Richard Clarke on airport ID checking

["Dave Farber" <dave () farber net>]

_______________ Original message _______________
Subject:        Richard Clarke on airport ID checking
Author: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb () cs columbia edu>
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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