviewing the Real ID Act and raising public awareness about its potential impact on Virginia, including but not limited to the potential increased cost of licensure, administrative burdens on the public and businesses, and the potential benefits of the Act;

* Exploring options for compliance with the Act while protecting the security and integrity of Virginians' personal information;

* Recommending action steps to be taken at the federal and state levels to minimize the impacts of any unfunded federal mandates, remove impediments to compliance, and to ease the cost and administrative burden of the Act;

* Identifying a timeline for implementation; and

* Recommending strategies for Virginia to take to address the Act.

Governor Warner appointed 13 members to the Real ID Task Force.

How many US jobs depend on easy border crossings?

How many US jobs depend on easy border crossings to and from Canada? This article estimates that 350,000 New York State jobs (and what about other states) would be at risk if pasports were required for all border crossings. A quote:

"Almost 350,000 New York jobs are supported by U.S.-Canada trade," Tom Minnick, the Council's lobbyist specializing in transportation issues, said in testimony delivered at a hearing sponsored by the U.S. Departments of State and Homeland Security. "Both Canadian and U.S. businesses have scores of cross-border operations operating almost seamlessly. This must be enhanced and encouraged." He added: "Any federal actions affecting the border must enhance and support this continuing business integration, not discourage it."

Minnick testified on a proposed regulation under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 that would require people crossing borders to carry passports or other special documentation for even routine border crossings.

So how good are the newest licenses?

New JErsey now requires a lot of ID to get a license, and the print a pretty fancy license as well. It took me several hours, and two trips to get my licesnse renewed. Here's an article claiming (in an interview with a counterfeiter!) that these NJ licenses are un-fakeable.

So let me ask the inevitable question:

If they are so good, why aren't they good enough? Who need Real ID?

Can't they still be faked by insiders working with hackers?

Here's the fascinating quote:

One reformed counterfeiter, speaking on the condition of anonymity, explained how the Garden State Department of Motor Vehicles will be the laughingstock of bouncers no more.

"The new IDs that are being distributed in most of Jersey are basically counterfeit-proof, they're printed on credit cards with magnetic strips," he said. "With proper equipment, someone can tell if it's a real ID because the strip has to be programmed in such a way. There's a picture as well as a watermark picture on the card, which is hard to duplicate. And there are a number of holograms that show up at different angles and different light."

Side Issue: The Real ID Poll Tax

I've been avoiding a side issue that I think is really not essential to evaluating Real ID, but I'll post about it this once. There have been several suggestions, including a government commission recommendation, to require Real ID licenses in order to vote. Senator Sam Daschle reasonably calls this idea a Poll Tax here. I hope our governments do not waste a lot of time on this idea, because courts have consistently held that any slightly draconian requirement to qualify voters is unconstitutional.

Drivers License or Passport?

An article at Channel 3 News (Vermont) discusses some problems and issues in requiring passports for all the young hockey players who frequently go to Canada for games. The article suggests that the new Rel ID drivers licenses should be fine instead. Here's the article.

The article starts by quoting Bonnie Rutledge, who " is Vermont's motor vehicle commissioner. She also is a player on the national stage. For the next year, she will be the Chair of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators."

She may have an important role to play in evaluating the Real ID licenses, we'll want to know what she has to say.

Closing a Local Plate Agency:

In some states at least, local agencies that handle registration and provide license plates are an important aspect of local economy. But Real ID will probably require office consolidation to relatively few places in each state. Here's an illustrative story from North Moore in North Carolina. Their local plate-making agency was closed in a raid by the SBI:

"SBI agents seized computers, records, and supplies from the Robbins agency in July, closing it for investigation of alleged financial irregularities. Whether it can or cannot reopen depends on the results of the SBI investigation."

Local residents are flooding the state government with requests for a new local agency.

There have been applicants who want to open a Robbins agency. Trouble is, new identification requirements are to be mandated by the federal government, but details of the new rules have not been released.

The DMV wants ID rules to be the same at all its offices. It just doesn't know what those rules will have to be. "The feds have been slow in coming with the guidance," Ferrier [deputy director of Driver and Vehicle Services for the DMV] said. "We don't know what the final mandate will be from the feds. We have driver license offices and tag agencies."

Regulations and training will have to be in place at all those offices, and that could hold up opening new ones in places like Robbins.

This is where Real ID gets into the picture. Knowing some Real ID requirements, and not knowing what else Homeland Security will require, states will prefer to ignore requests for new offices until they can do their statewide planning. Meanwhile many of their rural residents are inconvenienced, and their economy is hurting. Here's the news story.

