7.31.2006

AAMVAnet - A bottleneck?

Suppose you're a state motor vehicle agency. According to Real ID, you have to check people's social security numbers to renew a drivers license. You already need to check whether each person has points or revocations in other state databases. You might use the AAMVAnet network to make all these accesses. AAMVAnet will get perhaps ten or a hundred times its current traffic when all fifty states are using it to make all checks reauired by RFID. It's possible htis network will be beefed up in time, but it's a bottleneck right now, according to this story in the Decatur Daily by Eric Fleischauer.Some quotes:
Earnhardt said Friday's AAMVAnet problems were no surprise.

"As more and more states go through AAMVAnet, it hasn't been able to handle the volume," she said.

AAMVAnet is the conduit most states use to access various databases involved in driver license applications and renewals. Alabama uses the service for commercial driver license information, problem-driver point systems and Social Security number verification.
The article discusses a period when no drivers could be served at all because access to AAMVAnet was down.
Morgan County License Commissioner Sue Baker Roan could do nothing about the computer glitch that brought her office to a halt, so she busied herself handing out coffee and soft drinks to generally understanding applicants.

"It just makes you sick," Roan said. "We try so hard to give good service, and then something like this happens. It's hard on the public, and it's stressful for all of us."

7.25.2006

OKAY, Let's Summarize:

I'm finding more news stories about other states, such as Montana and Virginia. Each story plays similar tunes: extra cost; Real ID not defined, don't know what to do; unfunded mandate; hire more motor vehicle bureau employees ... I'm going to stop posting similar stories for now.

It's safe to say that the problems with Real ID are becoming obvious. Why doesn't any congress person have the guts to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT?

One news story claimed that with the Real ID law, the federal government was "prodding" states to improve the quality of their ID checking on drivers licenses. But of course that's a joke. Real ID is forcing states to do nothing for several years while waiting to see what the rules of the game will be.

A reprieve for passports?

On July 4, I blogged about how passports are in the same fix as Real ID, with a law requiring changes that haven't been specified by the DHS. The passport deadline is a lot sooner, in 2007. Well according to this article by Faith Bremner in the Detroit Free Press:
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., inserted a provision into the 2007 Homeland Security spending bill that would postpone the requirement until June 1, 2009. The Senate unanimously approved the bill Thursday. The House must still approve the change.

Please bear in mind that postponements don't solve anything either. If Real ID gets postponed a few times, all states will be in limbo, unable to modernize, improve or fix their drivers licenses, until they finally find out what they are supposed to implement.

Nevada's in the dark!

Valerie Miller writes along familiar lines in the Nevada Business Press. HEre story makes two amazing points that I'd like to emphasize:

  1. There's no way for a state to apply for the paltry $40 million that the Real ID law's supposed to give them, to implement it.
  2. The TSA is making no plans to force people to show Real ID licenses (and validate them) when we fly. There's no coordination here!
Some quotes:
"We don't have a Real ID budget," admitted Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles spokesman Tom Jacobs. "Until the feds decide what the rules will be, there isn't a state in the union that can say what it will cost."
Lines at local DMVs might be out the door if and when Real ID becomes mandated.

The key part of those rules will be the technology used to authenticate the papers needed for the new license. ...

This year's federal budget included $40 million in grants to states for the new ID program, but Nevada officials haven't seen any money. "There is no mechanism in place to apply for the grants," said Steve George, Gov. Kenny Guinn's press secretary.

Same-o, Same-o in Texas:

Lisa Sandberg wrote an article at MySa.com with a Texan take on real ID:
Sen. Leticia Van De Putte, D-San Antonio, said Texans could see license fees jump to more than $100, from the $24 they now pay, when the federal government begins requiring states to issue uniform drivers' licenses — what many consider a de-facto national ID card.

The change also would eliminate the convenience of online and mail renewals and would even require renewing motorists to produce both their Social Security cards and their birth certificates in person at Department of Public Safety offices. ...
"If the federal government wanted a national ID card, they should have passed it on the national level. We're looking at a huge unfunded mandate," Van De Putte said. ...
"The REAL ID Act will make it a little harder for terrorists to get documents, but it won't make it impossible," said Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute, a Washington-based libertarian think tank. "It'll give states information on the law abiding but it doesn't protect against the law breaker."

