Papers, Please – Papers, Please!

Apr 04 2019

TSA plans to put new lying signs in airports

This sign is a lie.

According to a press release issued today by the Transportation Security Administration, the TSA plans to start posting signs as shown above in airports throughout the USA, claiming that “ID Requirements Are Changing” and that “Beginning Beginning October 1, 2020, you will need a REAL ID compliant license or another acceptable form of ID, such
as a valid passport or U.S. military ID, to fly within the U.S.”

According to today’s TSA press release:

REAL ID-compliant licenses or other acceptable forms of ID, such as a valid passport, federal government PIV card or U.S. military ID, will be mandatory for air travel beginning on October 1, 2020. Critically important, on October 1, 2020, individuals who are unable to verify their identity will not be permitted to enter the TSA checkpoint and will not be allowed to fly.

These signs and this and similar press releases are lies.

This isn’t the first time, and probably won’t be the last, that the TSA and/or DHS have made lying statements, issued lying press releases, or posted lying signs about the REAL-ID Act and ID to fly.

Is ID required to fly? No.

One would expect “requirements” announced by a Federal agency to be contained in laws or regulations. But the TSA’s own lawyers, officials, and witnesses testifying under oath have told judges in every lawsuit ion which the issue has arisen that no law or regulation required domestic air travelers to have, carry, or show any ID cards or credentials.

The TSA’s responses to our Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests for its records of people who show up at TSA and TSA-contractor checkpoints at airports without ID show that more than 98% of them — hundreds a day, and tens of thousands every year — are allowed to continue to board their flights without carrying or showing ID.

Is this scheduled to change? No.

Changes to Federal laws require action by Congress. No bill has been introduced in the current Congress (or ever, so far as we can tell) that would impose any ID requirement for air travel.

Changes to Federal regulations require a process governed by the Administrative Procedure Act that starts with a “Notice of Proposed Rulemaking” (NPRM) published in the Federal Register. No notice of any proposed rules related to ID to fly has been published.

In 2016, the TSA published a notice that it planned to seek approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) — but had not yet sought that approval — for a new version of a form some air travelers without ID have been asked to fill out. (Because the form has never been submitted to, or approved by, OMB, its use is illegal and no penalty can lawfully be imposed for declining to respond to the questions on the form.)

We pointed out to the TSA and OMB that it was improper to ask OMB to approve this form without first enacting a law or promulgating regulations providing a legal basis for the form. Other organizations and individuals also objected to the proposed form. The TSA has neither responded to any of the objections nor submitted the form for OMB approval.

Will the REAL-ID Act of 2005 change this? No.

The REAL-ID Act and implementing regulations are concerned only with which ID cards are considered “acceptable”, in circumstances in which some (other) valid Federal law regulations requires ID for some Federal purpose. The REAL-ID Act itself did not purport to impose any new ID requirements, either when it was enacted, in 2010, or ever.

Will I still be allowed to fly without ID in the future? Maybe, maybe not. That’s up to the TSA. But if the TSA or its contractors prevent you from traveling, without a lawful basis, they will be violating your rights and breaking the law.

Since the TSA is wielding power by secret internal orders and security directives to staff, contractors, and airlines, announced (if at all) through press releases rather than through proper formal notices in the Federal Register, it’s impossible to say with certainty what it will try to do. What it will do is likely to depend, in significant part, on its assessment of how widely and strongly particular assertions of illegitimate authority will be resisted.

The TSA has been making threats to start harassing residents of states and territories that it hasn’t chosen — in what it has claimed is its standardless discretion — to certify as being sufficiently “compliant” with the REAL-ID Act, or to give extensions of time to comply. These certifications and extensions of time have had little apparent relationship with actual compliance, so they too are impossible to predict.

The next of these threats is an extension of time to California to comply with the REAL-ID Act which is scheduled to expire at the end of the day on April 10, 2019.

We suspect, especially after today’s press release — which focuses on an arbitrary date of October 1, 2020, rather than any of the “extension” expiration dates — that the DHS will either certify California and all of the other states and territories as “compliant” (even if they aren’t) or extend their time to comply until October 1, 2020.

Apr 01 2019

DHS continues to extort participation in REAL-ID database

If there is one truth hiding in the forest of DHS lies about the REAL-ID Act of 2005, it’s that the DHS doesn’t want to cause riots at airports by subjecting residents of disfavored states to more intrusive searches and “ID verification” interrogation when they travel by air.

The goal of the REAL-ID Act is to intimidate states into adding their residents drivers’ license and state ID data to the SPEXS national ID database, through threats to harass residents of states and territories that aren’t sufficiently compliant.

Like any extortionist, the DHS wants its victims to submit, and doesn’t really want (and may not even be prepared) to carry out its threats.

But what will the DHS do when its bluff is called by states or territories that are either unwilling or unable to comply?

Today, April Fools Day, we’re seeing the latest test of the answer to this question, with the US Virgin Islands as the target of DHS threats.

Jan 22 2019

9th Circuit: Passengers in a car don’t have to identify themselves

Passengers in a car stopped by police don’t have to identify themselves, according to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

That holds even in a state with a “stop and identify” law, and even if the initial stop of the car (for a traffic violation committed by the driver) was legal.

The opinion by a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit earlier this month in US v. Landeros is one of the most significant decisions to date interpreting and applying the widely-misunderstood 2004 US Supreme Court decision in Hiibel v. Nevada.

Many police think that the Hiibel decision upheld the Constitutionality of requiring anyone stopped by police to show ID. But that’s not what the Supreme Court actually said.

The 9th Circuit panel that decided US v. Landeros read the Hiibel decision carefully and correctly, and gave important and explicit guidance on the narrowness of its findings and what it actually means for people who are stopped and asked for ID by police.

What does this mean for you, especially when or if you are in the 9th Circuit or want to raise the 9th Circuit’s latest decision as persuasive authority in another circuit?

Jan 21 2019

“Refugees could travel to Europe or America by air. What’s stopping them?”

An article by Saad Hasan for TRT World (the English-language news service of Turkey’s national public broadcasting network) highlights a life-and-death issue for refugees: Why are thousands of asylum seekers who could afford to buy a plane ticket to Europe or the USA dying every year trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea or the Sonoran Desert to reach a country where they can find sanctuary from persecution?

The answer, as we told TRT World, is that, “These deaths of the asylum seekers during migration are a direct consequence of carrier sanctions. Sanctions imposed by governments on airlines for transporting unsuccessful asylum seekers are killing thousands of people a year directly around the world.”

The article notes that, “The Geneva Convention allows an asylum seeker to board a commercial flight even without a visa. But airlines face the risk of paying a fine if that person’s application is rejected and he has to be flown back.”

We’ve raised this issue repeatedly with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Just last week, we asked the UN Human Rights Committee to include it in its list of issues for the upcoming review of US implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights:

An asylum claim cannot be made or adjudicated until after a claimant arrives in a country of refuge. Asylum seekers cannot be required to have any specific documents, and their inability to obtain travel documents from a government from which they arefleeing may be part of the evidence supporting their asylum claim.

A common carrier has an obligation to transport all passengers willing to pay the fare in its tariff.

But the U.S. imposes civil fines on airlines and other carriers that transport unsuccessful asylum seekers. These “carrier sanctions” turn inherently unqualified airline ticket sales and check-in clerks into de facto asylum judges of first and last resort, with a government-imposed financial incentive to err on the side of denial of transport. For asylum seekers, denial of air transportation either acts as a categorical bar to reaching U.S. territory to make a claim for asylum, or leads asylum seekers to use irregular and often fatally unsafe routes and modes of land or sea travel to reach the U.S.

Some other sources interviewed by TRT World suggested that the consequences of “carrier sanctions” could be mitigated by issuance of “humanitarian visas” for asylum seekers. But as we pointed out, “Foreign embassies and airports are closely watched by local police. If someone comes to the embassy seeking asylum and isn’t immediately given sanctuary then they can be subject to additional persecution.”

Solving the problem of deaths in transit doesn’t take a lengthy legislative process like introducing a humanitarian visa. Almost by definition, not everybody who applies will be given such a visa. And any visa will have to be applied for at a consulate or embassy in a country where an asylum seeker may be subject to retaliation for visiting such a consulate.

All it takes to reduce these deaths is a small change in administrative practice: Stop fining airlines when they bring people to a border or port of entry and the people are not admitted, and enforce their duty as common carriers to transport anyone willing to pay the fare in their tariff.

If the country and the airline don’t want the expense of returning failed applicants for asylum, airline regulations could require that an airline must transport passengers without visas if they have purchased a return ticket or a ticket onward to another country. This is already required for most visitors to the US or the European Union, even if they have visas. This would double the revenue to the airline for each such refugee. For legitimate refugees, most of those return tickets would expire unused, making them free money for the airline — but not risking the lives of refugees by denying them access to safe air transport.

It’s tempting to some people to think of freedom of movement as something “abstract” or important only to the “jet set”. But nothing could be further from the truth. Administrative restrictions like carrier sanctions, and failure to enforce the duties of common carriers, are a life-and-death matter for some of the world’s most destitute and deserving refugees, those who would qualify for asylum if they could only reach a country of refuge.

Jan 09 2019

How many times will the DHS cry wolf on REAL-ID?

The last time we checked in on the status of the seemingly endless game of “chicken” being played by the US Department of Homeland Security with its threats to start harassing air travelers who reside in states the DHS deems insufficiently “compliant”, every state and territory had been given another “extension” of time to demonstrate commitment to compliance until at least January 10, 2019.

Since then, the DHS, in its standardless administrative discretion, has announced further extensions until at least April Fools Day, 2019 (for the US Virgin Islands), for every state and territory except California and Guam.

But as of today, the DHS website says that, “California has an extension for REAL ID enforcement, allowing Federal agencies to accept driver’s licenses and identification cards from California at Federal facilities, nuclear power plants and federally regulated commercial aircraft until January 10, 2019.”

As of this morning, with the “deadline” less than 48 hours away, we got the following response to our questions about this from a spokesperson for the California DMV:

The State of California has been working for the better part of a year to be deemed compliant with the REAL ID act, unfortunately due to a lack of response on the part of the Federal Government with the ongoing shutdown there has been no final confirmation.

So was that a real deadline for REAL-ID in California?

Is the DHS really prepared to have TSA checkpoint staff — working for indefinitely deferred pay — start trying to carry out time-consuming “ID verification procedures” for everyone who shows up at an airport checkpoint with a California drivers’ license or ID, starting the day after tomorrow?

The answer turns out to be, “No.”

The DHS and TSA have blinked yet again in the face of insufficient state “compliance”.

We’ve just received the following updated statement from the DMV:

The California DMV has confirmed with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that they will be granting California an extension to April 1, 2019. Due to the furlough, the letter might not arrive until tomorrow and DHS will likely not be updating their website until the furlough ends. All driver licenses will remain valid and can continue to be used for federal purposes.

And this from a spokesperson for the TSA:

I recently learned from DHS that California’s extension has been extended through April 1, 2019…. Updates to their website are underway.

California doesn’t actually comply with the REAL-ID Act. That would require uploading data about all California drivers’ licenses and ID cards to the SPEXS national ID database, which California hasn’t done and which would probably violate multiple provisions of California’s state constitution. But DHS certifications and extensions are discretionary, and need not be based on any specific criteria or on actual compliance.

There’s still no public word about Guam, the extension for which is also scheduled to expire tomorrow.

“Phase 4b” of REAL-ID Act enforcement at airports supposedly started on January 22, 2018. Since then, the only state or territory where the DHS has let a REAL-ID extension lapse, even temporarily, has been American Samoa, for which another extension has now been granted until October 10, 2019. We’re still waiting for any response to our FOIA request for records of what happened to American Samoans who tried to fly during the period last year when the extension had lapsed.

Jan 07 2019

Amtrak thinks it’s OK to spy on passengers because it makes the trains run on time

Buried in the final 500-page PDF file of redacted and munged e-mail messages released by Amtrak in December 2018 in response to a FOIA request we made in 2014, we got the first hint at an answer to one of the questions that originally prompted our request:

What did Amtrak think was its legal basis for requiring passengers to show ID and provide other information, and for handing this data over to DHS components and other police agencies for general law enforcement purposes?

When US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) asked Amtrak to start transmitting passenger data electronically, it described this as a request for “voluntary” cooperation, noting that while the law requires airlines to collect and transmit this data to CBP, “these mandates do not currently extend to land modes of transportation” (as they still don’t today).

Despite this statement from CBP, someone at Amtrak came up with a way to describe the changes to Amtrak’s systems and procedures to require ID information in reservations for all international trains, and to transmit this data to CBP, as “required by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)” and as “being mandated by the US Border Inspection Agencies [sic].”

In 2004, an Amtrak technology manager was asked, “Do you know if such a [Federal] mandate [to collect information about passengers] exists, or is Amtrak not obliged to participate in this program?”

