Welcome to the frog boil: "Non-citizen" drivers licenses & You

BTC Commentary-  Some people are finding it tougher and tougher to just let legal people, be legal. It's a fact, if you are a legal migrant, you are permitted to drive in this country.

IdleNoMore video alert discloses Canada's EDL encryption lapse

Jan 11th logo for Intl. Day of Action  #J11
"Have you seen my mom? Her face looks like yours."

BTC - Today marks Idle No More's global solidarity action touching the blogosphere and the known wired universe. Among the outspoken, were Anonymous members who released a video statement on the Harper government's actions with mass land negotiations without meeting with the Indigenous nations living on those lands.

While this matter is about very serious massive civil disruption in social contracts set between indigenous tribes and the Canadian government, the generational impacts, the rifts and new growth in the native rights movement, the Anons took a hairpin turn. They dotted this matter with news about slipshod encryption of RFID tags in Canada's Enhanced Drivers Licenses. It warned all Canadians carrying the EDL on the move from Quebec and British Columbia. [News byte starts at 2:12]



RELATED NEWS:  MONTREAL SIMON : Idle No More and the Great Day of Protest

California, EDL's won't make your grass green again

Voluntary Real ID compliant EDLs for State drivers? Not a good standard to imitate

BTC  Commentary --  The Enhanced Driver's Licens (EDL) is a Real ID compliant license which adopts global standardization [WHTI] for border crossings into Mexico and Canada using an RFID chip.  California is now considering a bill which would adopt this federal standard for the State license.  The State currently meets many of the federal (and far less controversial) benchmarks for federal compliance.  However, the bankrupted State is making hard decisions about what to do next.

Washington State opted for this method for use at the Canadian border State, as one example of this policy. Their drivers license policies are not a good act to follow. Here's why.

Tohono O'odham Nation Eats the Chip

DHS STRIKES 4TH DEAL FOR TRIBAL IDENTITY CARDS

Tohono O'odham Nation is latest to move on enhanced ID card

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has struck a fourth agreement for enhanced tribal identification cards compliant with US travel laws with a Native American tribe, the department announced Tuesday.

DHS and the Tohono O'odham Nation, which has lands in Arizona and Mexico, agreed to standards for an enhanced tribal card to be carried by the roughly 28,000 registered members of the tribe. The identification card complies with the specifications of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI), which mandated strict requirements for travel documents for citizens of the United States, Canada and Bermuda--who may previously have not required a passport--on June 1.

"This agreement will strengthen safety along our borders while providing Tohono O'odham members a secure and standardized ID card," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in a statement. "In the months ahead, we will continue to build upon these efforts-from secure identification to preparing for emergencies-with our tribal partners across the country."

In 2009, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reached agreements with the Tohono O'odham Nation, the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, the Pascua Yaqui of Arizona, and the Seneca Nation of New York. The agency is negotiating with about another 25 tribes in the United States to provide them with enhanced tribal cards as well. ::: MORE HERE:::

New York DMV Celebrates RFID Enhanced Misery

BTC- What an awkward circle of celebration this is. Picture government officials gathered around a fold out table with little cupcakes to celebrate the retardation of an achievement which actually disserves and angers the majority of New Yorkers. It reminds me of a scene from Office Space. Most New Yorkers oppose the Enhanced Drivers Licenses. Legalizing EDLs in NY was perceived as one of former Governor Spitzer's failures.

DMV notes one year anniversary of enhanced driver license

c/o Channel 34 Binghamton, NY

The EDL is equipped with a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag containing a unique number with no personal information. The number can be read only by specialized equipment at select border crossing locations. On November 24, 2008, the first RFID Vicinity reader lanes opened in Buffalo. Buffalo was the first city in New York to add the RFID lanes and only the third area in the nation. Three additional New York ports of entry, including Champlain, Massena and Alexandria Bay had this equipment installed in April 2009. The entire network in the U.S. was installed by the end of May 2009, encompassing the 39 busiest land border crossings in the nation.

Native New Yorker, Seneca Tribe Eat The Chip

PR NEWSWIRE- [Dept. Of Homeland Propaganda]

The Department of Homeland Security and the Seneca Nation of Indians today formalized an agreement to develop a Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI)-compliant Enhanced Tribal Card (ETC) -- signed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Assistant Commissioner Thomas S. Winkowski and Seneca Nation President Barry E. Snyder, Sr., at a ceremony at Liberty Park in Niagara Falls, N.Y.

The ETC establishes identity, tribal membership and citizenship for the purpose of entering the United States by land or sea -- enhancing safety and security of U.S. borders while facilitating legitimate travel and trade. The agreement represents Secretary Napolitano's ongoing commitment to close coordination with tribal partners across the nation on security initiatives -- and underscores the mutual commitment of DHS and the Seneca Nation to enhance border security and combat threats of terrorism and transnational crime through secure identification.

