Calling Secretary Napolitano: Arizona to Reject EDLs
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has been all over the map on national ID issues. As governor of Arizona, she signed a memorandum of understanding with the Bush DHS to implement “enhanced driver’s licenses” in her state. These are licenses with long-range RFID chips built into them. But then she turned around and signed legislation barring implementation of the REAL ID Act in Arizona.
Now, having taken federal office, she again favors REAL ID — or at least under its new name: PASS ID. (Her efforts to put distance between REAL ID and PASS ID have not borne fruit.)
In some respects, PASS ID is worse than REAL ID. It would give congressional approval to the “enhanced driver’s license” program — invented by DHS and State Department bureaucrats to do long-range (and potentially surreptitious) identification of people holding this type of card. Back home, the Arizona legislature has just passed a bill to prohibit the state from implementing EDLs.
So the former governor of Arizona, who has both supported and rejected national ID programs, now supports a bill to approve the national ID program her home state rejects. Napolitano seems to be taking the national ID tar baby in a loving embrace.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; Telecom, Internet & Information Policy
“Enhanced Driver’s License” Snake Oil
Here’s Michigan state representative Paul Opsommer (R) on the Department of Homeland Security’s “Enhanced Driver’s License,” which contains a radio frequency identification chip with a long read range:
Expect the Department of Homeland Security to tell you what a great thing they are doing by allowing you the ability to buy these RFID licenses. They create the problem, provide a solution that is the cheapest for them and most risky for you, and then expect you to like it. But RFID is not mandated by Congress, and if enough states stand up for themselves the policy will be changed. Michigan needs to say no and do just that.
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