Letter: FCW ignores serious questions about enhanced driver's license

Regarding “Arizona signs on for enhanced driver's licenses,” it continues to trouble me that nobody reporting on enhanced driver's licenses as state after state enters into agreements with the Homeland Security Department is asking questions about how these driver’s licenses are going to work and just how they provide better security at our borders.

The government has provided no details about how states and the federal government are going to share information and verify citizenship; how the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative identification number in the radio frequency identification chips -- the equivalent of a Social Security number for international travel -- will be issued, protected and read at the border; or even whether all current driver's license holders are eligible to receive an enhanced license or only those people born in the state where they apply. For states to justify these agreements because they are worried about the Dec 31, 2009, deadline without a public vetting of how enhanced licenses are going to work is tantamount to seeing a light at the end of the tunnel and ignoring what might be at the other end.

If Federal Computer Week isn't asking these questions, who will?

Randy Vanderhoof
Smart Card Alliance

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