Privacy Digest

Politics - Slow down national ID standards, state officials say - sacbee.com: "Citing security and privacy concerns, department of motor vehicles officials from Western states on Tuesday urged the U.S Department of Homeland Security to slow down implementation of a law requiring states to standardize supporting documents for driver's licenses.

'We have established a secure level of privacy and security and we would say that should be the level that all states achieve before we would be willing to share information with other states,' George Valverde, director of the California Department of Motor Vehicles, told a DHS panel meeting on the campus at the University of California, Davis. His counterparts from Arizona and Nevada agreed.

It was the only public hearing scheduled on implementation of the Real ID Act. Inspired by the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorists attacks -- and signed into law by President Bush -- the legislation would require a prescribed set of original documents for states to issue licenses and create an interlocking, 50-state database. Critics say increasing access to personal information will lead to more security breeches and identity theft.

Opponents on both sides of the political of spectrum, from the ACLU to the conservative Eagle Forum, contend the law would also establish a national identification card in a nation that historically has resisted such a document.

Tuesday's hearing was billed as a national Town Hall on the Real ID after federal officials scrapped suggestions to hold more public hearings and, with less than two weeks notice, agreed to hold the one that played out Tuesday in Davis.

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