Bad news for both U.S., Canada

An opinion piece in The Buffalo News (of New York) discusses a related issue - requiring Americans and Canadians crossing the border into the US to have passports, in 2008. Noting that most Canadians and Americans simply lack passports, the expectation is a considerable hurt to business that depends on day trade across the border.

Let's note in passing that in early 2008, 200 million Americans or more may be scrambling to obtain both passports and Real ID licenses. Can anyone predict Snafus? Here are some quotes from the article:

Since 9/11, Canadians have shared Americans' concerns about securing North America from terrorist attack and have been working with the United States to make our common border more secure. Canada has allocated $7.7 billion to bolster anti-terrorism efforts, including tripling the number of Integrated Border Enforcement Teams that target terrorists.

The question is: What more should be done to achieve the secure borders we all want ...

The proposed passport barrier would diminish the lucrative traffic of Canadian day visitors for Buffalo Bills games, fine Italian restaurants in Niagara Falls, shopping and spontaneous sightseeing trips. Parents, coaches and young athletes who participate in amateur tournaments, to the benefit of host communities, would face daunting obstacles to maintaining these friendly cross-border competitions.

The pain would not stop at the Mason-Dixon Line. The passport proposal would have a debilitating impact on Southern tourist meccas, where Canadian snowbirds can make the difference between breaking even and making a profit.

Canadian tourism operators will be hurt, too. We estimate that the proposed policy could suppress U.S. visits to Canada by 12 percent by 2008. In my home province of Ontario alone, the potential loss is $570 million and 7,000 jobs.

Illinois: Practical, Pragmatic, remarkably calm

The Illinois Secretary of State's Office is gearing up to conform to controversial new federal standards for driver's licenses and state identification cards. "Not a lot will change for Illinois driver's licenses," Jim Burns, inspector general for Secretary of State Jesse White, said Wednesday during a Statehouse news conference.

The above quote, from this PJStar news story, caught my attention as - perhaps - yet another state dreaming that it's almost in complinace already. But according the the story, Jim Burns is more pragmatic. He knows! (Some quotes):

But what will change, he said, is that the Secretary of State's Office will be required to verify all of the information through the sources of the documents provided by applicants. That could prove expensive and time-consuming.

"That's going to be the big part of the job," said Burns, whom White appointed in August to chair a committee to implement the new standards.

Burns said it is not yet clear whether all of Illinois' 8.5 million driver's-license holders and 1.5 million residents with ID cards will have to re-submit their information or whether the law will apply only to new applicants.

He said secretary of state officials also cannot estimate the cost of implementing the requirements because the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is still drafting rules regarding the law. The federal government will likely bear at least some of the expense, he said.

Costs could include hiring additional employees, training existing staff or purchasing computers or other equipment needed to verify applicants' information, he said.

The Citizens Against Government Waste Report

The Citizens Against Government Waste has issued a report about Real ID here. This report is important for several reasons:

1. It covers the history of Real ID and it sneaky passage into law, very well.
2. It warns that RFID chips may be required in licenses, and estimates a $17.4 billion cost if so. Keep an eye on this number!
3. They are contemptuous of the federal government's ability to implement secure data bases (such as Real ID will require), and quote many dismal examples to make their point.

The $17,4 estimate is going to show up all over. Deep in the report they explain that they got this number by applying detailed estimates from a report issued by the London School of Economics, for creating a British national ID using an RFID chip. $17.4b sounds like an awful lot of money, but it comes to less than $70 per person. (There are almost 200 million drivers in the US, and many minors and non-drivers will need the new license to fly or enter federal buildings.) Most of the cost is in verifying ID and cards, replacing cards (they wear out in 3 to 5 years), securing the databases, and dealing with stolen and falsified cards.

Here are some other points from this hard-hitting report:

Sneaking through the legislative process without any congressional hearings or deliberation, the Real ID Act became law before most members of Congress had a chance to review it.

The new system places a heavy implementation and cost burden on state and local governments, especially departments of motor vehicles (DMV), as well as taxpayers and drivers. States will now have to verify birth certificates, federal immigration documents, and Social Security numbers with the appropriate federal departments, build a database to store and secure individuals’ identification documents, and train personnel to use the new system. Fees and taxes will have to be increased to cover whatever costs are not paid for by the federal government.

Currently, DHS is in the early stages of drafting guidelines for implementing the Real ID Act, and will monitor the states’ progress in implementing the new requirements. Most of the requirements should be fairly straightforward, albeit time-consuming for state and local governments, especially DMVs. According to NCSL Transportation Committee Director Cheye Calvo, “state officials don’t want DHS to choose one security solution for all states. They prefer trying different techniques with various business partners.”[10] This strategy makes sense, as states such as Arizona and Virginia already use reliable and cost-effective technology to produce identification documents and protect them from fraud and abuse.
... However, some lawmakers believe that no current license is secure enough.

