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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 2 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 violatess 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' Riights

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."

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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
9/11. 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 licence 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 25 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 ddo, 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.

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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: [email-masked]

©
2008 - Margaret
Goodwin - All Rights Reserved

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Sam
Rohrer is a Representative for the state of Pennsylvania and a member of
the American Policy Center Advisory Board.

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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.