[New York Governor Eliot Spitzer’s announced and subsequently
withdrawn] policy [to make driver’s licenses available to
unauthorized immigrants drew] . . . support from some terrorism and
security experts, who, like Mr. Spitzer, regard it as a way of
bringing a hidden population into the open and ultimately making the
system more secure, not to mention getting more drivers on the road
licensed and insured.
The success of the policy, they say, will rest on the reliability of
new technology that Mr. Spitzer wants installed in Department of
Motor Vehicles offices to verify the authenticity of passports and
other documents that the illegal immigrants will be required to
submit when applying for licenses.
[ . . . ]
“If the photo-comparison technology
works and if the D.M.V. uses effective methods for authenticating
and verifying foreign-source identity documents, the future New York
license will be more robust than today’s driver’s licenses, and of
much greater use in screening and investigations involving
terrorism,” said Susan Ginsburg, a former staff member of the 9/11
Commission who is now a senior fellow at the Migration Policy
Institute and an adviser to the federal Department of Homeland
Security.
The most important thing for investigators and intelligence
officials, she added, was to be able to track suspects, legal or
not.
“Consistency of identity is critical to law enforcement and
counterterrorism, and it’s the consistency of identity that the New
York system is designed to increase,” she said.