The federal government in particular has a long history of using insecure computer systems. In June 1999, Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) testified that the DOD computer system was penetrated more than 3,000 times, but the hackers were only detected twice.[12] In 2000, hackers were able to gain root-privilege control of 155 systems at 32 federal agencies.[13]

The federal government has attempted to build several information systems that have been complete failures. The most costly example — in terms of dollars and security — was the FBI’s Virtual Case File (VCF). After September 11, the FBI was roundly criticized for being unable to connect the dots between offices and agents, and blame was placed on its technology infrastructure. Responding to the criticism, the FBI worked to finish the VCF, which was supposed to host millions of records and be accessible to every FBI intelligence officer, field agent, and office. ... In June 2005, The Washington Post obtained a confidential 32-page staff report prepared for the House Appropriations Committee. The report stated that doubts about the system were raised as early as 2003 and it “chronicles a list of errors and misjudgments that were made during the software project’s troubled history, from assigning underqualified personnel to poor oversight and inadequate planning.”[17]

The DTS began in 1997 when the Defense Travel System Program Management Office (DTS PMO) announced its decision to acquire a software-based travel system to take the place of traditional travel services and provide an end-to-end automated travel system. Once completed, the end-to-end system was supposed to provide every aspect of DOD’s travel management needs, including travel authorization, ticketing, voucher preparation, and travel reimbursement. ... It is highly unlikely that a fully implemented and fully functional DTS will be achieved, even by September 2006. The most current cost estimate released in March 2005 by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded that the “DTS total life cycle cost estimate, including the military service and Defense agencies, is $4.39 billion.”[19] The new estimate means that taxpayers are paying $4.13 billion, or 1,565 percent, more than the original 1998 figure of $263.7 million.

Another Sane Voice: Passports and Real ID

At the Inforum Opinion site (North Dakota), Lloyd Omdahl looks at quiet, peaceful, voter-fraudless N.D. getting dragged into a uniform voter system including Real ID. Among other interesting things, he says:

Multiple use of the REAL ID cards could be carried another step. Border states are concerned over the proposal to require passports for traveling to and from Canada. Because passports are being forged by aliens on a routine basis, they offer no more security than the REAL ID cards. So we might as well use the REAL ID cards in lieu of passports.

As we've said here, it makes no sense to have both Real ID and passports. The overlap of cost to maintain these, in the long run, is senseless.

Balancing the State-Federal Relationship

There's an editorial by William T. Pound in the Kansas City InfoZine, that puts Real ID in a more general perspective - the current relationship between state and federal governments. Pound is talking primarily about Katrina and Rita, but he notes that there's been a serious trend of Federal laws pushing unfunded mandates back onto the states. He mentions RealID almost in passing as a good example:

The relationship between the states and the federal government has been tenuous at best over the past several years. Federal initiatives such as No Child Left Behind, the REAL ID Act, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the Help America Vote Act have eroded state authority and left states to pick up a $30 billion per year tab.

He goes on to note a tension between State and Federal governments that, ironically, pushes in both directions. First, the states really need more federal money:

The Katrina and Rita reconstruction efforts pose a serious threat to the progress made in federalism over the past 25 years. As the costs to rebuild the Gulf States continue to rise, so too will the reliance on the resources of the federal government just as it did during the Great Depression.

And second, Federal government uses current issues to further erode states' rights:

Congress is already considering preempting state authority in several areas. The Gasoline for America's Security Act of 2005 sponsored by Representative Joe Barton of Texas was introduced in response to the rise in gas prices in the wake of Katrina. The bill preempts states' authority to license domestic oil refineries, reduces a state's choice in alternative fuels used to meet clean air standards and preempts state laws on the ability of individuals to file claims in state courts over refinery licensing and pipeline siting.

Katrina is also affecting state budget authority. The White House's emergency funding proposal for schools that are providing services to hurricane evacuees would send money straight to local school districts bypassing the state budget process. In many situations, the local school districts would profit from this scenario as many have already received emergency funding from their state.

Beat the Rush!

Okay, it's time to get some real benefit from reading this blog, so here's a tip. If you're one of the hordes of people whose driver's license and social security cards have different names on them, even slightly, get them the same as soon as you can. Avoid the rush! The other million people with this problem may all be trying to fix it in 2008, due to the RealID law. Here's another warning:

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Road to digital driver's licenses seen as chaotic.

We've finally got a computer-aware reporter, Alan Elsner telling a juicy story about RealID in Computerworld. Please read the entire article. Some quotes:

... some experts warn that the plan may be hugely expensive and lead to chaos.

