By Mickey McCarter, HSToday Senior Washington Correspondent
States officially received a long-overdue
proposed rule for increasing the security of their driver's licenses by
creating uniform standards for verifying the identity of individuals
applying for those licenses as the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) released its proposal for implementing the Real ID Act on March 1.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff
announced the release of the proposed rule to the Federal Register in a
press conference in Washington, DC, last Thursday, noting that 18 of
the 19 hijackers of 9/11 had used identification documents such as
state driver's licenses to carry out terrorist acts. Later, the 9/11
Commission recommended that the federal government set uniform
standards for states to use in issuing secure driver's licenses.
"Applicants for driver's licenses are going to
need to bring documents to their state Department of Motor Vehicles
offices in order to validate or prove five things: who they are, what
their date of birth is, what their legal status is in the United
States, their social security number and their address. None of this
stuff is top secret stuff," Chertoff declared.
The process requires applicants to bring
various documents that confirm that information to the Motor Vehicles
Department. Documents that demonstrate legal status, for example, could
include passports, birth certificates or resident cards.
The proposed rule also requires states to
develop and enforce a comprehensive security plan to protect the
information coming into their offices. They also must conduct
background checks on employees at the motor vehicles departments to
ensure they have no criminal records and are therefore trustworthy to
handle sensitive information.
In addition, each US state must build the
capability to check the licenses of other states to make certain that
an individual is not attempting to hold a license in two jurisdictions.
Chertoff pointed out that states currently do the same for commercial
driver's licenses.
Critics have charged that DHS essentially has
wasted two years in the development of the rule, leaving states barely
more than a year before the deadline of May 11, 2008 to comply with the
rule. To assuage those concerns, Chertoff announced that any state that
requests an extension would receive one until at least Dec. 31, 2009.
States have estimated that the entire cost of
implementing the Real ID requirements would total $11 billion over a
5-year period. Chertoff agreed with that estimate, and indicated that
the federal government may try to help the states with the funds in
future years.
Although DHS is not supplying the states with
new funds to meet Real ID requirements this year, Chertoff revealed
that they could dedicate up to 20 percent of their homeland security
grant funds from DHS in fiscal 2007 toward compliance with the Real ID
provisions. That provides the states with about $100 million total in
federal funding they could use for meeting the goal within the first of
the estimated five years it would take to completely phase in Real ID.
"We hope that will at least help them in some
respect to defray the costs. Obviously a lot of the burden will still
fall on state budgets however," Chertoff confessed.
The proposed rule is open for comment during a 60-day period that began upon its release. It is available online at http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/nprm_realid.pdf.
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