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ISIS wants your driver's licenses!
Click the above video to learn how terrorists use driver's licenses and what we are doing to stop them. We can still disarm criminals and terrorists of fake IDs before it's too late!
One way is to shut down counterfeiting websites. Today, anyone with an internet connection, a photo, and $50 can order a high quality fake ID from a website, many based in China.
We were successful in shutting down one of these sites
by engaging the U.S. Senate, but others have popped up since. If kids are easily ordering hard to detect fake IDs for drinking, so can anyone else for any other purpose.
Another way to keep fake IDs out of the hands of terrorists is for the country to move forward with REAL ID, a set of national security standards for states to meet for the issuance of driver's licences and identity cards. These measures include common sense practices like background checks and fraudulent document recognition training for employees, securing facilities and card stock, verifying lawful status of applicants, and incorporating security features in the cards. We have been helping the states move forward with the necessary security upgrades and have brought most into compliance, but there's still work to be done.
California, New York, and Illinois are still too far behind and, when it comes to document security, we are only as strong as our weakest link.
In other news: Oregon DMV faces major headaches after judge recognizes a new gender
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An Oregon court ruling on June 10, 2016, created a procedural headache for the Oregon DMV. A court petition filed by someone who served 18 years in the U.S. Army as a man, and whose retirement benefits are paid to him as a man, was affirmatively decided by a Portland judge. The result is that a person who declares his/her self as transgender can legally change his/her gender description to "non-binary," rather than male or female. This is the first court decision binding on a state that "non-binary" is a legal definition of a person's gender for biographic purposes.
Judge Amy Holms Hehn's ruling stated, "Based on the petition, and the court finding that proper notice to interested parties has been given; that the above-named person has undergone surgical, hormonal, or other treatment appropriate for this person for the purpose of gender transition; that sexual reassignment has been completed; and that no person has shown cause why the requested general judgment should not be granted."
The judge's decision may or may not become part of Oregon's legal statutes. Now, Oregon's agencies and courts have to establish how to legally define "non-binary," which is socially ambiguous. The petitioner, whose original name was legally changed to Jamie Shupe, states that he is neither a man nor a woman. He wants to avoid having an identification document that states he is a woman or a man. This will require the DMV to issue a driver's license with a third gender. Mr. Shupe's attorney notified the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles that it is now compelled to add a third gender option to the state's driver's licenses. Oregon state law requires the DMV to honor sex change operations, but doesn't specify gender terms like male or female, which appears to have been a legislative oversight with costly consequences for the driver's license agency.
Initially, DMV spokesman David House commented on the issue that, "It's not as simple as flipping a switch." House said the agency was working hard to implement the necessary changes as quickly as possible. "Right now we have more questions than answers," he said. Like other state agencies, the Oregon DMV recognizes only the gender designations of "M" for male or "F" for female. Some DMVs have administratively established procedures for sex change transformation and others have undertaken new rules following court decisions pertaining to transgender people. David House also said the databases that manage DMV information don't support a third kind of sex designation. Changing that may require action by the state Legislature or administrative rule making.
It certainly will involve coordination with state and possibly federal groups the DMV shares data with.
In addition to systems change
s, the new gender definition will take staff time and considerable expense for the DMV to establish new protocols for applicants to prove they are eligible for the non-binary option. When the state issues the proposed changes in a future regulatory notice, it may be challenged by groups who argue that the two gender categories under which most species are scientifically catalogued should continue to apply to humans.
Lake Perriguey, the attorney who represented Jamie Shupe, notified the Oregon DMV prior to the court decision that the DMV would have to change its rules to create a new gender classification. "I don't see it as a pretext for discrimination or as a way to not recognize Jamie," Perriguey said, noting that he was looking forward to an update on progress from the DMV. The new gender designation also has bearing to an ongoing gender designation dispute with the Army over Shupe's military employment records.
While Shupe's petition claiming to belong to a third sex was granted by Judge Hehn, there is a long legal course ahead with regard to how Shupe will be categorized on state and federal legal documents. For example, federal law and the ICAO United Nation's treaty that governs international travel document required passports to have the gender stated as only male or female. Within the United States, how will the highway patrol in other states interpret an Oregon driver's licen
se that states the person presenting it is "non-binary?" The decision in a Portland courtroom is likely to have large unforeseen legal consequences and administrative costs across the country.
We're a tiny organization with a lean budget, but thanks to contributions, we had another extremely effective year protecting your identity documents!
No other charitable organization works on the issues we do,
from combating counterfeit identity documents flooding in from China, to protecting child identities, to educating college kids on the risks of using fake IDs, to making sure state DMVs are up to par with federal standards, and to keeping your driver's licenses and ID cards out of the hands of criminals and terrorists.
Your support allowed us to work on all of that and we need your help again to be effective in 2016. But, w
e really need your support to continue our daily operations.
Our work with legislators, policymakers, and in public forums throughout the United States to protect public safety through reliable and secure identity documents depends on it. We need your tax deductible contribution to keep our proactive efforts underway.
We're in the media, at Congress, at state legislatures, at DMVs, on college campuses, and at fairs and tradeshows all over the country educating hundreds of thousands of people on why secure identification matters to us, to our donors, and why it should matter to them.
This year, our opinions have been published in newspapers in Connecticut, Montana, Massachussets, Minnesota, Illinois, New Mexico, Arizona, North Dakota, and more. We have placed on op-eds in The Hill, Roll Call, and USA Today. We were featured on Fox News, Fox affiliates, and Newsmax. Our newsletters go to over a thousand important decision makers and our press releases have reached hundreds of thousands.
If you can't make a donation but plan on doing some shopping on Amazon, please consider using our Amazon Smile account. It doesn't cost you any extra money and a percentage of your purchases go right to Keeping IDentities Safe! Click the link on the right -
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| Keeping IDentities Safe in the News: |
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Time for a National Strategy on Fake IDs
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TSA, China and fake IDs
Over the last several years, a new Chinese export has found a thriving market in the United States: high quality, machine readable, counterfeit driver's licenses. For prices between $50 and $300, under-aged youngsters have been purchasing counterfeit driver's licenses from vendors based in China via the web.
Read our op-ed in The Hill
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How do we keep driver's licenses out of the hands of terrorists and criminals?
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By raising awareness
By working with law enforcement
By helping states comply with REAL ID
By working with state legislators all over the country
By providing research
By working every day to protect your identity documents!
We can only continue to do this with your support
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HELP US KEEP FIGHTING FOR YOUR IDENTITY SECURITY
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With your donation, we will continue to move this country towards securing our driver's licenses, keeping them out of the hands of criminals, identity thieves, terrorists, drunk drivers, and public benefits freeloaders who are draining our nation's health and welfare system.
If you can afford to make the donation now, you're getting the money to a cause you care about, and we need it.
Sincerely,
Keeping IDentities Safe
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