9/11 (Whitewash) Commission Recommendations Carry Hidden Threat to Privacy, Freedom

Intelligence Reform May Be "Trojan Horse" for National ID
System

There's a full head of political steam behind the 9/11
Commission's recommendations, and the press is focusing
primarily on the effort to reform the intelligence
community. Unfortunately, a closer look at the
recommendations, and proposed legislation like the
9/11 Commission Report Implementation Act, reveals that
they would do much more than implement intelligence
reforms. The recommendations would also set in motion
a dangerous and fundamentally flawed "security" plan:
creating a system to tag and track US citizens using
"standardized" identification. In other words, it paves
the way for a national ID card system - something we
at EFF strongly oppose.

National ID cards will not solve the problem of terrorism,
just as they would not have prevented the 9/11 attacks.
Many of the 9/11 hijackers had proper identification and
were in the country legally.

Further, identification is not intelligence. Three of
the 19 hijackers - Hani Hanjour, Saeed al Ghamdi, and
Khalid al Mihdhar - made false statements on their visa
applications that could have been proven to be false
when they applied. A new national ID card would not fill
these kinds of gaps in intelligence.

But the bad news doesn't stop there. The 9/11
Commission Report Implementation Act suggests that a
national ID system would be part of an "integrated
screening system" that would include "a range of security
check points throughout the Nation's screening system,"
with access to centralized "government databases," and
"biometric identifiers" (Section 602). Travel surveillance
is also part of the plan, with the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) requiring commercial air carriers to
provide the private passenger information to make it
work (Section 703). It's not clear how the government
would use the biometrics and travel patterns of nearly
300 million Americans to catch the small number of
individuals worldwide who are planning terrorist attacks.
What is clear is that the system would create fertile
ground for constitutional violations and the abuse of
private information.

"Congress rushed through the PATRIOT Act under enormous
political pressure, and the public is paying for it
with unnecessary damage to our privacy and
constitutional freedoms. We can't afford to make the
same mistake again," said Lee Tien, EFF Senior Staff
Attorney. "The desire to improve the coordination of
the intelligence systems should not be a Trojan horse
for more incursions on civil liberties."

It's important that we speak out now against the stealth
introduction of a national ID system. Follow the link
below to let Congress know you support effective
intelligence reform, not a system that would bring us
even further toward a surevillance society for only the
illusion of security.

Make your voice heard with the EFF Action Center:


9/11 Commission Report Implementation Act of 2004:


Travel/ID recommendations in the 9/11 Commission Report:


Crypto-Gram: National IDs:


For more about national IDs: