October 21, 2004 | Fast News Day

Thank goodness there's more than just campaign speeches in the news today.

First, I'll plug my own story for Wired News about the State Department's ongoing drive to create RFID-enabled passports.

"The reason we are doing this is that it simply makes passports more secure," [State Department spokeswoman] Shannon said. "It's yet another layer beyond the security features we currently use to ensure the bearer is the person who was issued the passport originally."

But civil libertarians and some technologists say the chips are actually a boon to identity thieves, stalkers and commercial data collectors, since anyone with the proper reader can download a person's biographical information and photo from several feet away.

"Even if they wanted to store this info in a chip, why have a chip that can be read remotely?" asked Barry Steinhardt, who directs the American Civil Liberty Union's Technology and Liberty program. "Why not require the passport be brought in contact with a reader so that the passport holder would know it had been captured? Americans in the know will be wrapping their passports in aluminum foil."

Full piece here.

I was unable, however, to fit in a very interesting argument by the ACLU's Barry Steinhardt, who thinks -- with some reason -- that the 9/11 commission legislation could mandate RFIDs in driver's licenses and state identification cards.

Speaking of 9/11 legislation, there's much ado in Washington and in the papers about the negotiations over the competing versions of the most important bill of the year.

In short, the House leadership does not want to compromise on controversial law enforcement and immigration provisions and they are wary of giving too much power to the national intelligence director. They are also opposed to the creation of an independent civil liberties board with wide-ranging investigatory powers (including the ability to subpoena documents, if necessary).

The Senate, on the other hand, wants both a powerful NID and a strong civil liberties board, that would complement, but not replace, the policy-advisory commission created by the White House in late August.

One of my earlier posts on a civil liberties board here.

Relevant stories: Philip Shenon of The New York Times here, and Charles Babington of The Washington Post here.

From Babington's piece:

"We would be handing the terrorists a victory if we compromise the very freedoms that define us as Americans," said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), head of the Senate delegation.

Supporting her position is the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission, which goaded Congress into action with its hard-hitting July report on government deficiencies in intelligence and anti-terrorism efforts. A civil liberties board is vital and its members "must be Senate-confirmed" and "have strong investigative powers," said a four-page letter sent to the negotiators yesterday by the commission's top members -- former New Jersey governor Thomas H. Kean (R) and former representative Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.).

And in other random news, from the AP:

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry says he would discontinue the color-coded terror alerts issued by the Department of Homeland Security and find ``some more thoughtful way of alerting America,'' according to an interview in Rolling Stone magazine.

``I think Americans, sadly, laugh at it,'' Kerry said, referring to the alerts in an interview to be published Friday in Rolling Stone. ``They don't know what to do.''

Posted by Ryan Singel at October 21, 2004 10:00 AM