NC Legislature Attemps to Gag Real ID Opposition

From Jim Palmer of NCard in North Carolina

NC Legislator Says Stop Talking About Real ID or We just Fully Comply

www.ncard.info
Friday April 17, 2009

I was a bit surprised when my phone rang and Representative Cleveland (Rep) Onslow County was returning my call from earlier in the day.

I had originally called him in order to thank him for his role in filing a bill that asserted North Carolina's 10th Amendment rights under H849. A real sign of hope for North Carolinians who expect to be represented by state legislators.

The second reason I wanted to speak with him since he wanted to assert North Carolina's constitutional rights was to ask him to amend H849 to include a provision that would opt NC out of complying with or funding the Real ID.

I wont bore you with all of the details, but Rep Cleveland's attitude changed quite quickly. He said that NC was 75% compliant with the Real ID and that if I continue to talk about it they may just end up fully complying.

This obvious attempt to silence those of us who want to stop the Real ID legislation that violates our constitutional rights did not stop me from sharing a bit more information with Rep Cleveland.

When I mentioned to him all of the security problems with a centralized database, he said the "We have been doing everything within reason to protect the data." This despite the recent intrusion of a NC DMV in Carrboro where private data was stolen from a reasonably secure computer system.

When confronted about the facts that no database was secure and that a centralized system would allow a hacker even more of an opportunity to steal identities, Rep Cleveland responded with, "I have had my identity stolen, I didn't like it but it happens."

Of course, NC Residents will be the ones to pay for the damage done to their credit. The average cost to restore a stolen identity is $8,000, and the average amount of time spent repairing the damage is nearly 600 hours. Not to mention that under the Real ID, the private data of every person in NC can be shared with Mexico, Canada, private corporations and whomever the Department of Homeland security deems necessary.

Another issue I brought up to Rep Cleveland was the fact that Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) was basically useless and a recent article reported that such technology showed a 52% likelihood that Winona Ryder was Osama Bin Laden. Rep Cleveland said that they had the security settings too high and that by lowering them, it wouldn't give off as many false positives.

Study after study has shown at best FRT to be 30% reliable. NC has a 2 Billion dollar budget shortfall. We should not be wasting taxpayer dollars on this technology.

Before I got off the phone with Rep Cleveland, I told him this issue will not go away and the people of NC do care about what happens to their private data.

Rep Cleveland told me "The people of North Carolina don't have a Bitch about their data because it has been kept secure." He also went on to tell me that most people in NC do not care about the issue.

Do you care?

Perhaps you need to give Rep Cleveland a call and let him know that you not only care about the Tenth Amendment issue, but you care about the Real ID and how your private data is secured as well.

Representative George G. Cleveland (Rep)
Phone: 919-715-6707
Email: George.Cleveland@ncleg.net