Posted on 11/18/2001 3:29:50 AM PST by JohnHuang2
Driver ID rules tightened to block road to terrorism
BY CURTIS MORGAN
cmorgan@herald.com
Some of the most significant security changes since Sept. 11 are not aimed at airports or nuclear plants, but at a piece of plastic held by almost every adult in America -- the driver's license.
Before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the nation's primary form of identification had been issued under a hodgepodge of loosely enforced standards set by each state.
Florida, for instance, gave a license this year to an Orlando-area Muslim woman who was photographed in a veil shrouding everything but her eyes.
At least one other state, North Carolina, routinely allowed similar pictures -- and even gave drivers the option of refusing to be photographed for religious reasons.
No more.
Florida, North Carolina, Virginia and many other states are tightening regulations, particularly for foreign nationals. The states are weighing a new generation of driver's licenses that would include biometric data such as fingerprints or retinal scans embedded in microchips.
There also is increasing interest in connecting the computer networks of all 50 states, changes that could elevate driver's licenses into de facto national ID cards.
``We don't need a new national ID card. We already have one. We just have to make it better,'' said Jason King, spokesman for the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, which is urging Congress to support uniform license standards.
No one is arguing that stricter license rules might have thwarted the attacks or might prevent future ones. But advocates believe it would be tougher for would-be terrorists to slip unnoticed into society -- as the 19 hijackers did -- by using licenses to open bank accounts and rent cars and apartments.
``No single thing will provide absolute total security,'' said Bob Sanchez, spokesman for the Florida Department of Highway Safety & Motor Vehicles. ``If it catches one in the net, that can lead to others.''
Florida took its first steps under an executive order signed last month by Gov. Jeb Bush.
As soon as next month, foreigners applying for new licenses will get 30-day temporary permits while police examine copies of identification documents. If cleared, they'll be granted licenses that expire at the same time as their visas.
FOCUS ON NONCITIZENS
Some offices will be set
to handle foreign applicantsAnother major move: All noncitizens -- including those holding permanent residency green cards -- will be funneled to only about 10 of the state's 143 license offices, which will be equipped with specially trained staff members and equipment to store document images.
Sanchez said the changes will elevate the state's verification system from the middle of the pack to near the top nationally. He also acknowledged it would make getting a license more work for thousands of people, such as foreign executives who maintain part-time residences.
``It's a new world, and we're going to have to adapt,'' Sanchez said.
LEGAL CHALLENGES
Civil Liberties Union
questions privacy sacrificeSuch proposals, particularly ones that force certain groups to undergo heightened scrutiny, could face legal challenges.
``It does seem to have a very Big Brother atmosphere to it,'' said Randall Marshall, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union chapter in Florida. ``The question becomes how much of our day-to-day privacy is going to be sacrificed in the name of fighting terrorism.''
Licenses have come under widespread review because most of the hijackers in the Sept. 11 attacks had them.
At least three hijackers carried valid Florida licenses, though they were in the United States illegally with expired visas. Four hijackers who crashed a plane into the Pentagon reportedly had Virginia licenses -- though they never lived there. Investigators have found other problems, from bogus addresses to multiple licenses.
The hijackers all took advantage of a system with loose standards for verifying that people are who they claim to be. Twenty-six states require some proof of residency, but the rest, including Florida, do not.
Most states ask for at least two forms of identification to get a license, but the motor vehicle administrators association estimates that there are as many as 250 forms accepted.
Florida requires at least one of six primary ID's and a backup document. The primaries include a U.S. birth certificate, valid passport, green card, I-94 visa form, license from another state or Justice Department employment authorization.
The list of 26 acceptable backups is much broader. It includes foreign driver's licenses, baptism certificates or family bible records. Florida law lets supervisors ``approve any additional secondary items.''
Sanchez said some flexibility is necessary, particularly given the large number of poor immigrants who settle in the state.
``Life is messy,'' he said. ``Some people arrive in Florida with little more than the clothes on their backs. Not everybody has a shiny copy of a birth certificate from Jackson Memorial Hospital.
``A lot of these are good people who need to make a living and need to drive.''
Other states had less stringent requirements.
In Virginia, before Sept. 11, it was possible to obtain a state-issued ID card with as little as a green card, easily acquired in a thriving black market, and a sworn statement of identity and residence.
North Carolina has a reputation for laxity on verifying identification before issuing driver's licenses.
One state law requiring Social Security numbers to track child-support deadbeats was largely ignored. Driver records show that 388,000 people held North Carolina licenses with the Social Security number 9999-99-9999, the sequence that clerks used if applicants could not supply a real number.
North Carolina's problems were so bad that Sandra Lambert, Florida's motor vehicle department director, took the extraordinary step of canceling an interstate courtesy agreement on Nov. 1.
STATES GET TOUGH
N. Carolina, Virginia close
loopholes in prior policiesTypically, states accept a license from another state or Canada as a primary form of identification. That meant, until Lambert's order, that a North Carolina license could have been exchanged for a Florida one with no questions asked.
Carol Howard, director of North Carolina's Division of Motor Vehicles, said the agency had been criticized by the public and politicians for delays in processing.
``We had relaxed our policies,'' she said.
North Carolina and Virginia have since closed those loopholes. Both now require proof of residency, such as a utility bill or a bank statement.
Other states also are cracking down:
- In Michigan, which has one of the nation's largest Arab populations, Secretary of State Candice Miller is proposing a bill that would bar illegal immigrants from receiving licenses.
- Wisconsin has suspended acceptance of the I-94 visa form, which foreign visitors fill out and the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service checks, as proof of residency. The form is easy to forge, and although it is checked against a passport by the INS, it relies mainly on the visitor's word.
- New Jersey has mirrored Florida, tying license expirations to visas and routing noncitizens to special offices.
North Carolina also has ended a policy of allowing drivers to refuse a photo or wear facial coverings for religious reasons. Under strict Muslim teachings, women are forbidden to show their faces to unknown men.
Other states handle it differently. In Michigan, for example, Muslim women are allowed to make special appointments at which female license officials take their pictures.
The North Carolina rule doesn't affect people who wear headgear for religious or cultural reasons. Florida has a similar rule.
In a recent week, said Howard, the North Carolina motor vehicles chief, 11 of 40,000 licenses issued in that state showed drivers in head or face coverings.
``Now we will have a photograph,'' she said. ``If they want to wear headgear, then the full face has to be shown -- chin, nose, mouth.''
In Florida, the license of a veiled Orlando-area woman came to the attention of Randy Means, executive director of the Orange County state attorney's office. He tipped off the state, which will notify the woman -- who has done nothing wrong -- that she'll need to get a new one.
``There is no doubt that we're more sensitive to these issues today.''
How about expelling the illegal immigrants? That's what is wrong with this whole picture.
Jeb Bush ought to fire that DMV official, now.
Since when do Americans living in Florida owe aliens - most lacking that documentation precisely because they are illegals - such "flexibility" at the cost of danger to Americans plus (undoubtably) proposals for a coast-to-coast gulag for the rest of us?
I say deport all the aliens and let Allah sort it out.
IMMIGRATION resource library - with public-health facts of immigration
After all who in the hell would want to be viewed naked, let alone let a officer see what your family looked like in a group nude picture.
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