"This law has the potential for huge bureaucratic and technical problems," said Cheye Calvo at the National Conference of State Legislatures. "This law was written by people who didn't take the time to understand how these things are done and didn't even hold any congressional hearings."

Calvo wondered whether the act can be implemented at all. "Whether states will be able to verify so many millions of documents at all, much less in a timely manner, is in question," he said.

... the [Home Security] regulations aren't expected to be finalized until next summer at the earliest, which will leave states with little time until the May 2008 implementation date.

And my personal favorite, considering that there's little the states can do until HS finalizes the details:

"There is a concern that some states are not planning for the transformation and will find themselves having to move very hastily," said Brendan Peter, a senior director at Daon Inc., a Reston, Va.-based biometric company.

Oooh, another $40 million!

Faced with criticism that implementing RealID might cost each state close to $100 million, the House has voted to add another $40m to the $100m of funding the RealId law provides. (See this Reuters story.) That leaves only about 95% of the law unfunded. Way to go!

Alabama Tastes the real ID Future ...

Alabama decided to start conforming to one part of the real ID regulations: your driver's license name must have the exact same name as your Social Security Card. They notified people whose names differed that they had to come to one of seven cities and pay a whopping $18 for a new license. This article in the Tuscaloosa News covered the story. We quote:

Nadine Chambers, a 70-year-old Cullman resident who got one of the letters, said changes were needed. "It was just chaos," she said in a phone interview Thursday.

She said she went to a driver's license exam office for three days and stood in line. The first two days she gave up because of the lines, but the third day she got a new license after waiting 2 1/2 hours.

"When they asked for $18, I liked to have hit the ceiling," she said.

Alabama stopped this program after sending out the first 65,000 letters. I'd say they were premature, since all these people will (again) need a new license when Real ID licenses are available. But the new licenses may force every person in the state to go to those seven offices, and they'll be paying a lot more than $18! That's the future for Real ID: Chaos.

There's a relevant IBG conference next week!

The International Biometric Group (IBG) will host a teleconference on Wednesday, October 12, 2005 at 1 PM EDT. One issue they plan to adddress is: What impact will US-VISIT, REAL ID, and ICAO have on investment opportunities in the biometric industry?

They may be drooling about Real ID. The question is whether Home Security might require some biometric information on the real Id licences, such as in iris image. It'll be interesting to hear what they say.

If you're curious, visit Their website to log in and obtain further details. To submit questions in advance for the expert panel, please email them at: vlee@biometricgroup.com.

There's a relevant ITAA conference this week!

The Information Technology Association of America's (ITAA)is holding a conference this week about Identity Management: Creating a Trusted ID Conference, October 6-7, 2005, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Crystal City, Va.

They will be covering Real ID as a possibly trusty sort of identification. I hope to report on what they say, sometime soon.

California "SB 60"

A proposed state law in California, SB 60, attempts to comply with realID and also provide drivers's licenses for those who cannot get a realID card. Proponents of the law feel they have successfully covered all bases, but have they? The SDHS has not yet stated the RealID regulations that states will have to follow. An editorial at SacBee.com attacks this fuzzy issue:

Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, and Democratic lawmakers who supported his immigrant driver's license bill are in deep and dangerous denial. Apparently they missed how Congress preempted states on this issue. ...

Cedillo claims his measure conforms with the Real ID Act. He cannot know that. The regulations aren't expected to be issued for another year. So, SB 60 would require California to redesign its driver's licenses to comply with a federal law that has no regulations yet for implementing it. The California Department of Motor Vehicles opposed SB 60 for that reason. As the DMV wrote to Cedillo, "It would be premature at this juncture to enact California law that directs this department to initiate a secondary license procedure until the (federal) rule-making process is concluded."

What a minute, that's the REAL story! If regulations properly defining RealID are not issued for a year, states will have about 18 months to design the very comlex computer systems, work environments and jobs to support RealID.

No! Way!

How much ID do we need, Anyway?

I've already pointed out that it makes little sense to have both a RealID card AND a passport. The immense cost of maintaining both can be greatly shaved if one ID serves both purposes. (E.g., add space to a passport where your home state indicates whether you're allowed to drive, and with what restrictions.)

But how would you like to have FOUR critical IDs? (I'm counting your Social Security card.)

This editorial reports that the Department of Homeland Security ("DHS"), having failed to require passports to cross the border into Canada, is now suggesting a Border Crossing Card.

President/General Manager Paul A. Sands, of The ChamplainChannel.com, says "We don't need duplication of effort, and we don't need red tape. We need some common sense."

Well said!