UNITED STATES: US Issues National ID Standards, Setting State for Showdown, January 12, 2008

More potential problems for adoptees with hinky birth certificates.

NEW YORK TIMES,
January 12, 2008

U.S. Issues National ID Standards, Setting Stage for a Showdown
By MATTHEW L. WALD

WASHINGTON — The federal government issued national standards on Friday that states would have to meet in order for driver’s licenses they issue to qualify as identification at airports and federal buildings, setting the stage for a confrontation with states that have voted not to cooperate.

Under a measure known as Real ID legislation, the states must comply by May 11, the third anniversary of the measure’s enactment, or obtain a waiver from the Department of Homeland Security.

Meeting the May 11 deadline is impossible because the regulations have been delayed so long, but Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, said Friday that his department would issue a waiver to states that promised to comply later.

He laid out a very long schedule, with the final deadline in December 2017, more than 16 years after the events that prompted the law, the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Several states have voted not to comply. One is Washington, where the chairwoman of the Senate’s transportation committee, when asked what difference the new federal rules would make, said, “None.”

The Washington Legislature is to begin a special session on Monday but it will be brief, said Senator Mary Margaret Haugen, the chairwoman.

“It’s very unrealistic of the federal government to think that states that are not in session or in a short session can resolve this in a short time frame,” she said. “Our state has said we will not spend money on the Real ID unless they fund it, and I don’t see any money coming from the federal government.”

In Washington and elsewhere, state lawmakers have complained that the requirements add up to a national identification card, that it is too costly, puts privacy at risk and poses severe technical challenges.

The Legislature in Maine overwhelmingly passed a resolution last January vowing not to comply. The Legislature there is in its “short session” and can take up only legislation that all the leadership decides is an emergency, said Peggy Schaffer, chief of staff to the Senate majority leader.

Ms. Schaffer predicted that pressure from the airlines might force the federal government to reverse itself.

The airlines, in fact, are worried, because travelers with driver’s licenses from states that do not have a waiver would have to use a passport or a military ID, or face additional screening, including a pat-down.

“This has the potential to be hugely problematic,” said David Castelveter, a spokesman for the Air Transport Association, a trade association of the major carriers. “It appears as if the Department of Homeland Security is placing the burden on the traveling public for a state’s inability to comply.”

Exactly how many states will decide not to apply for waivers is unclear. Arkansas, Idaho, Montana and others have voted against the program, which was a central recommendation of the Sept. 11 Commission.

States would have to require applicants for new licenses or renewals to prove they are legally in the country, and then record and verify the documents.

Opponents have complained that passports and Social Security cards are easy to verify promptly, but birth certificates, issued by thousands of jurisdictions, are not.

While some states are in revolt, others were moving to tighten their licensing standards even before Sept. 11. And some advocates say that tighter controls would help prevent identity theft and drunken driving.

“We can kill three birds with one stone if we get ourselves on a path to a secure driver’s license,” Mr. Chertoff said.

Civil libertarians counter that the new licenses must have all the information encoded into a machine-readable bar code. These will be read by retail stores, hotels and other companies, the American Civil Liberties Union predicted, creating powerful intrusions of privacy.

Barry Steinhardt of the A.C.L.U. predicted that the program would never take effect. By setting deadlines so far in the future, he said, the administration had “kicked the can down the road” to the next one.

The schedule released Friday calls for compliant licenses for everyone under 50 by May 11, 2014, and for those 50 and over, by Dec. 1, 2017.

The Homeland Security Department decided this would lower costs, according to Mr. Chertoff. He called it “risk management,” saying older people were less likely to be terrorists.


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INDIANA: Who To Blame in Name game? , January 8, 2008

More problems for those without "proper" birth certificates

GARY POST-TRIBUNE,
January 8, 2008


Who to blame in name game? Many caught in name game

BY KAREN SNELLING Post-Tribune staff writer

The state Bureau of Motor Vehicles is strictly enforcing rules that could drive scores of area residents into court.