And Wyoming's unhappy:

An article by Rena Delbridge in the online StarTribune.net bemoans what Wyoming faces in the Real Id law:
Wyoming redesigned its licenses just two years ago, O’Connor said, and although Cowboy State licenses are one of the most difficult to reproduce illegally, they’ll no longer be adequate under the Real ID rules.
Along with a new design, the licenses will be much more difficult to obtain or renew, O’Connor said. People will see an end to renewals by mail. They’ll have to go to Driver Services armed with a certified copy of a birth certificate, a Social Security number and, if applicable, a marriage license or proof of legal change of name. That will probably increase the average time it takes a person at Driver Services from about 15 minutes to 45 or even 60 minutes, he said....
So far the federal act simply sets forth guidelines; apparently no hard and fast rules are ready, O’Connor said. That leaves states a little in limbo as to what to do and on what timeline.

“This is just another unfunded mandate,” Rep. Mary Gilmore, D-Natrona, said. “It is taking local power, state power, away. I resent these kinds of things terribly.”

Collateral Damage from the Real ID Law:

The authors of the Real ID law seem to truly hate terrorists and foreigners. The difficulties that this law raises for them could keep many of them out of the USA in the future, and we may become less of a cosmopolitan nation as a result. One of the side issues of the Real ID law is that it forbids keeping foreign refuges who have offered "material support" to terrorists. Unfortunately this vague phrase includes people who offered a goat, or a drink of water to terrorists at gunpoint or under threat of rape. Apparently we don't want "your tired, your poor", anymore. An article (July 22, 2006) by Peter Sachs at www.journalnow.com discusses these issues.

Long Lines for Licenses ...

Alabama is trying to become Real-ID-ready as fast as possible, which means that they now check people's Id as carefully sa they think the Real ID law will require. An article by Tiffeny Hurtado in the Decatur Daily discusses the pain foreign residents experience as they line up from 5:30 a.m. for a license.
... Athens and Hartselle have problems because of Real I.D. In Athens, people have arrived as early as 5 a.m. to be first in line. The office gives out numbers, and a number above 10 means another day in line.
Imagine that, a motor vehicle office that can process ten people per day due to all the checking required!

The Voice of Doom in California ...

Linda Gledhill writes, in an online San Francisco Chronicle piece:
(07-24) 04:00 PDT Sacramento -- Starting in 2008, all 22 million licensed California drivers will be required to go in person to a DMV office and prove their identity and address with three different documents before getting a new, federally approved state license.

The sheer size and scope of that task -- required by a federal law passed in the wake of Sept. 11 -- already has the state Department of Motor Vehicles worried about lines that would make current complaints about the agency's notoriously slow service seem trivial.

The article notes that Cal. has budgeted $18 million to pay staff just to plan how to phase in the new licenses. It also notes that no federal money at all has been given to states for Real ID work, despite the Real ID law, which does allocate paltry amounts to every state.


It may take several years to process those 22 million drivers at Cal.'s 169 offices. But - the writer seems to have missed this - many people who do not have drivers licences must be processed as well, such as every kid who wants to fly or enter a federal building.

7.04.2006

A touch of sanity in California:

California's Governor S. apparently made a few last moment changes in a budget bill. One change was NOT to move $10 million into an air quality effort, because the $10 million would have been moved FROM the motor vehicles department's budget to implement Real ID. They're probably going to need that money ...
Read the story here , in a June 30, 2006 Capital Notes story.

Passports and Real ID: IN THE SAME FIX!

A serious problem for Real ID is that, over a year after the law was passed, the format of drivers licenses is signifigantly undefined. The DHS is empowered to add requirements, and must clarify many vague terms in the law. Until the DHS speaks, no state can really develop the computer systems necessary to support Real ID licenses.

Well - incredibly - many passports are in the same fix! A 2004 law required people entering the US with passports from the Americas, the Caribbean and Bermuda to conform to standards to be specified by the DHS. The passports MUST be used in 2007 for sea and air travel, and in 2008 for all travel. But after two years, the DHS has not defined this passport format! Two senators have introduced a bill to postpone this passport law, which is described as a "train wreck," but the DHS insists it is on schedule to meet the law (ignoring, I guess, the time everyone else will need to implement what they specify). I learned about all this from a June 30, 2006 story at GovExec.com by Chris Strohm, a writer for Congress Daily.

