An interesting post-webcast tidbit ...

Ryan Singel has a great summary of the town hall meeting/webcast up on Threat Level, with this interesting additional information:

Assistant Secretary Richard Barth, flanked by Jonathan Frankel and Darrell Williams, denied they were building a national identification card, and tried to empasize that the proposed requirements were intended to keep terrorists off airplanes.

But afterwards, Frankel told Wired News that applicants for Real ID licenses won't be compared against the government's centralized terrorist watchlist unless states choose to do so, a policy choice made to prevent people from feeling a heavy hand from the government.

Right. There's nothing else in Real ID that would make people feel a heavy hand ... and why would we want to check those terrorist watch lists anyhow? Hmm....

jon

Quick webcast notes ...

Wow. There's some really great testimony, from a transgender person talking about gender markers on licenses ("if you haven’t been carted off an airplane by burly cops, you have no idea what it feels like."), and a disabled senior woman talking about her developmentally-disabled sister's attempt to get a DMV, and why it's personal for the Real ID program manger.

If you get a chance, tune it ...

jon

43 organizations announce campaign to solicit comments!

Today forty-three organizations representing transpartisan, nonpartisan, privacy, consumer, civil liberty, civil rights, transgender people, and immigrants have joined to launch a national campaign to solicit public comments on Real ID.

Our media release is up on the Privacy Activism site, and the Privacy Coalition site is tracking the announcements of all the groups involved -- as well as providing links to our instructions for filing comments, along with EFF's and the ACLU's. Here are a couple of excerpts:

"The breadth and diversity of the opposition is real testimony to how harmful Real ID is to so many different communities," said Deborah Pierce, Executive Director of PrivacyActivism.org and one of the founders of the Stop Real ID Now! activism campaign. "By getting people and groups who are usually excluded from the debate involved at the grassroots level, we can stop Real ID."

"The Real ID Act of 2005 turns our state driver's licenses into a national ID card, costs over $20 billion dollars, infringes privacy, and imposes major burdens on taxpayers, anybody renewing a driver's license, seniors, immigrants, transgender people, and state governments -- while doing nothing to protect against terrorism," said privacy activist Jon Pincus, another founder of the Stop Real ID Now! activism campaign. "This commenting process is a great chance for the American people to tell DHS and Congress the Real ID Act is a bad law that needs to be repealed."

The timing of this announcement, right before the webcast, is perfect ... it should give a lot of momentum to the last week's drive for comments.

So please, forward broadly!

Deborah

PS: see the comments for the list of groups who are initially joining -- and we're expeecting more!

Action in the blogosphere!

Sparked by today's Town Hall Meeting and webcast, we're starting to see a little more discussion of Real ID in the blogosphere. Ryan Singel's story on Wired's Threat level blog has some useful information on the webcast:

The interactive webcast will only happen for users running Windows with ActiveX, Java and JavaScript enabled. Firefox is not supported. Mac users will be able to watch, but not interact or view online documents.

John07801's diary on DailyKos has some pointers to the local coverage in Davis, and Adam Shostack on Emergent Chaos notes that DHS is sending an "Assistant Secretary, Office of Policy Development" rather than somebody higher-powered ... well, okay, actually he calls the DHS representative a "flunky". Catherine of Siena comments on Threshing Grain that she's trying to get WorldNetDaily to cover the story, and Liam Ferris has a great title for his post: Homeland Security feigns interest, so tell them what you think.

Just a blip, or the start of a trend? We shall see ...

jon

Heading into the homestretch for comments ...

The May 8 deadline for filing comments to the DHS is fast approaching, and it seems like everybody's getting ready for the home stretch. As well as our instructions for filing comments page, EFF's online FAX page makes submission really easy; the ACLU's page has some great suggestions for writing comments ("don't feel like you need to include everything") and an extensive list of talking points that make a great complement to ours. There's starting to be some really good video out there -- and we're about to be releasing some, too, to go with the podcast Deborah and Kara did earlier in the month.

So far there are a little less than 2,000 comments submitted -- which is a long way from our goal of 100,000. Still, I'm optimistic; comments usually don't start to arrive until the last minute, and on top of that I think the combination DHS/California DMV Town Hall meeting and webcast on May 1 followed by the Computers, Freedom and Privacy 2007 conference is likely to (finally!) start getting Real ID more attention in the mainstream media and blogosphere.

No way to know for sure, but it really feels to me like the grassroots energy is building and is about to break loose. With any luck at all, the next ten days will be pretty exciting!

jon

Agenda for May 1 "Town Hall" meeting

Here's the aganed for the Town Hall meeting on Real ID jointly sponsored by DHS and the California DMV -- and remember that it's also being webcast!

REAL ID Town Hall Meeting

Tuesday, May 1, 2007
10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

University of California, Davis
Freeborn Hall
One Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616


The REAL ID Town Hall Meeting is being hosted by the State of California (DMV) and sponsored by the federal Department of Homeland Security. The forum is designed to seek public comment on the federal REAL ID Act.


A G E N D A

10:00 a.m. – 10:05 a.m. Welcome and Introduction HSI Moderator

10:05 a.m. – 10:10 a.m. Introductory Comments Dr. Richard Barth
Assistant Secretary
Office of Policy Development
Dept. of Homeland Security

10:10 a.m. – 10:15 a.m. Introductory Remarks George Valverde, Director California DMV


10:15 a.m. – 10:20 a.m. Ground rules/introduction HSI Moderator of subject areas

Open Comment Period by Topic Areas

10:20 a.m. – 10:55 a.m. Consumer/Personal Impact Perspective

10:55 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. Privacy/Security

11:30 a.m. – 11:40 a.m. -- B R E A K –

11:40 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. Electronic Verification Systems

12:15 p.m. – 12:50 p.m. Funding/Implementation/Time Frames

12:50 p.m. – 1:25 p.m. Law Enforcement


1:25 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. General Open Comment Opportunity

2:00 p.m. Closing Comments/Remarks HSI Moderator


Format
A sign-up list for making comments will be available at the door upon entering Freeborn Hall. Comments will be limited. In order to facilitate as many people as possible, please try to arrive by 9:30 a.m., as the event will begin promptly at 10. Ample parking at UC Davis will be available.

Town Hall Meeting on May 1st to be webcast

And here's the link to register: Town Hall Webcast. There is a note there that says

You may submit comments via an email link that will be provided on this website approximately 90 minutes before the broadcast.

Good to know! (I'd note, by the way, that when you enter the domain name www.realidtownhall.com the registration page is the page that comes up. While it does bear the logo of DHS, there is nothing else on the site that definitively confirms that this is, in fact, a DHS related site. I would think it is, however, and look forward to being able to hear the webcast)

Greg