Please find below an example of UPI's continuing coverage of homeland security and related matters. A shorter version appeared on A5 of Friday's Washington Times. I hope you find it interesting. You may link to the full length version on the Web here:
http://www.upi.com/inc/view.php?StoryID=20060921-060334-7007r This story remains the copyright property of UPI. If you wish to publish or archive this article, or get more information about UPI products and services, please contact me or e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] To stop receiving these alerts, just reply with the word "unsubscribe" in the subject line. Shaun Waterman UPI Homeland and National Security Editor E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: 202 898 8081 Web-page: http://homeland-hack.blogspot.com/ States: cost of Real ID is $11B By SHAUN WATERMAN UPI Homeland and National Security Editor WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 (UPI) -- Overhauling America's driver licensing systems to make them secure against identity thieves and undocumented migrants will slam state governments with direct costs of more than $11 billion over the next five years, according to a survey by state officials. The overhaul, mandated by Congress in last year's Real ID Act, will also "have a major impact on services to the public and impose unrealistic burdens on states to comply" with a May 2008 deadline. The National Governors Association and the National Conference of State Legislatures, joined by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, based their projections on data from 47 departments of motor vehicles around the country, which answered hundreds of questions about the costs of complying with the national standards on document security and applicant-identity verification the act mandates in time for the deadline. Their report, published Thursday, paints a grim picture of a transformation it says states cannot complete on time except at huge expense and at the risk of overwhelming an infrastructure already running at full capacity. It warns that delays in publishing rules for implementing the law mean projected costs could rise even higher, depending on the eventual shape of the regulations. It calls for Congress to push legislative deadlines back and provide more federal money for implementation; and for homeland security regulations to be written in a way that provides more flexibility for state governments to comply. Officials at the Department of Homeland Security, where the regulations are being drafted, said they were working closely with state officials and listening to their concerns. Spokesman Jarrod Agen said the regulations would be published by the end of the year and that the department would issue its own cost estimates then. "We recognize that (state motor vehicle agencies) could be overwhelmed," he told United Press International. "We're drafting the regulations so that doesn't happen." The report says the biggest costs, nearly $8.5 billion, or 70 percent, are those associated with re-issuing all 245 million American drivers licenses so that they comply with the new standards. Because the law requires that all documents used to establish identity be verified, and that license holders prove either their citizenship or their right to live in the country, the report says: "Efficiencies from alternative renewal processes such as Internet and mail will be lost" and states will have to pay out to hire more workers and stretch business hours to meet the huge demand. The five-year deadline for re-enrollment that officials are currently considering, says the report, would increase the workload at state motor vehicle bureaus by more than 130 percent on average and more than double transaction times, resulting in "severe customer service disruptions." It calls for the re-enrollment deadline to be made ten years, which will reduce the excess burden and spread the costs. The report also says the law's mandate for electronic verification of identity documents needs to be relaxed, given that states anticipate processing more than a billion verifications over the next five years and that only one of the five systems required to meet the mandate is actually up and running. The report says states should be able to go on using their existing verification system until the new systems are established. Also included in the $11 billion price tag is $248 million to change the way state agencies take photos, because the law requires that agencies now do this at the beginning of the process, rather than the end, so that photos of rejected candidates are available; these can then be used to prevent them making subsequent applications. That quarter billion does not, however, include the costs of special facial imaging recognition software that can be used to compare applicants' photos with photos of existing license holders, to prevent people making multiple applications or trying to change their identity. "Although photo capture of all applicants is a useful tool, its effectiveness is diminished greatly without a significant investment in facial recognition technology," says the report. Verifying that foreigners are legally in the country before issuing them licenses is another area where states will face problems, it says. The Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, system -- a homeland security network which reports the immigration status of foreigners to verify eligibility for federal benefits -- "will have to be retrofitted" so that motor vehicle agencies can use it, the report says. Currently 21 states have on-line access to SAVE, the report says, but the system reports too many cases as simply "pending" and is only operational in real time 75 percent of the time. It needs upgrading, says state officials. (c) Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
