Testimony for Public Hearing on REAL ID

Oklahoma State Capitol

Nov. 18, 2015
Kaye Beach
4019 Kent St.
Norman, OK. 73072
Thank you Chairman and members of the committee for holding this study and for
inviting me to speak today. My name is Kaye Beach. I am a member of the Board of
Directors of the Constitutional Alliance, a national organization formed primarily to
inform individuals and legislators about the threats to liberty posed by mandatory
biometric identification.
I will keep my comments brief but I am submitting more in-depth documentation
electronically for the record. This information will also be posted online at the top of my
website axiomamuse.wordpress.com.
I am here today to advocate on behalf of myself and other Oklahomans who are
opposed to mandatory biometric identification policies such as the one currently
instituted by the Department of Public Safety and also as is required by the federal
REAL ID Act of 2005.
I am personally most concerned about the mandatory collection and retention of our
biometric data but I will also touch on another requirement of REAL ID that
policymakers must be aware of when weighing their options.
For those that may not be aware, Oklahomas drivers licenses and ID cards are
biometric IDs The state Department of Public Safety has been collecting finger and
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facial biometrics since at least 2004. Oklahomas mandatory biometric identification

policy has created a clash of conscience for some Oklahomans of faith, including
myself, and has opened the door to unprecedented surveillance, which affects every
one of us.
When we talk about privacy often what we are really talking about is power. The
limit of our privacy is defines the limits of policy.
Believe it or not, the facial biometrics actually present a greater risk to our privacy and
personal liberty that a fingerprint does.
Facial recognition is the most commonly used form of what Laura Donahue, Professor
of Law at Georgetown University, has termed Remote Biometric Identification
which, according to Donahue, gives the government the ability to identity multiple
people, in public, at a distance, without their knowledge or consent and importantly, to
do so in a continuous and on-going manner.
Professor Donahue did an exhaustive research paper in 2012 on the growing number
of federal programs that are developing their ability to use remote biometric ID and
legal and social perils this technology presents. She takes great care to emphasize
that with remote biometric ID The level of intrusiveness represents something
different in kindnot degreefrom what has come before.
A GPS chip may reveal where the car goes, but the verification of personally
identifiable information is more invasive in its direct and personal link to a
specific individual.
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Professor Donahues research backs up materials distributed by the FBI in 2010 that
showed facial recognition technology being used by authorities to identify, investigate
and track individuals in public. This sort of surveillance, while not pervasive yet, is
more than just a theoretical risk. It is being done.
NLETS, the International Justice and Public Safety Network, has a vested interest
in using biometric data so you wouldnt expect them to present an extreme view as to
the privacy concerns relating to its product one of its newer products which is the
interstate sharing of biometric photos.
NLETS is the conduit for sharing the biometric data collected by the DMV as is required
by the REAL ID ACT.
In 2011 NLETS released an eye-openeing report, Privacy Impact Assessment
Report for the Utilization of Facial Recognition Technologies to Identify Subjects
in the Field which focuses on facial recognition field identification tools that use DMV
images.
According to NLETS there are many types of privacy risks surrounding the use of facial
recognition technology and the report openly acknowledges that using this technology
will hinder our ability to be anonymous, which, and is according to NLETS, an
important right in a free society
NLETS also informs us of another basic truth, but its one I get raised eyebrows over
when I say it. NLETS says that As an instrument of surveillance, identification
increases the governments power to control individuals behavior.
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And NLETs also warns us of what is probably already obvious

facial recognition systems, in combination with the wide use of video
surveillance across the country, would be likely to grow increasingly invasive over
time.
We cant know how exactly the federal government will use it but we do know that for
facial recognition technology to work as a mass surveillance tool, a good database of
biometric photos from previously identified people - is required. All states are collecting
photos in a biometric format making our state DMV databases a potential mass
surveillance goldmine.
The state has a responsibility to protect this data but the REAL ID Act requires
participating states to relinquish control over this sensitive data by connecting
our state DMV database to a nationwide network. What happens to our
accountability mechanism? So who do we hold accountable when our biometric data is
lost, stolen or misused, if the state has signed on to REAL ID?
The Dictator Clause in REAL ID
There are actually FOUR Official Purposes defined in Sec. 201 of the REAL ID Act.

You may have heard about the first 3 official purposes which requires you to present
your REAL ID when;
Entering certain federal buildings
Boarding a commercial airliner
Entering a nuclear facility

The media has let us down by not asking tough questions and as a result, the threat of
enforcement has been wildly overblown. In reality, the enforcement of the three official
purposes will effect very few people
Its the fourth official purpose that is the real wild card. The fourth official purpose
requires you to present a federal REAL ID for: any other purpose established by
the Secretary of Homeland Security
This allows the Secretary of the Dept. of Homeland Security to tack on additional
purposes that require a REAL ID in the future without any input from the people or
congress. DHS has made it clear by that additional purposes will definitely be
considered and that these additional purposes can be added solely at the DHS
Secretarys discretion.
--A mandatory biometric ID is indispensable for anything that the government wants to
monitor, ration or control and once they have it - they will use it.
How can our state seriously consider Real ID compliance when doing so explicitly
means agreeing to give an unelected federal bureaucrat so much power over the state
and its citizens?
Last point- It is important that we understand that biometrics do not establish a

persons identity. The common refrain is that we need biometric ID so we can know
that a person is who they claim to be. But that is not how it works.

We may be many things to many people but the fact remains that it is our birth
certificate which establishes our legal identity. The biometrics are added after the fact
and our identity card can only be as good as the foundation upon which it rests.
Take for Frances for example. France has issued app. 6.5 million biometric passports
yet an estimated 500,000 to 1 million of them are worthless because they are based on
fraudulent breeder documents
EVVE, Electronic Verification of Vital Events, is service available to the states, that
electronically validates (or invalidates) both birth and death records without exchanging
any personal information. It is the best system available for authenticating our
foundation documents. Guess how many states are actually using this system?
Only 1 state and its not Oklahoma.
I am not enthusiastic about a whole lot of scrutiny on everyones papers but doesnt it
make more sense to scrutinize a persons documents before you resort to scrutinizing
their body?
Let me be quick to add, that there is no perfect ID, not one that a free society could
tolerate anyways. It is technically possible to implement a literal womb to tomb
biometric ID but it would have to be affixed to the actual body rather than on a flimsy
document that could be lost or stolen. That would be pretty airtight but also horrible.
Although h it is true that some people do bad things with their privacy it is also true that
sometimes the ability to shed your legal identity is a matter of life and death.
.
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Requiring biometric ID for ordinary, law abiding people is unnecessary, too risky and
just plain wrong. It should stop.
If REAL ID is fully implemented in this state, we will be subject to more government
intrusion and control over their daily lives.
If we implement REAL ID, the state government must cede some jurisdiction and thus
its power. The state will be less able to act in its citizens behalf and the citizens lose
the ability to hold their government accountable --- Why would we sign up for this?
What is the benefit?
The decision of our state legislators made reject REAL ID in 2007 was a sound one.
We should stick with it.