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_______________ Original message _______________
Subject: Richard Clarke on airport ID checking
Author: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 07th March 2005 4:1:51 PM
For IP, if you wish.
>From yesterday's NY Times:
Real ID's, Real Dangers
By RICHARD A. CLARKE Have you ever wondered what good it does when they look at your
driver's license at the airport? Let me assure you, as a former bureaucrat partly responsible for the 1996 decision to create a photo-ID requirement, it no longer does any good whatsoever. The ID check is not done by federal officers but by the same kind of minimum-wage rent-a-cops who were doing the inspection of carry-on luggage before 9/11. They do nothing to verify that your license
is real. For $48 you can buy a phony license on the Internet (ask any 18-year-old) and fool most airport ID checkers. Airport personnel could be equipped with scanners to look for the hidden security features incorporated into most states' driver's licenses, but although some bars use this technology to spot under-age drinkers, airports do not. The photo-ID requirement provides only a false sense of security. ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/06/magazine/06ADVISER.html
--Prof. Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
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