Alabama a step ahead in national ID debate

Decatur Daily News | May 13, 2005
By M.J. Ellington

MONTGOMERY — By the end of summer, your Alabama driver license will contain more information than you may want others to know.

The 2-by-3-inch card will include more than a photograph, address, height, weight and hair color.

It's possible in the future that the officer writing the ticket may know some of your medical history and about the last purchase you made with a credit card.

Alabama's new license will have more possibilities to store information, contained in a special chip, that law enforcement officials can read with computer equipment.

Federal Homeland Security Department officials want everyone to have similar forms of identification and they pushed a bill through Congress this week to put the Real ID measure into federal law. On Thursday, the bill only awaited President Bush's signature to become law.

Some local law enforcement officers believe such a card would help with their work, but they understand concerns connected with the measure.

"I've been a cop for 30 years and I wish everyone in the country had an ID card. I recognize that not everyone feels that way," Decatur police Capt. Ken Collier said.

Local police see a lot of forged driver licenses and green cards, and Collier said some of them are of good quality.

A card with a computer chip that allowed officers to access information about the driver could identify forgeries easier, he said.

Collier also recognizes that such a card may be a target for identity thieves.

"Anything that records all your information, there is a potential for it," he said.

While the federal government works to begin Real ID, many proposed national requirements will already be on new Alabama licenses and identification cards.

Alabama system

In Alabama, a new driver license system expected by late summer will include many provisions that supporters want to put in Real ID, said Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Martha Earnhardt.

Although Earnhardt does not know details of what the information strip in the new licenses will include, she said they will have a digitized portrait and a biometric chip to store an individual's information.

Alabama's plans were in the works before Congress passed Real ID. But officials at DPS are assessing Real ID now, Earnhardt said.

"We do not know the bottom line impact yet," she said.

Earnhardt said security checks for driver's licenses are not new to the state. Alabama is one of three states to do background and security checks for applicants. Other states include Texas and Connecticut, she said.

Because Alabama also has driver license inspectors trained to check for specific information, Earnhardt said, the state makes about 5,000 arrests per year among people who come in to get a driver's license.

Reasons include outstanding warrants, criminal charges such as murder or escape, or expired green cards for people from other countries.

Real ID supporters say the card will make it harder for illegal aliens to get driver licenses and fly or travel internationally. Law enforcement officials believe the card would make it more difficult to go from place to place with fake ID cards.

Civil liberty advocates say a national ID discriminates and invades the average American's privacy.

"It is a method by which an identity thief will have everything he needs to steal your identity in one little card," said Montgomery attorney Tommy Goggans.

U.S. Rep. Robert Aderholdt, R-Haleyville, supported the federal measure when it passed the House.

In the Senate, the bill was attached to a funding bill for the war in Iraq and cleared with a 100-to-0 vote after strong objections failed to remove it from the funding measure.

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