Posted on 05/13/2006 4:29:34 PM PDT by ProCivitas
Don't worry about national security. We will soon have a national ID card that will solve all our problems. Haven't you wondered where "Tom Ridge" the first director of Homeland Security has been lately?
U.S. firms protest deal on ID cards
By Eric Lipton The New York Times
TUESDAY, MAY 2, 2006
WASHINGTON Executives from some leading U.S. identity-verification companies are pushing Congress to rescind a provision of a law that they said could lead to a foreign-owned company's handling of sensitive personal records for up to 750,000 port workers.
The Department of Homeland Security, as part of the budget law passed last year, was ordered to hire the American Association of Airport Executives, an aviation trade group, to process applications for a new tamper-proof identification card for maritime workers.
Representative Harold Rogers, Republican of Kentucky, the chairman of the subcommittee that oversees the homeland security budget, had pressed for the language, saying the trade association, a nonprofit group, could expedite the project because it had performed similar work for airport workers.
But in recent days, documents have circulated in Washington showing that the association, before the budget bill became law, was offering prospective investors a role in future contracts in exchange for investment of as much as $25 million.
Daon, an Irish biometrics company with offices in Reston, Virginia, ultimately bought 51 percent of the new entity, said Andrew Sherman, a Washington lawyer who helped handle the transaction. Government records show that the new company, Security Biometric Clearing Network, was incorporated in March in Delaware as the Department of Homeland Security moved to start issuing the new contracts. That transaction, which was disclosed last week, is evoking protests.
Daon's board includes Tom Ridge, the former secretary of homeland security, and the company has already sold its software to the government for some of these same programs.
"Sensitive personal biometric and biographical data should more appropriately be managed and maintained by the government and housed in a federal facility," the International Biometric Industry Association, a trade group based in Washington, said recently.
Steve Lunceford, a spokesman for BearingPoint, a company in Virginia that wanted to bid on the project, said the special treatment for the airport group raised questions that could delay the new identification cards' being issued.
"This is going to allow a foreign firm to collect and maintain the personal records of 750,000 American workers," he said. "That does not seem right."
WASHINGTON
This is more corruption.
Yeah. Those scheming little potato-eaters just can't wait to screw over America. /sarcasm.
There is nothing like a little inside wheeling and dealing.
Dobbs, John Kerry and apparently yourself, all agree that we need more government intervention in the economy to do something about all these Benedict Arnold CEO's practicing their right to trade freely. Can't have too much freedom - wouldn't be conservative.
bump
Thanks for the post. Very interesting stuff.
What are potato-eaters?
I'm a potatoe eater...No one's ever called me one tho...
Really I am curious. What does it mean?
To be honest, I don't know...The article referred to an Irish company as the one getting the business...
All I know is I'm Irish and I like potatoes...I've never heard of it being used as an insult before...
sinkspur, help us out here. What or who is a potato eater?
Si
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