People like Crown Point resident Illa Wallace Carstens say they have been forced to hire lawyers to get their names changed to what they've been all or most of their lives.

Carstens and other Northwest Indiana residents called the Post-Tribune on Monday to relay problems they've been having with the BMV when trying to get their driver's license renewed after reading a story in Monday's paper about a Lake Station man with a similar problem. All have different names on their Social Security cards than their birth certificate.

"I've been Illa Wallace Carstens since 1962. My lawyer said I could use that name. Now, 45 years later, the state license bureau says I can't," the retired payroll supervisor said.

The problem, according to the state, is that the name on Carstens' driver's license is different from the one on her original Social Security records.

But Carstens has two Social Security cards with identical information to the one on her driver's license.

The 77-year-old Crown Point woman took her ex-husband's last name as a middle name after they divorced in 1962 and she remarried.

Carstens changed her Social Security records to reflect the name change, but state officials are insisting that she petition a court to make the change legal.

"I don't know who is making up these rules, but they don't make any sense," said Carstens, who has spent more than $1,000 to get her name changed in Lake Superior Court.

BMV spokesman Dennis Rosebrough countered that the birth certificate is your name. "It's the ultimate identifier. But you can go to court and change your name," he said.

However, he added, BMV officials were meeting to research the law.

Rosebrough said in 2006 the BMV notified 206,000 Hoosiers that information on their driver's licenses didn't match the federal database and some 60,000 of those discrepancies were corrected.

In the meantime, Gary school teacher Link Reid is running into a similar bureaucratic wall. He lost his wallet containing his driver's license a couple of months ago and hasn't been able to get a replacement because of a mistake on his birth certificate.

Reid, 59, was born in Tennessee with the help of a midwife, who misspelled his name on the birth certificate. Although the error was crossed out and the correct name written in, Reid, who has taught at Gary schools for 35 years, said the Indiana license bureau refuses to recognize him by the corrected name.

"I've been Link Reid all my life. My college degree says Reid. All my bills and my mortgage are in the name Link Reid," a frustrated Reid said. He's waiting for a court date so he can get a judge to declare that his name is legally Link Reid.

Meanwhile, he hopes he isn't stopped driving without a license.

Contact Karen Snelling at or ksnelling@post-trib.com


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CALIFORNIA: Lack of Birth Certificate Proves Obstacle for Hemet Man, December 31, 2007

Although not about sealed birth certificates due to adoption, this article illustrates what can happen when birth certificates are not "in order." As the US government continues to clamp down on "terrorism" and "illegal immigration" we will see stories of adopted persons denied passports, pensions, security clearances, and even drivers licenses and jobs, due to bc "problems."


RIVERSIDE PRESS ENTERPRISE,
December 31, 2007

Lack of birth certificate proves obstacle for Hemet man

By STEVE FETBRANDT
The Press-Enterprise

Most people take their birth certificate for granted. But what if the doctor who delivered you never told the government you entered the world?

You could have problems enrolling in school, acquiring a driver's license or -- especially in California these days -- getting a job.

Hemet resident Joshua Morgan would say, "Welcome to my world."

Carol Bomhard and her son, Joshua Morgan, review a state application to obtain a delayed-filing birth certificate. Morgan can't get a driver's license and other documents, and says he has to work under the table.

A birth certificate legally chronicles the date, time and place you were born. It establishes your identity, paternity, race and national origin. It proves you're old enough to start school and, later, allows you to get a driver's license or state identification card. It also is needed to obtain a Social Security number, passport and, indirectly, a job.

Now 26, Morgan was born at Dr. Nelson Copley's alternative birthing center in Yuba City in Northern California in 1981. Although the doctor gave his mother an uncertified copy of his birth certificate, Copley did not file any paperwork with the Sutter County Clerk-Recorder -- the appropriate vital-statistics agency.

"I've had to deal with getting pulled over and being questioned by police," Morgan said. "I've been taken to jail for driving without a license and not having ID with me.

"If I could just get a registered birth certificate and identification, I wouldn't have this stress on me today. I'd be able to get a job and be productive like everybody else."