Since the beginning of the year, CBP has also signed agreements with the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho and the Pascua Yaqui of Arizona. CBP is currently working with approximately 25 additional tribes across the country on the ETC initiative.

FLOGGER: The story on Enhanced Drivers Licenses

Just a minute from your media sponsor...

BTC - I'm sure it's clear by now that this is not the blog that gives a fair and balanced perspective. We have a tough enough time getting our perspective represented in the media.

BeatTheChip delivers the Anti-Real ID perspective religiously. We aggregate content as soon as news develops. However like anything else in this world - in order to advance the cause and alter the course of history, we need money. At the bottom of every entry on these blogs is an opportunity to give. Friday is a conventional pay day. You can count on us to shove off Numbers USA and tell Janice Kephart to go to hell DAILY. [We know they read our blog too.]

Subscribing is free, but we are asking for an initial give of between $2 -$10 for BTC content, which features frontline interviews and information about privacy, identity, technology and national legislation from those who create the news.

Free-market banditos like Jim Harper understand. You gotta get paid to change the world and that's okay. Without further ado ... classic conservative analysis to PROBLEM>REACTION> SOLUTION with Jim Harper, who has a great book up for review, Identity Crisis: How Identity is Overused & Misunderstood, available for sale as well.

National ID bashing with CATO policy brand Jim Harper

Arizona to Feds: No “Enhanced” Drivers License

Last week, the governor of Arizona signed H.B. 2426, which bars the state from implementing the “enhanced” drivers license (EDL) program.

If the federal REAL ID revival bill (PASS ID) becomes law, it will give congressional approval to EDLs, which up to now have been simply a creation of the federal security and state driver licensing bureaucracies.

ENHANCED DRIVERS LICENSES AS "SNAKE OIL"

As governor of Arizona, the current Secretary of Homeland Security signed a memorandum of understanding with the DHS to implement EDLs, and she backs PASS ID even though she signed an anti-REAL ID bill as governor. As I said before, Secretary Napolitano seems to be taking the national ID tar baby in a loving embrace.

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.

Travel Screening and The PASS Act

• In the other chamber of Congress, the PASS ID Act (S. 1261) introduced in the Senate on June 15th contains a provision in Section 242 (a) (1) (B) that “no person shall be denied boarding a commercial aircraft solely on the basis of failure to present a driver’s license or identification card issued pursuant to this subtitle.”  This is part of a terrible bill, which we strongly oppose. We agree completely with Jim Harper’s take that this is merely a “lite” version of a national ID law, and that there is no good reason to “replace” the REAL ID Act rather than simply repeal it.  The PASS ID Act would still leave loopholes for the TSA to deny “permisison” to travel on other grounds, such as failure to “cooperate with screening”. But we welcome the initiative — again, the first such in the Senate since the creation of the TSA — to anticipate and preclude a TSA assertion of new authority. (The PASS ID Act would also make it a “unlawful for any person, knowingly and without lawful authority– (1) to scan the information contained in the machine readable component of a driver’s license or identification card; or (2)(A) to resell, share or trade that information with any other third parties; (B) track the use of a driver’s license or identification card; or (C) store the information collected.”  This provision is apparently intended to include a prohibition on reading of the data on RFID chips in Enhanced Drivers Licenses.)

c/o Papers, Please!

In the absence of any explicit rules or any judicial, legislative, or executive oversight, the TSA has felt no need to seek authority for its ever-expanding assertions of authority through legislation or rulemaking. Nor has the TSA recognized any duty of self-restraint or self-policing to ensure its actions conform to the law. Instead, the TSA has simply wielded its power to do whatever it wished, on the disgraceful assumption that, “If we’re doing something wrong, the courts will tell us — if and when someone can afford to sue us, and they win a court judgement against us.” In the meantime, the TSA will do, and claim the right to do, anything that hasn’t already specifically been ruled illegal. Kind of like the thief who assumes that they can steal whatever they want, and that if something turns out not be theirs, they’ll give it back if and when someone sues and wins a court judgement ordering its return.

Time and again we’ve pointed out this failure to subject the TSA to the rule of law. See, for example, our most recent prior post on this topic, our agenda on the right to travel submitted to the Obama Administration and Congress after the 2008 elections, and our comments earlier this month at the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference session with Obama Administration representatives and others at 1:45:53 of this video. Until recently, however, neither the Courts, the Congress, nor the Executive branch have wanted to confront the question of what rules govern the TSA.

