Texas Crack Down on Fake IDs

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 7d907.html
06:42 AM CDT on Friday, September 7, 2007

As Sept. 11, 2001, demonstrated, a fake identity can open the door to a terrorist attack. Unfortunately, the Texas Department of Public Safety doesn't seem to fully appreciate this point.

As chronicled in several stories by Dallas Morning News reporter Emily Ramshaw, dozens of foreign nationals who came to Dallas between 2003 and 2005 fraudulently obtained Texas driver's licenses, state auto inspections, vehicle titles, license plates and insurance policies. Federal officials allege Isaac Banai, a Dallas taxi driver, facilitated the scam by instructing the immigrants to use a motel as their phony address on their state driving test application. Mr. Banai later retrieved the drivers' licenses for the illegal immigrants, who in turn used the documents to obtain authentic Texas auto insurance, titles and license plates.

There's a lot of blame to go around, but a fair amount has to land at the doorstep of the DPS, which did not require valid and current immigration documents before issuing the drivers' licenses. The DPS also has been glacially slow to comprehend a bigger and more serious concern – did anyone with potentially terrorist intentions exploit the system?

The agency has been so slow to act that Gov. Rick Perry is trying to light a fire under the public safety commission that oversees DPS. Similarly, state Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, vows to make this a focal point of his Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee's next meeting.

We'll take it a step further and recommend that an interim committee explore ways to make DPS – and all Texas government agencies – more functional and responsive to post-9/11 threats.

The system for drivers' licenses, vehicle inspections, registrations and insurance is ripe for exploitation. There's no excuse in the digital age for the licensing and registration system to be unable to share information in real-time.

Once buttressed by official documents, a false identity becomes more difficult to detect. Today, it was an illegal immigration scammer. Tomorrow, it could be a terrorist.