The unnamed Amtrak IT manager’s response was that:

By statute, the federal government … in cooperation with Amtrak “shall maintain, consistent with the effective enforcement of immigration and customs laws, en route customs inspections and immigration procedures for international intercity rail passenger transportation that will (1) be convenient for passenger; and (2) result in the quickest possible international rail passenger transportation.” 49 USC 24709.

In other words,someone at Amtrak thinks it’s not merely permitted but required by this provision of Federal law to implement whatever level of intrusiveness of data collection and data sharing will make international trains run more quickly.

It’s arguable, to say the least, whether Congress intended this law as a mandate for ID credentials or data collection, whether collection of passenger data prior to ticketing actually expedites international trains (compared to, as used to happen, conducting customs and immigration inspections onboard while trains are in motion), or whether demands for ID and passenger information are consistent with the clause of this section requiring that measures taken be “convenient for passengers”. But someone at Amtrak seems to have interpreted this statute as such a mandate, and represented it as such to other Amtrak staff and contractors.

Are there any limits to what information or actions Amtrak would think is required of passengers on international trains, if that would keep US and Canadian border guards from stopping or delaying trains at the border for customs inspection?

Questions about whether Advance Passenger Information (APIS) was required had been asked not only within Amtrak but by Amtrak-appointed travel agencies, as was relayed to Amtrak by a product manager for the “Worldspan by Travelport” reservation system:

There’s no indication in the documents we received as to whether this Worldspan subscriber, or any other travel agency, was given any answer to this question.

Notably, no legal basis whatsoever for requiring ID from passengers on domestic trains was mentioned anywhere in the records we’ve received from Amtrak. Nor were any records released that related to Amtrak’s privacy policy, or the legal basis for it, although such records were covered by our request. We’re still following up with Amtrak on this and other issues, and will file administrative appeals if necessary.

As part of Amtrak’s response to a separate FOIA request, however, we’ve received a redacted copy of Amtrak’s internal directive to staff regarding passenger ID requirements. According to this document, Amtrak stopped requiring passengers to show ID in order to buy tickets as of October 25, 2017. But no records related to this change, or the reasons for it, were released in response to our request.

Amtrak train crews are supposed to check ID of a randomly selected 10% or 20% of passengers. In our experience, however, Amtrak staff rarely require any passengers to show ID.

Although Amtrak is a Federal government entity, Amtrak’s of list of acceptable ID is much more inclusive than the list of ID that comply with the REAL-ID Act. Amtrak’s list of ID acceptable for train travel includes, among other acceptable credentials, any ID issued by a public or private middle school, high school, college, or university, and drivers’ licensed issued by US states and territories to otherwise undocumented residents.

Amtrak even accepts a “California state issued medical marijuana card“, which doesn’t have the cardholder’s name, only their photo. We’ll leave it as an exercise to our readers to figure out what relationship Amtrak thinks there is between being being eligible for medical cannabis and being eligible for Amtrak train travel.

The most reasonable inference is that someone at Amtrak has decided that Amtrak should make a show of requiring ID, but that others at Amtrak don’t really want to turn away travelers without ID. Perhaps they recognize that travellers who don’t have or don’t want to show ID are a valuable Amtrak customer demographic.

Dec 17 2018

Do you need ID to get OFF a plane?

We’ve reported on several legal challenges to demands for ID as a condition of boarding airline flights.

But what about demands for ID after such a flight, as a condition of disembarking or leaving the airport at your destination? Is such a demand legal? Must you comply?

The first court case we are aware of to raise this issue began when DHS law enforcement officers from US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) blocked the only exit from a Delta Airlines plane when it arrived at its gate at JFK Airport in February 2017 after a flight from San Francisco, and required passengers to show ID before they were allowed to leave the plane.

Several passengers, represented by the ACLU, sued the DHS, the CBP and the responsible officials, supervisors, and front-officers in Federal court for the Eastern District of New York, which covers Brooklyn, Queens (where JFK Airport is located) and Long Island.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, originally Amadei v. Duke and now Amadei v. Neilsen, complain that the demand for ID violated their 4th Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. They also complain that the DHS policy or practice of demanding ID from some passengers disembarking from domestic airline flights was adopted without complying with the due process requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).

