Data collection in the schools
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"Issues and Action in Education" - October 25, 2004
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A national ID will not prevent terrorism in the United States....
Identity cards tell nothing about an individual’s intentions....
Any form of identification can be counterfeited....
A national ID system would divert resources from more productive counter-terrorism measures. One estimate of the initial cost of such a program goes as high as $25 to $30 billion dollars, with another $3 billion to $6 billion per year to run it....
A national ID would depend on a massive bureaucracy that would limit our basic freedoms....
A national ID would both contribute to identity fraud and make it more difficult to remedy.... A national ID would be "one stop shopping" for perpetrators of identity theft who usually use social security numbers and birth certificates for false IDs (not drivers' licenses). Even with a biometric identifier, such as a fingerprint, on each and every ID, there is no guarantee that individuals won't be soidentified - or misidentified - in error....
On October 19th EdWatch joined other organizations in
signing a letter to Congress opposing H.R. 10 -- The 9/11
Recommendations Implementation Act. That act takes the final step to
establishing a national ID to track American citizens and authorize the
creation of a national database to hold the information collected.
Unfortunately, H.R. 10 passed in the House. In a slightly different
version, it also passed in the Senate. Now, a House-Senate conference
committee is meeting to iron out those differences and come up with a
final version.
The letter we sent out is included at the bottom of this page.
Establishing a national ID and building a national database to hold
information on every man, woman and child in the U.S. has been a
priority of central government planners for years. A national data
collection system will involve state education systems for all children,
as it already does to a significant degree. Education data collection
begins as young as infancy for families that participate in early
childhood programs run through the public schools and government
agencies like Early Childhood Family Education (ECFE) and Early Head
Start. This issue is closely related to the issue of universal mental
health screening in the schools. Both involve fundamental issues of
personal privacy and parental rights. Those of us who strongly object to
a national database collection plan for everyone and who want to
preserve the American way of life had better act today.
We must stop the national ID. Please do three things:
1. Urge your U.S. representative to get the House-Senate conference
committee to remove the provisions that will create a national ID and
master database. Use this link to get contact information about your
members of Congress. When you type in your zip code, the names, fax
numbers, e-mail addresses and telephone numbers of your two Senators and
House member come up for you. Use any or all of those options. This link
is useful, no matter what issue you are addressing. Any e-mail should be
followed up with a fax or a phone call if at all possible.
2. Urge House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to intervene and get those two
provisions removed. His office telephone number is 202-225-4000 and fax
number is 202-225-5117. An e-mail form is here.
The House-Senate conference committee will continue to meet over the
weekend. Therefore, we must act today to get the committee to remove the
national ID and master database provisions before the House and Senate
vote on the final version. That vote might take place as early as
Wednesday or Thursday of next week.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following letter was sent October 19, 2004, signed by EdWatch and
other organizations. You may use this letter to e-mail, fax, and to use
as talking points to call into your members of Congress' offices. Sign
your own name, address and telephone number.
An Open Letter to the Conference Committee on Intelligence Reform:
Remove National-ID Related Provisions Now!
Re: Conference on S. 2845 and H.R. 10
Dear Conferee:
The undersigned groups hereby urge you to strip the McCain amendment
standardizing driver’s licenses from S. 2845 and similar provisions in
H.R. 10. Standardizing driver’s licenses and state identification cards
is a back-door attempt to institute a national identification card
program. Although proponents have consistently claimed that this does
not create a national ID, even the apolitical National Research Council
has recognized that standardized driver’s licenses would be a
“nationwide identity system.” Additionally, federal mandates in this
area raise concerns about state flexibility, privacy, and unfunded
mandates that have been insufficiently explored during this process. The
possibility of adding technology such as radio frequency identification
chips (RFID) to the driver’s license would enable the government to
track every movement a licensee makes.
While the 9/11 Commission recommended that the “federal government
should set standards for the issuance of birth certificates and sources
of identification, such as driver’s licenses,” there was little
discussion of why this should be a federal effort imposed upon the
states, or how this would make us safer. Because this proposal vastly
increases the power of the federal government over its residents and
citizens, there should be a full and fair debate over whether such a
proposal is necessary and whether it would be successful in preventing
terrorism.
Both bills provide minimum standards for driver’s licenses, and give the
states either two years (Senate version) or three years (House version)
in which to comply. If, after that time, a state does not comply, both
bills prohibit the use of such driver’s license for any federal purpose,
such as flying on airlines, obtaining federal benefits, etc. Thus, while
the bill is not “mandatory,” no state wants its residents to have to
undergo the inconvenience of carrying other identification that meets
federal standards.
H.R. 10 requires linking of all state drivers’ databases, specifically
states what must be on the license, and requires a “machine-readable”
identifier. S. 2845 is less specific about what must be on the license,
deferring many of those decisions to a negotiated rulemaking. It also
requires a “unique identifier” and requires authentication of the
documents that a driver uses to obtain a license.
