By Robert O’Harrow Jr. and Jonathan Krim
The Washington Post
Navy Petty Officer Wellington Jimenez walked into the identification room at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn and gave his name, rank and fingerprint. In return, he got a token of the future: a plastic ID card embedded with a computer chip.
The card – with two photos, two bar codes, a magnetic strip and the etched gold chip – looks like a driver’s license on steroids. More than 120,000 active duty military personnel, selected reserves, Defense Department civilians and some contractors have received the cards in recent months. About 4 million are to be issued over the next two years.
When Jimenez sits down at a computer on his next ship, the USS George Washington, he’ll slip the card into a device that will electronically scramble his e-mail to prevent outsiders from reading it. The same card will automatically give him access to secure rooms across the world. At a military hospital, its chip will one day summon his medical records. Used as a debit card, it may even buy him a sandwich at a base cafeteria.
And more than ever, the cards will enable Defense Department officials to look into their databases and know the doorways he passes through, the computer he accesses, the doctor he sees, all of which is fine with Jimenez.
“I know the government will have more access to my information,” Jimenez said. “But I know it’s going to be used in the right way. I feel protected.”
The high-tech IDs were designed for tracking personnel across the globe and running more secure and efficient military operations. Now they’re models for something that was unthinkable before Sept. 11: national identification cards for all U.S. citizens.
Almost from the day the planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, members of Congress, security experts and high-tech executives have endorsed the idea of a new identification system as a weapon against terrorism. They believe the cards would prevent terrorists from operating under assumed names and identities.
Such proposals foundered in the past due to a distrust of centralized government that’s as old as the American republic. Opponents raised the specter of prying bureaucrats with access to databases full of personal information, of Gestapo-like stops on the street and demands to produce papers, and the kind of unchecked police authority that would erode constitutional protections.
The nation’s new consciousness of terrorism, however, a product of the fear and anger engendered by Sept. 11, has changed the way Americans think about security, surveillance and their civil liberties. For many people, the trade-off of privacy for security now seems reasonable.
As Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard University law professor, wrote in October in endorsing a national ID card, the “fear of an intrusive government can be addressed by setting criteria for any official who demands to see the card.”
“Even without a national card, people are always being asked to show identification,” he said. “The existence of a national card need not change the rules about when ID can properly be demanded.”
The new enthusiasm for ID cards isn’t the only example of a changed attitude toward privacy issues. Face recognition systems that link computers and cameras to watch passing crowds spurred so much controversy last summer that many public officials refused to consider the technology. Now airports across the country are clamoring to test and install such systems. Congress in October approved a sweeping anti-terrorism bill that gives authorities much broader powers to monitor e-mail, listen to telephone calls and secretly gather records. The Bush administration, led by Attorney General John Ashcroft, has proposed a series of other measures, with wide public support.
In a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, almost 3 of 4 people said they support government eavesdropping on telephone conversations between terrorist suspects and their lawyers. For the first time, there’s also strong support for secret tribunals for terrorist suspects and more government wiretapping. On the specific question of a national ID card, about 70 percent of those recently polled by the Pew Research Center said they favor a system that would require people to show a card to authorities who request it.
“We’re willing to accept this immense flow of data to law enforcement and their proxies to make sure we feel safe and secure,” said Marty Abrams, an information technology specialist at the law firm Hunton &Williams and former credit bureau executive. “The equilibrium point shifted. It was a massive movement by society.”
Abrams, privacy advocates and some lawmakers wonder whether all the implications are being considered. “We haven’t really looked at what this means in the long run,” Abrams said. “In our rush to make ourselves feel safer, have the appropriate due processes been worked out?”
The political hurdles for a national ID card remain huge. President Bush has publicly downplayed their benefits, saying they’re unnecessary. Bush’s new cyberspace security chief, Richard Clarke, recently said he does “not think it’s a very smart idea.”
Logistical problems and costs make it unlikely that a mandatory, national ID system could soon be adopted. In recent testimony before Congress, former Wyoming senator Alan Simpson, a supporter of more secure identification methods, warned against using the phrase “national ID” at all because of the political sensitivities. “That’s a diversion for people who like to talk about … Nazi Germany,” he said.
But a range of steps now under way could lead to a de facto national ID system.
The American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, a group of state officials, is devising a plan to create a national identification system that would link all driver databases to driver’s licenses with computer chips, bar codes and biometric identifiers.
Technology specialists at the Justice Department and General Services Administration have acknowledged they’re working with motor vehicle officials and commercial vendors to develop a standard for some sort of ID system, mandatory or not.
The Air Transport Association, meanwhile, has called for a voluntary travel card for passengers that would include a biometric identifier. They proposed linking the card to a system of government databases that would include criminal, intelligence and financial records. Passengers who agree to use the card would have easier access to airplanes.
A bill introduced in Congress by Rep. Stephen Horn, R-Calif., would establish a Commission on Homeland Security to study the federal government’s efforts to protect U.S. security, including the use of national identification systems.
“This commission is not intended to resolve the national identification issue,” said Horn. “It is merely to advance the debate in light of the September 11 attacks and the changed world in which we now live.”
Much of the momentum for a card has been generated by the fact that five of the 19 terrorists involved in the attacks on New York and at the Pentagon were able to obtain Social Security numbers by using false identities. The other 14 probably made up or appropriated other numbers and used them for false identification, according to Social Security officials.
