Latest news with #LamarAlexander
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
With REAL ID, America Now Has National ID Cards and Internal Passports
I don't have a REAL ID–compliant driver's license and don't plan to get one. I figure if the federal government wants to implement internal passports in the U.S., which after 20 years of political and legal battles is now happening, we might as well be honest about it and use actual passports. So, from now on, I'll enter the secure areas of airports and federal buildings with my actual passport, which is good for travel both external and internal to the U.S. Or we could call REAL ID–compliant licenses, which must adhere to federal standards, "national ID cards." A little honesty is a good thing. "The United States is getting a national ID card," security expert Bruce Schneier wrote in 2005 when the REAL ID Act was passed. "The REAL ID Act … establishes uniform standards for state driver's licenses, effectively creating a national ID card. It's a bad idea, and is going to make us all less safe." The federal government denies that REAL ID means we all now have to carry national identification cards. Sort of. In 2007, after the REAL ID Act had been enacted but in the midst of state refusal to implement the law and popular opposition, then-Sen. Lamar Alexander (R–Tenn.) conceded the nature of the beast. "It may be that we need a national identification card," he commented on the floor of the Senate. "I've always been opposed to that. We live in a different era now." The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) still denies that standardized identification documents required by the U.S. government for domestic air travel and entrance to federal facilities are national ID. "REAL ID is a national set of standards, not a national identification card," DHS insists in a FAQ. "REAL ID does not create a federal database of driver license information. Each jurisdiction continues to issue its own unique license, maintains its own records, and controls who gets access to those records and under what circumstances." That's true-ish, but beside the point. The REAL ID Act set minimum standards for the information contained in an identification card, the conditions (such as citizenship or legal residency) qualifying a person to receive a card, and for the documentation that must be presented for an application. The law also prescribes that information be presented on identification cards in "a common machine-readable technology, with defined minimum data elements." That common technology is helpful since the law also requires that ID issuers "provide electronic access to all other States to information." Data is mostly shared through the State-to-State Verification Service, which links those different databases. Everything besides that is just cosmetic. That includes the names of issuing states, color schemes, and background imagery. They may make ID cards look different from issuing state to issuing state, but they're all interchangeable, with shareable data. And none of this is going to make us safer—which was the justification for the law. "All but one of the Sept. 11 hijackers carried government IDs that helped them board planes and remain in the country illegally," DHS then-Secretary Michael Chertoff complained in 2008 amidst debates over REAL ID and refusals by some states to comply. But most people with fake driver's licenses don't acquire them by walking up to a Department of Motor Vehicles clerk with a pleasant smile and a note from mom. Instead, they buy them from corrupt officials. "The manager of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles office at Springfield Mall was charged yesterday with selling driver's licenses to illegal immigrants and others for up to $3,500 apiece," The Washington Post's Jerry Markon reported in 2005. That was "the second time in two years that a Northern Virginia DMV employee was accused of fraudulently selling licenses for cash." If corrupt officials are bypassing normal bureaucratic procedures to issue fraudulent identification documents, standardizing those documents across the nation won't fix the problem. But it could create the illusion of enhanced security. And it will create that illusion even as all that standardized data is placed in linked databases that actually enable identity fraud. "The massive amounts of personal information that would be stored in State databases that are to be shared electronically with other States, as well as unencrypted data on the card, could provide one-stop shopping for identity thieves," then-Sen. Daniel Akaka (D–Hawaii) warned during committee hearings on the REAL ID Act. "REAL ID may make us less secure by giving us a false sense of security." Yes, government officials argue that their agencies' database security is super-secure. They would never let hackers go browsing through their records for interesting information or for the makings of new identities. But these are the same officials who regularly hand vast quantities of sensitive records to foreign hackers (think of the Office of Personnel Management data breaches) or to aggrieved workers (as with some IRS records leaks). There may, in fact, be nothing less secure than a secure government database. Perhaps the worst part, though, is that national IDs and internal passports as embodied in REAL ID add to the expectation that we must prove our identities on demand to the satisfaction of government officials. REAL ID makes it ever easier to insist that we produce papers containing standardized information to engage in everyday activities. "A national identity system works against the interests of free people and a free society in several ways," Jim Harper wrote in 2018 for the Cato Institute. "A national ID system undercuts the important background privacy protection of practical obscurity: the difficulty of learning about people when records are not created or when data are difficult to access or interpret." The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Alexis Hancock emphasizes that 20 years of delays in implementing REAL ID have done the U.S. no harm, while the arrival of standardized national ID has real risks. Hancock helpfully points to a number of physical and electronic documents that can be used in the place of REAL ID–compliant identification to fly and to enter federal facilities. Passports are on that list, and that's what I'm sticking with. That it's now used as a standardized internal passport and national ID card is exactly the point I'm making every time I'm required to present it so I can go about my business. The post With REAL ID, America Now Has National ID Cards and Internal Passports appeared first on
