CAP panel considers ways to bridge identification divide

A member of a key panel charged with advising the Homeland Security Department on privacy issues Monday called the Bush administration's identity verification efforts "an extended, knee-jerk reaction" to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Comment on this article in The Forum.Despite "good words" from Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff, officials have yet to adopt a thoughtful approach to the issue, the Cato Institute's Jim Harper told an audience at the Center for American Progress.

Harper, Cato's director of information policy studies and a member of the Homeland Security Department's Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee, said some heightened security measures have been successful because the country has not been attacked again, but "it's well past time now to start figuring out what works, what doesn't and casting aside what doesn't work."

His committee will hold a quarterly meeting on June 11 during which Homeland Security Chief Privacy Officer Hugo Teufel will provide an update on agency initiatives.

The three-year-old REAL ID Act, which would set national standards for issuing driver's licenses but requires states to pay much of the expensive tab, is one problematic example, he said.

Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, and Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, have introduced legislation changing REAL ID in ways that they believe would better make government-issued IDs secure.

CAP senior fellow Peter Swire, who served as former President Clinton's privacy adviser, added that an incident in which 12 nuns were turned away from voting booths in Indiana on May 6 because they lacked state identification cards was a fresh reminder that the nation's patchwork of ID requirements falls short. He co-authored a report unveiled at the briefing that points out those nuns are among 20 million voting-age citizens without driver's licenses. They are on "the wrong side" of the ID divide, Swire said.

Americans who lack official identification suffer from identity theft, are improperly placed on government watch lists, and face other obstacles when asked for ID, Swire and a panel of privacy and security experts said.

The plight of uncredentialed individuals is largely invisible to many U.S. citizens and policymakers who have wallets full of proof of identity, they said.

"Most of us can't hold a Senate hearing when something goes wrong," Swire said, recalling a 2006 Senate Commerce Committee hearing where the panel's then-chairman, Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, complained that his wife, Catherine, had been subjected to questioning at an airport because her name was similar to former pop singer Cat Stevens, the Islam convert who is on the government's terrorist watch list.

When implementing ID systems, policies must be in place from the outset to ensure it is done properly, the report states.

Swire and co-author Cassandra Butts, CAP's senior vice president for domestic policy, recommend a set of principles based on "real security," effective redress mechanisms, equitable financing and other criteria.

"Systems created in the name of security should only be implemented if they actually will improve security and do so cost-effectively," the report said.