Thread: Spitzer Finds Ally for Driver’s License Plan

Spitzer Finds Ally for Driver’s License Plan

October 19, 2007, 12:30 pm
Spitzer Finds Ally for Driver’s License Plan
By Sewell Chan

Gov. Eliot Spitzer, whose plan to grant illegal immigrants driver’s licenses has encountered a wave of opposition among New York State voters and politicians, announced this morning that Richard A. Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism czar, had endorsed the proposal.
In a news conference at New York University, Mr. Spitzer tried to portray Mr. Clarke’s support to allay concerns that the proposal would make it easier for criminals or even prospective terrorists to obtain government identification. Mr. Clarke did not appear at the news conference, but he issued the following statement, which Mr. Spitzer’s staff released:
The United States needs a reliable and secure personal identification system, with appropriate civil liberties protections, to insure that we know who it is that is being allowed in to sensitive facilities and who is engaging in other controlled activities. Such a system will also reduce the billions of dollars of loss annually in identity theft and related fraud. The Real ID Act passed by Congress, if implemented, will form a basis for such a system based on drivers’ licenses.
However, the federal government has not yet issued guidelines to states on how to implement that law. Even when the guidelines are issued, states will have many years to implement them. Some states have already announced their intention to ignore the law because it is an unfunded federal mandate, forcing significant new expenditures on the states. Thus, the fate of the Real ID Act is uncertain.
In the interim, states should act to register immigrants, legal and illegal, who use our roadways as New York is doing. From a law enforcement and security perspective, it is far preferable for the state to know who is living in it and driving on its roads, and to have their photograph and their address on file than to have large numbers of people living in our cities whose identity is totally unknown to the government.
In the longer term, Congress should increase the likelihood that the Real ID Act is implemented nationwide by authorizing the federal government to pay for its incremental costs.
Mr. Spitzer promised during his campaign last year to allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, but the topic has proved to be a political quandary for him.
Under the new rules, which were announced in September, the State Department of Motor Vehicles will accept a current foreign passport as proof of identity without also requiring a valid yearlong visa or other evidence of legal immigration. The policy, which does not require legislative approval, will be phased in starting in December and will be tied to new antifraud measures.
Several update county clerks have voiced opposition to the plan, and former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Republican who is running for president, has also spoken out against it. The governor has been steadfast so far, but some of his fellow Democrats are worried that his stance could have high political costs. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, a Democratic presidential candidate, has expressed sympathy with the goals of the plan but has not taken an unequivocal stance.
Interestingly, even before Mr. Clarke’s statement today, some security experts had spoken favorably about Mr. Spitzer’s plan, saying it was a of bringing a hidden population into the open and ultimately making the identification system more secure, not to mention getting more drivers on the road licensed and insured.
The experts said the success of the policy will rest on the reliability of new technology that will be installed in D.M.V. offices to verify the authenticity of passports and other documents that the illegal immigrants will be required to submit when applying for licenses.
The experts noted that having a driver’s license should not make it easier to board a domestic airplane flight, because foreign passports are already accepted as identification at airports. Under federal guidelines, neither a foreign passport nor an American driver’s license is among the criteria used to determine whether the bearer will be subject to extra security screening.
Although several of the Sept. 11 terrorists used driver’s licenses to rent vehicles and board airplanes, they were able to obtain licenses as apparently legal immigrants, if in some cases by presenting fraudulent documentation. The 9/11 Commission — which took extensive testimony from Mr. Clarke — specifically declined to make recommendations on whether licenses should be granted to illegal immigrants, saying it was not germane to their inquiry.
Mathew R. Warren contributed reporting.

?????? THEY BOTH NEED THEY'RE HEAD EXAMINED!!

Mr. CLARK should of never been counter terrorism czar!


Giving ILLEGAL ALIENS LICENSES IS LOONEY AND YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE IT EASIER FOR TERRORISTS AND VOTER FRAUD!

The only thing illegals should get IS SENT HOME!

LICENSE TO CONFUSE


October 20, 2007 -- Gov. Spitzer, in a deep hole over his plan to give drivers' licenses to ille gal immigrants, won't stop digging.
He spoke at NYU's Center for Law and Security yesterday to underscore the plan's security bells-and-whistles in a bid to reassure an astonishingly skeptical public. (A scant 22 percent of New Yorkers approve of the scheme, according to a recent poll.)

He trumpeted an endorsement of the plan from Richard Clarke, a counter-terrorism czar in both the Clinton and Bush White Houses.

Bringing in Clarke as a supporter of the plan was an odd choice, to say the least.