At least seven of the hijackers also obtained Virginia state ID cards, which can serve as identification to board a plane, even though they lived in motels in Maryland. “If we can’t be sure when interacting that someone is who they purport to be, where are we?” said James Huse, the Social Security Administration’s inspector general.
Over the years, the government has found myriad ways to get involved in the identity business – passports, or state-issued driver’s licenses. A Social Security number is a ubiquitous identifier, now used far beyond its original purpose.
Social Security cards, however, contain no authenticating information, such as pictures, and can be easily forged. Pilot licenses are often printed on paper. Driver’s licenses, even those now designed to be tamperproof, also are vulnerable to abuse because they can be obtained with fraudulent birth certificates, Social Security cards and other documentation.
Tamperproof smart cards don’t necessarily worry privacy advocates, who have made identity theft a banner issue in recent years. What does trouble them is the more complex question of whether a national ID system should go beyond simple authentication of an individual’s identity.
Proponents argue that security can be achieved only with a smart card that can cross-check various storehouses of personal data to determine whether someone should be viewed with suspicion. That would mean, for example, that an airline ticket agent swiping a card would be warned, by law enforcement, intelligence and some private databases, about an individual who overstayed a tourist visa, is on a government watch list or who is wanted for a crime.
In the world before Sept. 11, a large majority of Americans expressed concerns about personal privacy in surveys, and those concerns focused on the increasing collection of data – names, addresses, buying habits and movements – by businesses interested in developing sophisticated marketing campaigns.
At the same time, they also demonstrated a willingness to surrender personal information for discounts or conveniences, such as cheaper groceries, faster passage through toll booths and upgrades on airline travel, one reason for an enormous growth in databases in recent years.
“It’s massive,” said Judith DeCew, a Clark University professor and author of “In Pursuit of Privacy: Law, Ethics and the Rise of Technology.” “It’s financial information. It’s credit information. It’s medical records, insurance records, what you buy, calls you make. Almost every action or activity you participate in while living a normal life potentially generates a huge database about you.”
State and federal governments also have expanded their data networks and use of personal information. Nearly every time police make a traffic stop, for example, they tap into National Crime Information Center databases to check whether the driver’s a known criminal or suspect. As part of an aggressive effort to track down parents who owe child support, the federal government created a data-monitoring system that includes all individuals with new jobs and the names, addresses, Social Security numbers and wages of nearly every working adult in the United States. Banks are obligated to search through lists of accounts for deadbeats, or turn the data over to the government.
Government agencies have contracted with private companies for information. The Internal Revenue Service, for example, hired the data company ChoicePoint Inc. to give about 20,000 employees instant access to 10 billion public records containing housing, financial and other personal information. ChoicePoint provides data to the FBI and other agencies as well.
Acxiom Corp. is lobbying Congress to change a relatively new law that limits their use of driver’s license numbers. Acxiom wants to use those numbers to create a new authentication system at airports, improving the ability of clerks to ask travelers personal questions that would help verify who they are.
A centralized ID database would speed verification and make life more convenient for travelers, airlines and others. The disadvantage, according to civil liberties activists, is that agencies would gain access to unprecedented amounts of aggregated data. Questions about who would maintain the database and gain access to it would be thorny. Accuracy and currency also pose challenges.
An alternative would be to configure databases to allow certain pieces of information, or fields of data, to be accessed by the smart card.
If a new ID card system is developed in the United States the initial users are likely to be immigrants and foreign visitors. Last month, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., introduced legislation that would require foreign nationals to use high-tech visa cards containing a fingerprint, retinal scan or other unique identifier. It also would create a centralized “lookout database” containing information about known terrorists and other U.S. visitors deemed threatening.
Larry Ellison, chief executive of Oracle Corp., the world’s largest database software maker, favors a voluntary card for all citizens, much like what the Air Transport Association endorsed. He agrees that such a system might ultimately serve the same purpose as a national ID, if people find travel and other activity inconvenient without it.
To critics, such a card would open the door to questions over when and where it would be used. Could Greyhound require it, even if a person wants to pay cash? A hardware store? A hardware store if you buy only certain things, such as large quantities of fertilizer? Who decides? How would an individual’s name be shared? What if a database contains errors – what kind of access and recourse would an individual have?
“Those are political decisions that need to be made,” said Ellison, who was among the first to promote a national ID system and pledged to donate computer software to make it possible. “I just think people need to ask themselves who they trust more: terrorists or the government?”
The driver’s license proposal stands as an alternative to a single national card. A technical standard would define the security features of the card but would give states the freedom of creative design and put the burden on them for administering it. Proponents of this approach acknowledge it could easily assume all the features of a national ID card once other government agencies and private companies begin tailoring their computers to capture information from the card.
Even if it were approved today, proponents say, the card would take years to take hold, as motor vehicle administrators arranged funding and drivers reapplied for licenses.
A national identification system would raise privacy questions, said Tate Preston, vice president at Datacard Group, which creates high-tech IDs. But the need for a better identification system is beyond question.
“In the 19th century, it was sufficient to ask who you are,” he said. “In the 20th century, it was sufficient to show who you are,” he said. “In the 21st century, you will have to prove who you are.”
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