Losing liberties: legislators and agencies are working on security and civil-rights issues

Insight on the News, March 4, 2002 by Stephen Dinan, Tom Ramstack

After rushing to post metal detectors at entrances to state capitols, legislators have realized there's nothing they can do about people carrying firearms into the buildings: Many states grant residents the right to carry a gun in public spaces.

That's the case in Kentucky, where the state constitution specifically grants residents the right to carry an unconcealed firearm in public, and where state law allows permit holders to carry one concealed. Visitors who carry weapons into the Capitol simply are waived through after they are checked out.

At least one local legislator thinks the detectors should be done away with. "It is absolutely a waste of money as far as I'm concerned" says state Rep. Robert R. Damron, a Democrat. "It's an overreaction. The whole process -- 90 percent of all the security measures we're going through in the country are over-reactions. And, to me, that says we've let the terrorists win."

Most states are trying to balance protection with public access. "The states are kind of moving slowly on this because they're concerned about making sure the public always has access to their building" says Kae M. Warnock, an analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Before Sept. 11 only two states, Georgia and Alabama, regularly made visitors pass through metal detectors to enter their capitols, according to the NCSL.

Meanwhile, the Department of Transportation is moving forward with plans for a national transportation-worker identity card intended as a first step toward "trusted-traveler" cards for airline passengers. The electronic cards would have encoded biometric descriptions of their owners to ensure that those using them are the same people identified on the card. Biometrics refers to computerized systems that identify people from fingerprints, facial structure or irises.

Initially, only transportation workers (including those working for airlines, freight and passenger ships, railroads, trucks, buses and pipelines) would use the ID cards to control access to secure sites, such as passenger-boarding areas or docks. Eventually the Transportation Department wants the cards to be used internationally. The Israeli government instituted a trusted-traveler program five years ago to speed up long lines at airport-security checkpoints.

The idea of expanding the plan from transportation workers to travelers has critics, however. "This is a backdoor national ID," says Barry Steinhardt, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "This so-called `trusted-passenger' card will become essentially mandatory for everyone to use not only on airlines but also buses, trains and perhaps drives over bridges and through tunnels. The consequences of not having a trusted-passenger card is that you will be immediately suspect" Steinhardt also believes the cards create additional privacy risks from identity theft, inaccurate information and inappropriate transfer of information.

STEPHEN DINAN AND TOM RAMSTACK WRITE FOR Insight's SISTER DAILY, THE WASHINGTON TIMES.