Latest News/Events

• San Francisco Preliminarily Approves ID Card Without Citizenship Requirements. On November 13, San Francisco preliminarily approved legislation (pdf) to issue city identification cards that would be available to any resident, regardless of citizenship status. Such cards would establish legal identity and residency and allow cardholders to access basic city services such as banking, aid for the homeless and library access. The San Francisco board will review the bill again before sending it to the mayor, who has indicated his general support. In July, New Haven, Conn., began issuing the first such city-sponsored ID cards to undocumented immigrants. Last month, in a reversal, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer decided to offer three types of driver’s licenses for purposes other than driving, including one that would include immigration status. The plan has been heavily criticized for security and privacy problems. (November 13)

• EPIC, Experts Urge Supreme Court to Strike Down Indiana Voter Photo ID Law. In a “friend-of-the-court” brief (pdf) filed today, EPIC and 10 legal scholars and technical experts urged the U.S. Supreme Court to invalidate an Indiana law requiring individuals to show a government-issued photo ID card before allowing them to vote. “Not only has the state failed to establish the need for the voter identification law or to address the disparate impact of the law, the state’s voter ID system is imperfect, and relies on a flawed federal identification system,” called REAL ID, they said. For more information, see EPIC’s page concerning the case and the National Committee for Voting Integrity. (November 13)

• Homeland Security Backs Down on Flawed REAL ID Plan. The Department of Homeland Security has announced major changes to the planned REAL ID national identification system (pdf). The original deadline for implementation was 2008, but has been pushed back to 2013. Now, DHS may delay implementation until 2018 and significantly reduce the requirements set out in draft regulations released in March. EPIC and others have repeatedly (pdf) detailed security and privacy problems (pdf) with the system that creates a national ID database and imposes federal responsibilities upon state agencies that have neither the trained employees nor the resources to fulfill these responsibilities. The final regulations, originally to be released in September, have yet to be published. For more information, see EPIC’s Spotlight on Surveillance for March. (November)