The first significant — although far from final — ruling in the case came on December 13, 2018. The District Court rejected government motions to dismiss the complaint. Judge Nicholas Garaufis found that the passengers had raised sufficiently credible allegations of violations of the 4th Amendment and the APA to entitle them to their day in court.

Nov 14 2018

OIG confirms State Dept. broke its own rules when it seized US citizens’ passports

A report released earlier this month by the State Department’s Office of Inspector General confirms that, as we and others began reporting in 2013 and 2014, State Department staff “failed to comply with relevant procedures intended to safeguard the rights of U.S. citizens” when they summarily seized or retained the passports of US citizens who sought consular assistance at the US Embassy in Sana’a, Yemen.

Because of incomplete and inconsistent record-keeping and shifting stories told to OIG investigators by State Department staff, the OIG was unable to determine how many US citizens were improperly deprived of their passports, or for how long.

The consequences for these Yemeni-American US citizens were especially dire because many of them were seeking to leave Yemen to escape the escalating civil war and foreign military interventions in Yemen (some of which were backed by the US and its allies).

Without passports, these US citizens were unable to travel legally from Yemen to other countries, or to return to the US. They were forced either to remain in increasingly war-torn and dangerous Yemen, or use dangerous illegal means of transport to escape.

The de facto policy of the US Department of State as early as 2013 — even before the inclusion of Yemen in the 2017 Muslim ban executive orders — appears to have been to define anyone with Yemeni ancestry, regardless of citizenship, as an enemy of the US, and to use all available legal or illegal methods to deny them US passports. Typical tactics included putting applications by Yemeni-Americans for new or renewal passports into indefinite limbo, and indefinitely retaining US passports presented to consular officials at the US Embassy in Sana’a.

Typically, no formal decision that would be readily subject to judicial review was made. Even when a passport was revoked or an application for a passport was denied, the affected citizen often wasn’t notified until months or years later.

Several lawsuits were brought challenging the denials and delays in issuing, renewing, or returning passports. At least one case led to a court order for the return of a US passport seized in Sana’a. But the government was able to evade judicial review of most of its passport denials and seizures by reversing its decisions and dropping charges or issuing delayed passports once its victims lawyered up and made it to US courts.

Despite the fairly scathing report by the OIG, there’s no indication that any of the responsible State Department officials — either at the embassy in Yemen or making policy and directing practices from the US — have lost their jobs, much less been prosecuted, for conspiring to deprive US citizens of their fundamental rights, in circumstances where the ability to exercise those rights could be a matter of life and death.

Oct 15 2018

TSA announces “biometrics vision for all commercial aviation travelers”

Today the US Transportation Security Administration released a detailed TSA Biometric Roadmap for Aviation Security & the Passenger Experience, making explicit the goal of requiring mug shots (to be used for automated facial recognition and image-based surveillance and control) as a condition of all domestic or international air travel.

This makes explicit the goal that has been apparent, but only implicit, in the activities and statements of both government agencies and airline and airport trade associations.

It’s a terrifyingly totalitarian vision of pervasive surveillance of air travelers at, quite literally and deliberately, every step of their journey, enabled by automated facial recognition and by the seamless collaboration of airlines and airport operators that will help the government surveil their customers in exchange for free use of facial images for their own business purposes and profits.

The closest contemporary counterpart to what the TSA envisions for the USA is the pervasive surveillance and control of travelers in China through automated facial recognition by the Public Security Bureau.

Oct 10 2018

What AAMVA doesn’t want you to know about the national REAL-ID database

Another “deadline” for enforcement of the REAL-ID Act of 2005 passed uneventfully today.

The US Department of Homeland Security had advertised that DHS extensions of time for voluntary compliance with the REAL-ID Act by many states would expire today.

The DHS threatened that starting today it would “enforce” the REAL-ID Act through harassment or denial of the right to travel of airline passengers without ID or with ID issued by states or territories that the DHS, in its standardless administrative discretion, deemed insufficiently compliant with Federal wishes.

Today’s supposed “deadline” was fixed neither by law nor by regulation. Not surprisingly, the DHS blinked in the final days before its self-imposed ultimatum, as it has done again and again.

Every US state and territory subject to the REAL-ID Act was either certified by the DHS as sufficiently compliant to satisfy the DHS (at least for now), or was given a further extension of time to comply without penalty until at least January 10, 2019.

Yesterday, the day before the “deadline”, the DHS quietly posted notices on its website that it had granted further extensions until January 2019 to the last two states, California and New Jersey.