Our heroes for trying to delay this law are Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, Here are some quotes:
Senate appropriators moved Thursday to push back a deadline for travelers entering and leaving the United States to have a secure, government-approved identification document, with lawmakers saying the delay is needed to avoid a bureaucratic jam at the nation's borders.
State and DHS have been developing requirements for a new Passport Card to meet the requirements. The card is expected to contain biometric identifiers, such as fingerprints, but it has not yet been determined whether it also will include other, more controversial technology, such as radio frequency identification chips.

Leahy said the looming deadline is "a train wreck on the horizon" because State and DHS lack sufficient coordination and have not involved the Canadian government enough. "It will be far easier and less harmful to fix these problems before this system goes into effect than to have to mop up the mess afterward," he said.

The Leahy-Stevens amendment also would require Homeland Security and State to certify to Congress that several policies and technology standards are met before the program moves forward.
DHS spokesman Jarrod Agen said a notice of proposed rulemaking will be "coming soon" to meet the law's requirements. He could not offer a more specific time frame. But he said the department does not see a need for an extension.

"The whole Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative is to close a loophole which exists in travel throughout the Western Hemisphere ... so therefore we are going forward with the deadlines as they are," Agen said.
"I think it is unlikely they will be able to get all the new cards or traditional passports out to the affected population in time so there will not be a disruption next year," said C. Stewart Verdery, former DHS assistant secretary for policy and planning and now a principle with Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti in Washington.

"Everybody's got to have something, including a one-time traveler coming from Kansas or New Mexico who may never have heard of this thing," he said.

...

"Right now Canada is waiting for technical specs on what they would have to build just to give their people something that would be readable by our readers," Verdery said. "We haven't given them any guidance."

7.02.2006

Michigan - caught in mid-upgrade

Apparently Michigan has started upgrading their very old and out of date computer systems to handle drivers licenses better, but now they are stuck, not knowing how much the Real ID specs - that have not been finalized nor formalized yet - will cause them to redo their computer changes.
John Pulley wrote about this story at Fcw.com. Here's a long quote from an excellent story:
Takai, Michigan’s CIO, is in a double bind. She is in the midst of updating a 30-year-old computer system that state officials use to manage driver’s licenses. If she had the luxury of time, she would postpone the upgrade to ensure the new system’s compatibility with Real ID’s requirements. But with retirement looming for the few remaining employees who are proficient in an older technology, Takai can’t wait.

She is running two races with separate clocks and finish lines. Her strategy is to upgrade the old system and hope it will be compatible with requirements of the Real ID Act. “All we can do is guess at what we think the implementation is going to be,” she said. “If we get it wrong, we’re going to have a brand new system that we will have to go back in and change.”

Takai’s dilemma is unusually thorny, but states generally agree that implementing the Real ID Act poses big problems because of insufficient time and money. “States believe that this time frame is unreasonable, costly and potentially impossible to meet,” the National Governors Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures and the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, wrote in an April letter to the Homeland Security Department.

In addition, CIOs rue the federal government’s unwillingness to seek ideas from states about how to implement the Real ID Act — an attitude that is not without precedent.

Real ID: Invitation to snoop ...

A California reporter discusses concerns that the Federal government with use the Real ID driver data bases for unwarranted surveillance. Here are some quotes from Mike Gardner's June 25, 2006 column in SignOn San Diego:
“Once we start telling Californians that they have to march to DMV, show proof of birth and proof of residency, all hell will break loose,” said state Senate President Pro Tempore Don Perata, D-Oakland. ...
SACRAMENTO – In the name of national security, California motorists probably will confront more hassles and higher fees when it's time to renew their licenses to drive. ...
But privacy advocates fear the license law will lead to another expansion of government snooping, a concern heightened by revelations of the secret tracking of banking transactions and phone calls.

“An identification card is always the front-end of a national surveillance system,” said Jim Harper, an analyst at the Cato Institute based in Washington, D.C.

Kevin Keenan, executive director of the San Diego area chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, warned, “This lays the infrastructure for total surveillance. That's not a free society. That's not what our founding fathers signed up for. ...”
Congress made the Real ID Act voluntary – at least technically. But the punishment for not accepting the guidelines will be severe. Licenses issued by states that do not comply will not be recognized as identification to board airplanes, open bank accounts or enter Social Security offices.

“From the far left we hear wishful thinking that we don't have to comply, but that's not the reality,” said state Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, who is carrying legislation, SB 1160, designed to enact state compliance.