For one thing, despite heading up the nation's anti-terrorism effort from 1998, Clarke failed to foresee 9/11. Maybe nobody could have, but the attack effectively revoked Clarke's security-expert credentials.

Yesterday, though, Spitzer distributed this statement from Clarke: "[States] should act to register immigrants, legal and illegal, who use our roadways as New York is doing. From a law-enforcement and security perspective, it is far preferable for the state to know who is living in it and driving on its roads."

A clear endorsement of the Spitzer plan, right?

Small problem.

Back on June 1, The New York Times published an opinion piece written by Clarke that argued precisely the opposite: "Potential terrorists here illegally can easily use phony licenses or, in many states, get real ones issued to them, along with credit cards and all of the other papers needed to blend into our society . . . Indeed, those arrested for allegedly planning to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey included illegal immigrants who apparently had little difficulty getting along in this country."

Asked about the inconsistency, the governor's office deflected the question to Clarke, who "explained" by e-mail:

"Terrorists can attempt to create counterfeit or phony licenses, but the New York license is hard to forge. Terrorists could apply for a N.Y. license and if they had verifiable proof of identity, they could get a license. The N.Y. rules require verifiable proof of identity. But having them register in a real name is precisely what we want. U.S. counter-terrorism authorities would have access to the names, addresses and photos of people who registered."

Say what? Doesn't that contradict your op-ed, Mr. Clarke?

"I just told you why it doesn't contradict what I wrote," he told The Post's Ken Lovett last night.

Hmmm. You could have fooled us.

We wonder.

Will Spitzer ever quit digging?


www.nypost.com

OOPS Sorry Spitz, you been had.


http://www.nypost.com/seven/10202007/ne ... or_ali.htm

FLIP-FLOPPY EXPERT NOW FOR ALIEN IDS

By KENNETH LOVETT in Albany and MAGGIE HABERMAN in New York
Richard Clarke: Then
'. . . Potential terrorists here illegally can easily use phony licenses or, in many states, get real ones issued to them, along with credit cards and all of the other papers needed to blend into our society.'
- New York Times Op-Ed, June 2007
October 20, 2007 -- Gov. Spitzer touted support yesterday from terror expert Richard Clarke for his plan to issue illegal immigrants driver's licenses - but critics promptly revealed the former federal official had raised concerns about the idea just months ago.

EDITORIAL: License To Confuse

The latest day of volleys over Spitzer's highly controversial plan to allow the state's estimated 1 million illegal immigrants to get licenses began in the morning, when the governor tried to push back at critics by announcing support from Clarke, a former counter-terror adviser to President Bush and President Bill Clinton.

"Let us heed the common sense advice of someone who is used to giving common sense advice even when no one wants to hear it, a person known for cutting through the politics . . . [and saying] the hard truths," Spitzer said of Clarke, who was not at the event.

The governor quoted a statement from Clarke saying, "States should act to register immigrants, legal and illegal, who use our roadways as New York is doing."

"From a law enforcement and security perspective, it is far preferable for the state to know who is living in it and driving on its roads . . . than to have large numbers of people living in our cities whose identity is totally unknown to the government," read the rest of the quote from Clarke.

But Republican opponents of the license plan quickly pointed out that Clarke wrote an op-ed piece in The New York Times just this past June in which he rapped states that are, in absence of federal licensing standards, letting illegal immigrants get them.

"The result is that potential terrorists here illegally can easily use phony licenses or, in many states, get real ones issued to them, along with credit cards and all of the other papers needed to blend into our society," he wrote.

Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco (R-Schenectady) chided Clarke, saying, "I don't know which statement he is tied [to]."

"The fact of the matter is we think it's a security problem," Tedisco said, adding that while he respects Clarke, "he is one man and there is a large population out there that think it's a danger."

Asked to explain the two quotes, Clarke would only respond by e-mail, and told The Post that the security involved in the New York license is tough to penetrate.

"Terrorists can attempt to create counterfeit or phony licenses, but the New York license is hard to forge," Clarke said of the new technology that Spitzer has proposed - but which hasn't been implemented.

"Terrorists could apply . . . for a New York license and if they had verifiable proof of identity, they could get a license. The New York rules require verifiable proof of identity. But having them register in real name is precisely what we want. U.S. counter-terrorism authorities would have access to the names, addresses, and photos of people who registered."

Meanwhile, the Spitzer administration backed off a tough-on-illegals policy that would have prevented license applicants from receiving a voter registration form without a Social Security number, The Post has learned.

kenneth.lovett@nypost.com