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I'd argue that Chertoff and DHS is doing more to hurt security than to help it. Just because a state doesn't get a waiver doesn't mean anyone from that state is more likely to be a terrorist. All of the time spent doing secondary screenings of people from those states (essentially to beat states into submission) could be better used spending time looking for real threats.
Chertoff says states must comply on IDs
news.yahoo.com/s/ap_trave...a4AAAis0NUE
By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 49 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff rebuked lawmakers Friday for seeking to stall new rules on driver's licenses that could cause big headaches for air travelers starting in May.
Federal authorities are currently at a standoff with a handful of states over a law called Real ID, which would require new security measures for state-issued driver's licenses.
South Carolina, Maine, and Montana are the only states that have not sought extensions to comply, or already started toward compliance with Real ID, which was passed after the 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington.
A fourth state, New Hampshire, has asked to be exempted, but homeland security officials do not view that letter as a legally acceptable request, so the Granite State has not received an extension.
Chertoff has warned that if holdout states do not send a letter by the end of March seeking an extension, come May, residents of such states will no longer be able to use their driver's licenses as valid ID to board airplanes or enter federal buildings.
Such travelers would instead have to present a passport or be subjected to secondary screening.
Five senators — Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Jon Tester and Max Baucus of Montana, and John Sununu of New Hampshire — appealed to Chertoff last week to exempt all 50 states from the looming deadline.
Chertoff responded Friday that it was not he, but Congress who picked the date when the law went into effect in 2005.
"You may disagree with the foregoing law, but I cannot ignore it," Chertoff said in the letter.
The law, he said, is necessary for national security according to recommendations from the commission that studied the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
"Secure identification is a cornerstone of protecting our communities," he said.
The nation's top homeland security official also offered a blunt warning to those critics who claim the government is bluffing when it says it will impose harsher security reviews in states that do not seek an extension from the Real ID law.
"Showing up at the airport with only a driver's license from such a state will be no better than showing up without identification," he wrote. "No doubt this will impel many to choose the inconvenience of traveling with a passport."
Chertoff has offered a plan to gradually implement Real ID requirements over a period of ten years, so that eventually all driver's licenses would have several layers of security features to prevent forgery. They would also be issued only after a number of identity checks, including immigration status and verification of birth certificates.
Critics of the plan say it is too expensive, an invasion of privacy, and won't actually make the country safer.
The most outspoken, Montana Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer, has said the federal government can "go to hell." He argues that Real ID won't work and the Bush administration won't be around long enough to prove it.
Chertoff says states must comply on IDs
news.yahoo.com/s/ap_trave...a4AAAis0NUE
By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 49 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff rebuked lawmakers Friday for seeking to stall new rules on driver's licenses that could cause big headaches for air travelers starting in May.
Federal authorities are currently at a standoff with a handful of states over a law called Real ID, which would require new security measures for state-issued driver's licenses.
South Carolina, Maine, and Montana are the only states that have not sought extensions to comply, or already started toward compliance with Real ID, which was passed after the 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington.
A fourth state, New Hampshire, has asked to be exempted, but homeland security officials do not view that letter as a legally acceptable request, so the Granite State has not received an extension.
Chertoff has warned that if holdout states do not send a letter by the end of March seeking an extension, come May, residents of such states will no longer be able to use their driver's licenses as valid ID to board airplanes or enter federal buildings.
Such travelers would instead have to present a passport or be subjected to secondary screening.
Five senators — Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Jon Tester and Max Baucus of Montana, and John Sununu of New Hampshire — appealed to Chertoff last week to exempt all 50 states from the looming deadline.
Chertoff responded Friday that it was not he, but Congress who picked the date when the law went into effect in 2005.
"You may disagree with the foregoing law, but I cannot ignore it," Chertoff said in the letter.
The law, he said, is necessary for national security according to recommendations from the commission that studied the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
"Secure identification is a cornerstone of protecting our communities," he said.
The nation's top homeland security official also offered a blunt warning to those critics who claim the government is bluffing when it says it will impose harsher security reviews in states that do not seek an extension from the Real ID law.
"Showing up at the airport with only a driver's license from such a state will be no better than showing up without identification," he wrote. "No doubt this will impel many to choose the inconvenience of traveling with a passport."