Neither S. 2845 or H.R. 10 provide much in the way of privacy
protection. Neither protects against mission creep. Neither provides
penalties for intentionally disclosing confidential information, nor is
there any guarantee that the resulting databases will not be sold to
private sector groups.
We urge you to reject these ill-advised proposals as well because:
A national ID will not prevent terrorism in the United States. According
to Privacy International, of the top 25 terrorist targets since 1986,
80% have long-standing national identity card programs, and one-third of
those countries have cards with biometric identifiers. In fact, the top
target, Israel, has a national ID card that uses biometric identifiers
on the card.
Furthermore, identity cards tell nothing about an individual’s
intentions. Timothy McVeigh and the beltway stalker would both have
qualified for a national ID card.
Any form of identification can be counterfeited. Despite best efforts
and anti-counterfeiting technology, the new $20 bill has been
counterfeited. Even assuming a national ID card that is
counterfeit-resistant, terrorists and criminals will spend any amount of
money to either counterfeit the documents, or corrupt a government
employee to issue a fraudulent identification. Creating a single
national identification makes it much easier to counterfeit and steal
someone’s identity.
A national ID system would divert resources from more productive
counter-terrorism measures. One estimate of the initial cost of such a
program goes as high as $25 to $30 billion dollars, with another $3
billion to $6 billion per year to run it. Our limited resources could be
better spent on increasing border security and dealing with the two-year
backlog of intelligence needing to be translated at the FBI.
A national ID would depend on a massive bureaucracy that would limit our
basic freedoms. A national ID system would depend on both the issuance
of an ID card and the integration of huge amounts of personal
information included in state and federal government databases. One
employee mistake, an underlying database error rate, or common fraud
such as identity theft, now rampant in the U.S., could take away an
individual's ability to move freely from place to place or even make
them unemployable until the government fixed their “file.” Anyone who
has attempted to fix errors in their credit report can imagine the
difficulty of causing an over-extended government agency such as the
department of motor vehicles to correct a mistake that precludes a
person from getting a valid ID.
A national ID would both contribute to identity fraud and make it more
difficult to remedy. Americans have consistently rejected the idea of a
national ID and limited the uses of data collected by the government. In
the 1970s, both the Nixon and Carter Administrations rejected the use of
social security numbers as a uniform identifier because of privacy
concerns. A national ID would be "one stop shopping" for perpetrators of
identity theft who usually use social security numbers and birth
certificates for false IDs (not drivers' licenses). Even with a
biometric identifier, such as a fingerprint, on each and every ID, there
is no guarantee that individuals won't be soidentified - or
misidentified - in error. The accuracy of biometric technology varies
depending on the type and implementation. And, it would be even more
difficult to remedy identity fraud when a thief has a National ID card
with your name on it, but his biometric identifier.
A national ID could require all Americans to carry an internal passport
at all times, compromising our privacy, limiting our freedom, and
exposing us to unfair discrimination based on national origin or
religion. Once government databases are integrated through a uniform ID,
access to and uses of sensitive personal information would inevitably
expand. Libraries could be pressured to use the ID instead of, or in
addition to, library cards. Law enforcement, tax collectors, and other
government agencies would want use of the data. Employers, landlords,
insurers, credit agencies, mortgage brokers, direct mailers, private
investigators, civil litigants, and a long list of other private parties
would also begin using the ID and even the database, further eroding the
privacy that Americans rightly expect in their personal lives. It would
take us even further toward a surveillance society that would
significantly diminish the freedom and privacy of law-abiding people in
the United States. A national ID would foster new forms of
discrimination and harassment. The ID could be used to stop, question,
or challenge anyone perceived as looking or sounding "foreign" or
individuals of a certain religious affiliation.
At the Republican National Convention in 2004, Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger spoke of his fearfulness when going through Austrian
checkpoints, and how thankful he was to be able to flee such a country
and come to America. Unfortunately, the driver’s license standardization
provisions in these two bills usher in such a scheme in the United
States.
As the national ID becomes more and more the “gold” standard for
identity documents, it is likely that it will be coupled with a radio
frequency identification tag, allowing the information to be read at a
distance. This is already being tested for use in U.S. passports. With
the addition of this chip, the holder of a document containing an RFID
chip will continuously be broadcasting his information to anyone with a
receiver. When that occurs, the government will be able to track every
person who holds an ID card, virtually anywhere they may be. And it
won’t only be the government tracking people: anyone with a reader,
including criminals and terrorists can read the information contained on
the chip, creating threats to privacy and safety.
Standardizing of driver’s licenses has long been
recognized as little more than a back-door attempt to create a national
identification system. Americans of all political persuasions are
resistant to eventual demands to “show your papers,” and we urge you to
strip these provisions from the bills.
Sincerely,
[Place your name, address, and telephone number here.]
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