We’re please to report that this is finally beginning to change, in small ways but on numerous fronts. ::: MORE HERE:::

Global Update on Compulsory Identity Technologies

The run on global identity continues

"The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative was just about proving you were a citizen, not that you had to do it by any specific kind of technology. We are close to the point now that if you don't want RFID in any of your documents that you can't leave the country or get back into it." -Michigan State Representative Paul Opsommer 

From Global Research of Canada

Enhanced driver's licenses have built-in radio chips providing an identifying number or information that can be accessed by a remote reading unit while the license is inside a wallet or purse. The technology already had been implemented in Washington State, where it is promoted as an alternative to a passport for traveling to Canada . So far, the program is optional. But there are other agreements already approved with Michigan, Vermont, New York and Arizona, and plans are under way in other states, including Texas [who passed state transportation code for both RFID & biometrics in 2007].

Many countries besides the Security and Prosperity Partnership [United States, Mexico, Canada] members have jumped on the RFID bandwagon, which has become a multibillion dollar global enterprise.

[On June 1st, 2009, the first day of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) full implementation, Border Trade Alliance (BTA), is asking U.S. and Canadian citizens to use Twitter to post their cross-border travel experiences with WHTI to collect feedback on the program at land ports throughout North America.]

On July 15, 2009, the Indian government announced that India is going to issue biometric ID cards to its 1.2 billion citizens. The Government in Delhi recently created the Unique Identification Authority, a new state department charged with the task of assigning every living Indian an exclusive number. It will also be responsible for gathering and electronically storing their personal details, at a predicted cost of at least £3 billion.

On July 28, 2009, President Felipe Calderon proclaimed that Mexico will start issuing nationwide identity cards for its citizens starting this year and by 2012 everyone will have one.

Compulsory national identity cards are used in about 100 countries including Germany, France, Belgium, Greece, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain.

German police can detain people who are not carrying their ID card for up to 24 hours.

South Korean, Brazilian, Italian and Malaysian ID cards contain fingerprints. Cards in some countries contain information on any distinguishing marks of the holder. In the European Union some cards can be used instead of a passport for European travel. ID cards are not used yet in the US , Canada , New Zealand , Australia , the Irish Republic , and the Nordic countries. :::MORE HERE:::

Blackfeet enhancing IDs for border crossings

By TRAVIS COLEMAN
Tribune Staff Writer

The Blackfeet Tribe is one of a group of tribes developing enhanced tribal identification cards to get in line with the new Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative.

The initiative — which went into effect June 1 — requires people crossing the U.S.-Canada border to show a passport or enhanced driver's license.

Homeland Security officials are allowing Native Americans to continue using their tribal-issued photo ID cards to cross the border while tribes develop their own enhanced cards.

Homeland Security will allow this for a "modest, but reasonable transition period," according to the Washington, D.C.-based National Congress of American Indians, or NCAI.

"It would take some time to develop the technology with each of the tribes having their own cards," said Mike Milne, press officer for several nearby ports of entries.

Sweetgrass Port Director Larry Overcast said he met with the Blackfeet Tribe in May to discuss the issue and the tribe seemed to be interested in developing some form of an enhanced tribal ID card, among other options.

"All of our officers are aware that their photo IDs will be fine," Overcast said.

The Blackfeet Indian Reservation borders Canada to the north.

In some states, the enhanced IDs feature a flag denoting citizenship and different barcodes. Milne said the enhanced tribal IDs may feature radio frequency technology so the cards would be read more efficiently.

Only a handful of tribes have agreed to develop their own enhanced ID system, including the Blackfeet and the Kootenai Tribe in Idaho, Milne said.

Blackfeet Business Council Chairman Willie Sharp Jr. said tribal employees are attending a NCAI conference to discuss enhanced IDs. One of Sharp's main concerns in developing a new system is maintaining a high standard of how the tribe certifies people as tribal members.

Sharp said the upgrade process can be long and that the cost of developing the system falls on the tribe.

"But we hope we can get some funds from Homeland Security or other means," Sharp said.

EDLs & RFID Use in Border Cards

The Many Faces of Real ID

You may know them as Enhanced Driver's Licenses, Speed Passes, Border Cards, Voluntary Transport Worker ID's, CLEAR Airline Cards; these are the practical applied faces of Real ID.

RFID Construction Begins at Presidio Port of Entry
"Use of RFID will enable swifter processing at border crossings for travelers using new state-of-the-art travel documents. These documents include the passport card - a wallet-sized, cost-effective alternative to the traditional passport specifically designed for cross-border land and sea travel - and enhanced driver’s licenses being produced by several states. Washington State began producing an EDL in February and currently has issued over 21,000."
- c/o Import Industry News

Real ID: Speed Pass to Slavery -Henry Lamb's Commentary

Nexus comes to Niagra Falls: Lemmings Pay $50 for Border Pass Cards

"Real ID suffers from serious flaws that will affect the rights of every American."-
CATO Institute's Jim Harper Speaks on National ID System