Inland Valley (CA) Daily Bulletin: REAL ID raises real danger of identity

[question everything]

Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

REAL ID raises real danger of identity thefts

To feel comfortable with the federal REAL ID Act, one would have to believe that tens of thousands of DMV employees and federal workers nationwide are beyond corruption and above the lure of easy money. We just aren't that optimistic.

DMV and federal leaks are just one of several security concerns raised in recent weeks about the federal identification system approved by Congress and President Bush last month. The ID system seems impossible to police effectively and appears to leave Americans much more vulnerable to identity theft, rather than less.

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Personal security could be breached in one of several ways: through DMV employees, for whom the temptation to make extra money would be ever-present; through federal workers who could also access the system; and when personal information is checked by retailers and sold to data collection companies such as ChoicePoint Inc.

The legislation contains no data protection provisions, so retailers will have no hurdles and every incentive to sell information to ChoicePoint and other data collection companies. Information databases maintained by CheckPoint, LexisNexis and other companies are breached regularly by identity thieves.

The REAL ID Act was unnerving from the start because of the way it was rushed through Congress with almost no debate, tacked on to unrelated spending bills. That's a very bad way to make laws; something as encompassing as a national identification system deserves better. The act was linked to bills for military spending in Afghanistan and tsunami relief, and therefore did not have its own congressional debate.

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http://www.dailybulletin.com/Stories/0,1413,203~23127~2917962,00.html#

[kevinmc]

1. No Problem. The GOP......

will privatize it and give the contract to CACI(sp)