At a gathering sponsored by the Smart Card Alliance, a multi-industry booster group for smart card adoption, Clarke said that at the very least, driver's licenses must be made less susceptible to counterfeiting and that incentives for adopting technology such as smart cards should be proposed. But he stopped short of advocating a national ID card.
"We need to convince people that they should use smart cards because they are more convenient," he said. "We are not going to have national ID cards, because there is a large group of American people--a minority, but a large minority--that oppose the idea."
Clark, who has worked in counterterrorism and security roles in the U.S. government for the past 30 years and whose book, "Against All Enemies," criticized President Bush's handling of terrorism, said better securing U.S. citizens' data should be a major initiative for the administration.
The Bush administration has already taken some steps toward adopting secure ID cards. At the end of August it issued Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12, which mandates that a secure identification card standard be created and that all federal employees use cards created under the standard.
Clarke said more-effective identification cards, in conjunction with better procedures for confirming identity, could have helped stop the terrorists involved in the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, many of whom had valid state driver's licenses.
"Driver's licenses give a false sense of security," he said, adding that "of all the implementation costs of smart cards, the largest portion should be spent on proving that you are you."
SponsoredWhite Papers, Webcasts, and Downloads
- Why Isn't Server Virtualization Saving Us More? A Few Small Changes May Dramatically Increase Your Efficiency VMware Companies have rapidly adopted server virtualization over the past few ... Download Now
- Can your business work smarter? IBM Today, productivity is at a premium and IT budgets are at a minimum. Work ... Download Now
- Three Steps You Need to Know to Stop Data Loss Varonis Sensitive data exposed to misuse or loss... it is the stuff of nightmares ... Download Now
- Talkback
- Most Recent of 1 Talkback(s)
terrorist are still low tech
V Sanders | 10/18/04
|