Perhaps the DHS is still unwilling to provoke riots at airports by stopping people without ID, or with ID from disfavored states and territories, from flying. Perhaps it isn’t yet prepared to face, and likely lose, the inevitable lawsuits from would-be flyers.

Even American Samoa, which — because the second-class status of American Samoans as US subjects but not US citizens would make it harder for them to challenge DHS restrictions of their rights — had been the first trial by the DHS of enforcement of the REAL-ID Act, was given an extension until October 10, 2019.

So far as we can tell, REAL-ID Act “enforcement” meant only modestly enhanced harassment of American Samoans at airports. Our FOIA request for records of how many people tried to fly with American Samoa IDs, and what happened to them, remains pending with no response after more than five months.

American Samao isn’t the limit of REAL-ID Act expansion beyond US borders and overseas. H.R. 3398, a bill to extend eligibility for REAL-ID Act compliant drivers licenses and IDs to citizens of several nominally independent de facto US dependencies, has passed the House and is pending in the Senate.

Meanwhile, the real movement toward state compliance with the REAL-ID Act is behind the scenes — as the DHS, its collaborators among state driver licensing agencies, and AAMVA, the operator of the outsourced and pseudo-privatized national ID database, want it to be.

Since we last reported on the status of REAL-ID Act compliance six months ago, agencies in three more states — Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and most recently Washington in September 2018 — have uploaded information about all licensed drivers and holders of state-issued IDs to the SPEXS national database. That brings to 19 the number of states whose residents’ personal information is included in the aggregated database.

But even as the database grows to include information about more and more US residents, the DHS persists in denying its existence. According to the DHS public FAQ about the REAL-ID Act:

A: Is DHS trying to build a national database with all of our information?

No…. REAL ID does not create a federal database of driver license information.

To the extent that there is any truth at all in this statement, it’s that the SPEXS national database isn’t under direct Federal or state control, but has been handed over to AAMVA and AAMVA’s contractors. (The database is apparently actually hosted by Microsoft.)

For obvious reasons, nobody is more eager than AAMVA to have you pay no attention to the national ID database behind the REAL-ID Act curtain.

In June 2018, we were honored to receive an urgent letter by Fedex from the President & CEO of AAMVA, demanding that we immediately remove from our website the specifications for the SPEXS database, which we had obtained in 2016 from AAMVA’s own public website. After AAMVA made that whole section of its site “members-only”, we posted a copy of the SPEXS specification to help readers understand the details of the system, and as one of the key sources for our analysis of SPEXS.

SPEXS already includes personal information obtained from government records of drivers licenses and state IDs, including dates of birth and the last five digits of Social Security Numbers, for more than 50 million US residents. We think the people whose data is included in this system are entitled to know what information is being kept about them, who has access to it, and how it is used.

According to the SPEXS specifications, development of SPEXS was funded by grants from componetns of the DHS and the Department of Transportation. (We’re waiting for responses to our FOIA requests for those agencies’ records about SPEXS.) If SPEXS were being operated directly by a Federal agency, the Privacy Act would require it to provide notice of the types of records in the system, how they are used, and with whom they are shared, as well as procedures for individuals to see the records about themselves and to obtain an “accounting of disclosures” to third parties of information about themselves.

But because the SPEXS database has been outsourced to a nominally private contractor, AAMVA, both Federal and state agencies can disclaim any responsibility for it. That leaves the SPEXS specifications as the best available evidence of what the system is and does.

In a later message to our Web hosting provider, a lawyer for AAMVA claimed that, “The information contained in this work is sensitive and its unauthorized publication could jeopardize the security of the governmental program to which this document relates.” This is nonsense. AAMVA waived any claim of sensitivity by making the specifications public.

When it was still struggling to sell the first states on buying into SPEXS, AAMVA posted the SPEXS specification on its website for anyone to download. More than two years after we called attention to what this document reveals, AAMVA is trying to suppress it. Not because it contains any secrets — it’s been publicly available for years — but because it conclusively disproves the DHS big lie that there is no national REAL-ID database, and shows the essential role that AAMVA itself is playing in this surveillance system.

We encourage you to pay close attention to the AAMVA man behind the REAL-ID Act curtain. And if you have questions about SPEXS or the SPEXS specifications, feel free to contact us.

Papers, Please!

The Identity Project