Chertoff has offered a plan to gradually implement Real ID requirements over a period of ten years, so that eventually all driver's licenses would have several layers of security features to prevent forgery. They would also be issued only after a number of identity checks, including immigration status and verification of birth certificates.
Critics of the plan say it is too expensive, an invasion of privacy, and won't actually make the country safer.
The most outspoken, Montana Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer, has said the federal government can "go to hell." He argues that Real ID won't work and the Bush administration won't be around long enough to prove it.
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Re: Strong arm tactics by Chertoff
Sat, March 22, 2008 - 7:00 AMMaybe we need to change the name of this tribe to the Brian Schweitzer Appreciation Society. Given the appeasement shown the Bush/Cheney dictatorial movement by the Democratic Party in WA D.C., I can only conclude our hope lies in State Govt. entities. Until, of course, we grow a collective spine and retake the Democratic "big tent". -
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Re: Strong arm tactics by Chertoff
Sat, March 22, 2008 - 3:20 PM>Maybe we need to change the name of this tribe to the Brian Schweitzer Appreciation Society.
I'll say!!! For anyone who hasn't seen Brian Schweitzer's quotes, here's what was in Wired today:
Montana Governor: DHS 'Blinks' on Real ID
blog.wired.com/27bstroke6...ov-dhs.html
By Ryan Singel March 21, 2008 | 7:13:27 PM
Montana governor Brian Schweitzer declared victory Friday after the Department of Homeland Security sent his state an extension to the Real ID act, despite his insistence Montana will never comply with a mandate he describes as a "boondoggle."
"If I were writing the headline, it would be 'DHS Blinks," Schweitzer, a Democrat, told THREAT LEVEL by phone late Friday.
Montana's attorney general sent DHS chief Michael Chertoff a letter (.pdf) Friday outlining the security features in Montana's current driver's licenses, which DHS threatened to reject as valid I.D. for boarding airplanes or entering federal buildings come May 11 unless the state promised to comply with Real ID.
DHS responded by interpreting that letter as a request for an extension (.pdf) of the Real ID deadlines until 2010, reversing its previous position that Montana ID cards would be rejected by federal agents.
"I sent them a horse and if they want to call it a zebra, that's up to them," Schweitzer said. "They can call it whatever they want, and it wasn't a love letter."
Schweitzer emphasized that his state's licenses already contain holograms, secure digital photographs and a magnetic stripe on the back. But says he has no intention of sharing his state's residents' data with the federal government, as required by Real ID.
The information the government wants the states to keep and share in Real ID is ripe for abuse, despite the government's privacy and security promises, he said.
"They tell us our data is safe," Schweitzer said. "You tell that to the passport people," he said, referring to news that State Department employees snooped in all three major presidential candidates' passport files.
"Do you want your government to have the ability to track where you went, how you got there and when you got home?" Schweitzer asked. "It would be naïve for someone to think this information will not be abused in the future. Virtually every decade these kinds of files have been used to violate people's privacy."
"We already have an ID system they are hoping to get to in seven years," Schweitzer said.
Adding more scorn to the heap, the outspoken governor called Real ID an empty notion and said that DHS isn't even likely to be around in seven years when the final phase of Real ID is scheduled to go into effect.
Schweitzer said he sent the letter to Chertoff "just to keep the guy happy. He seems so grumpy all the time. It doesn't mean anything."
The governor said he and Chertoff spoke on the phone a few weeks ago, and Schweitzer outlined a scenario where he and the secretary are on the CBS news program 60 Minutes, days after DHS starts patting down Montana driver's license holders trying to get on planes.
"I said, 'Montana already has the most secure licenses in America, and the Real ID will not exist for seven years, so they are going to single Montana out. They admit we have one of the most secure ID systems and they singled us out because I wouldn't sign on to a concept.'"
"'Now ... your turn', I said. And then Chertoff said, 'I see the problem. We need to get this fixed.'"
And that, according to Schweitzer, is how a state that is determined never to comply with Real ID got a Real ID extension. -
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Re: Strong arm tactics by Chertoff
Sun, March 23, 2008 - 12:24 PMIf I knew Brian Schweitzer personally, I'd give him a hug...honest...;-)
There is some light at the end of the tunnel after all...
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