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion: An Open Letter to Linda McMahon
Dear Madam Secretary, Congratulations and welcome to a place we once knew well. You face any number of tough challenges on behalf of American students, parents, educators and taxpayers, as well as the administration you serve, but your 'Department's Final Mission' speech shows that you're well prepared to meet them. We particularly admire your commitment to making American education 'the greatest in the world.' But how will we — and you, and our fellow Americans — know how rapidly we're getting there? By now, you're probably aware that the single most important activity of the department you lead is the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known to some as NAEP and to many as the Nation's Report Card. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter That's the primary gauge by which we know how American education is doing, both nationally and in the states to which you rightly seek to restore its control. Almost four decades ago — during Ronald Reagan's second term — it was our job to modernize that key barometer of student achievement. Five years after A Nation at Risk told Americans that their education system was far from the world's greatest, state leaders — governors especially — craved better data on the performance of their students and schools. And they were right. At the time, they had no sure way of monitoring that performance. Related That was one of our challenges, back in the day. Advised by a blue-ribbon study group led by outgoing Tennessee governor (and future U.S. senator) Lamar Alexander, and with congressional cooperation spearheaded by the late Ted Kennedy, in 1988 we proposed what became a bipartisan transformation of an occasional government-sponsored test into a regular and systematic appraisal of student achievement in core academic subjects, administered by the National Center for Education Statistics (part of your Institute for Education Sciences) and overseen by an independent group of state and local leaders, plus educators and the general public. (One of your responsibilities is appointing several terrific people each year to terms on the 26-member National Assessment Governing Board.) That 1988 overhaul made three big changes: Creation of that independent board to ensure the data's integrity, accuracy and utility; Inauguration of state-level reporting of student achievement in grades 4, 8 and 12, i.e. at the ends of elementary, middle and high school; and Authorization for the board to set standards — known as achievement levels — by which to know whether that achievement is satisfactory. Much else was happening in U.S. education at the time: School choice was gaining traction. States were setting their own academic standards and administering their own assessments. Graduation requirements were rising as the economy modernized and its human capital needs increased. Related As these and other reforms gathered speed, NAEP became the country's most trusted barometer of what was (and wasn't) working. You alluded to NAEP data during your confirmation hearing. President Donald Trump deploys it when referencing the shortcomings of U.S. schools. For example, his Jan. 29 executive order on school choice began this way: 'According to this year's National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 70% of 8th graders were below proficient in reading, and 72% were below proficient in math.' Everybody relies on NAEP data, and its governing board's standards have become the criteria by which states gauge whether their own standards are rigorous enough. Just the other day, Gov. Glenn Youngkin's board of education used them to benchmark Virginia's tougher expectations for students and schools. Reading and math were, and remain, at the heart of NAEP, but today it also tests civics, U.S. history, science and other core subjects — exactly as listed in your speech. But NAEP is not perfect. It needs another careful modernization. It should make far better use of technology, including artificial intelligence. It should be nimbler and more efficient. The procedures by which its contractors are engaged need overhauling. (The Education Department's whole procurement process needs that, too — faster, more competitive, more efficient, less expensive!) Yet NAEP also needs to do more. Today, for instance, it gives state leaders their results only in grades 4 and 8, not at the end of high school. It doesn't test civics and history nearly often enough, and never in 12th grade, even though most systematic study of those subjects occurs in high school. (It probably tests fourth- and eighth-grade reading and math too often — the result of a different federal law.) Related Doing more shouldn't cost any more. Within NAEP's current budget — approaching $200 million, a drop in the department's murky fiscal ocean — much more data should be gettable by making new contracts tighter and technology smarter, squeezing more analysis from NAEP's vast trove and having staffers put shoulders to the wheel. (Former IES director Mark Schneider has pointed the way.) But making this happen will take strong executive leadership, an agile, hardworking governing board and your own oversight. You may decide it's time for another blue-ribbon group to take a close look at NAEP and recommend how to modernize it again without losing its vital ability to monitor changes over time in student achievement. Yes, this is all sort of wonky. NAEP results get used all the time, but it's far down in the bureaucracy and doesn't make much noise. Nobody in Congress (as far as we know) pays it much attention. Yet it remains — we believe — the single most important activity of your department. Which, frankly, is why it needs your watchful attention! We wish you well in your new role. Please let us know if we can help in any way. Sincerely, William J. Bennett, U.S. Secretary of Education (1985-88) Chester E. Finn Jr., Assistant Secretary for Research & Improvement and Counselor to the Secretary (1985-88)
