[IP] more on Richard Clarke on airport ID checking

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

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From: 
Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 15:34:20 -0600
To: <dave@farber.net>
Subject: Re: [IP] Richard Clarke on airport ID checking

Dave Farber:

Please omit my name and address from this email if you choose to send
it to the group.

I read the Richard Clarke article (below) with some interest and
thought I'd tell you that, last summer, while in Las Vegas working on
a documentary film, I bought a "gag" driver's license in the gift shop
at the Tropicana Hotel and Casino.  It was a clearly phony "Las Vegas"
driver's license with the name and picture of Don Rickles on it.
Naturally, Las Vegas doesn't issue any driver's licenses, so the thing
was clearly -- I mean as clearly as one could possibly be -- a joke.

That night, at McCarran airport, after a couple drinks while killing
time until my plane boarded, I decided to playfully hand the officer
at the security area my new "license" along with my boarding pass.  If
caught, I would only laugh and fumble for the real one, which I had
handy, just in case.  This was appropriate behavior for Las Vegas, I
figured.

Instead, of course, the middle-aged man who read my name on the
boarding pass, cross-checked it with Don Rickles name and picture on
the license, handed it back to me and sent me on the way.

I'm sure the very act of this kind of levity violated numerous federal
statutes.  And I'm sure Don Rickles would not have been too pleased,
either.




On Mon,  7 Mar 2005 16:19:59 -0500, Dave Farber <dave@farber.net> wrote:
>  
>  
>  
> _______________ Original message _______________
> Subject: Richard Clarke on airport ID checking
> Author: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@cs.columbia.edu>
> Date: 07th March 2005 4:1:51 PM
>  
> For IP, if you wish.
>  
> >From yesterday's NY Times:
>  
> Real ID's, Real Dangers
> By RICHARD A. CLARKE
>  
> Have you ever wondered what good it does when they look at your
> driver's license at the airport? Let me assure you, as a former
> bureaucrat partly responsible for the 1996 decision to create a
> photo-ID requirement, it no longer does any good whatsoever. The
> ID check is not done by federal officers but by the same kind of
> minimum-wage rent-a-cops who were doing the inspection of carry-on
> luggage before 9/11. They do nothing to verify that your license
> is real. For $48 you can buy a phony license on the Internet (ask
> any 18-year-old) and fool most airport ID checkers. Airport personnel
> could be equipped with scanners to look for the hidden security
> features incorporated into most states' driver's licenses, but
> although some bars use this technology to spot under-age drinkers,
> airports do not. The photo-ID requirement provides only a false
> sense of security.
>  
> ...
>  
>  
> http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/06/magazine/06ADVISER.html
>  
>  
>  --Prof. Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
>  
>  
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