In a recent telephone interview, Copley, who closed his medical practice and retired two years ago, acknowledged the oversight and said he would try to remedy the situation immediately.

Carol Bomhard, a disabled mother of five who suffers from fibromyalgia and arthritis, lives with her son in a rental house in Hemet. Morgan's father has not been part of their life, she said.

Bomhard said her son's birth status was never an issue when he was young. School officials registered him for kindergarten based on his uncertified birth certificate. He also was able to get a Social Security number.

"After he lost the card, he couldn't get another one for the longest time because he didn't have a certified birth certificate," she said. "He was denied numerous times in Visalia and once here in Hemet. He also visited the DMV in Tulare County, and they turned him down for both a driver's license and picture ID."

Bomhard said her son just recently convinced the Social Security Administration in Hemet to re-issue his card.

"Various employers have told him they can't hire him because he doesn't have a valid ID or Social Security number or driver's license. He's worked under the table, of course, but nothing real permanent."

Bomhard said her son's biggest fear is getting stopped by police.

"He could be mistaken for an illegal immigrant," she said. "What would they do to him then?"

Bomhard said she originally thought the doctor had registered her son's birth in 1981. Only years later, after discovering otherwise, did she seek a remedy.

"I couldn't afford an attorney," she said, "and Legal Aid told me they don't handle that kind of case. So I was pretty much on my own."

Bomhard said she tried to locate the doctor but was told by someone at the Sutter County courthouse that he had died.

She also applied for a "delayed filing" birth certificate. She submitted her son's fingerprints, baptism certificate, vaccination records and school report cards to the clerk-recorder, but the application, which was forwarded to the state for processing, was returned with an explanation that it did not contain the required supporting evidence.

If a birth occurs outside a hospital, state law requires the physician in attendance, the licensed midwife or either one of the parents to file the birth certificate with the local registrar, said Lea Brooks, spokeswoman for the California Department of Public Health. If the state rejects the application for a delayed filing, the applicant can seek a court order.

During 2006, there were about 490 delayed registrations statewide, Brooks said, and 203 court-ordered registrations.

Cindy McMillan, Sutter County assistant clerk-recorder, said the county has no record of Morgan's birth.

"He (the doctor) performed many deliveries but did lousy paperwork. This wasn't the only time," she said. "He'd fill out birth certificates, sign them and hand them to the moms. They'd put them away in a baby book. The doctor never told them he didn't file the original with the county."

McMillan said more than a dozen of Copley's patients ended up in similar straits over the years.

The doctor, who by local accounts is known for driving a black hearse around town with a parrot on his shoulder, said he started the birthing center because the community did not have an adequate hospital maternity facility.

"The hospital had a couple of Army WAC nurses running the place, and it wasn't very family-oriented," he said. "They called it 'The Dungeon.' Rather than going through that ordeal, many mothers chose to deliver at home."

Copley had a special room added to his home/office for that purpose.

"It was a comfortable and safe place for labor and delivery. We had a fetal monitor and it added a lot of safety," the doctor said. "I did 300 (deliveries), and I've still got every chart. I can find this one. It will obviously be a belated filing, but I can do it."

Copley said he knew he was supposed to file the birth certificates in a timely manner.

"We were at great efforts to do that, and I did file hundreds of them," he said. "This has not come up in the last five or six years -- probably in the last 10 years."

Delayed filings are possible but require time and effort, McMillan said.

"You have to send documentation with it, like the doctor's signature if you can get it," she said. "The state will usually accept affidavits from the mother and father, but it has been getting stricter."

Things get trickier when the applicant is older than 12.

"You need two persons with firsthand knowledge of the birth and at least one document which confirms the date and place, such as the copy birth certificate, a certificate of marriage, a U.S. Census record, military record, a hospital record, a Social Security card, voter-registration affidavit, baptismal certificate, notice of birth in the newspaper or school records.

"You fill out the application for a delayed birth certificate and send it along with your other paperwork and $20 filing fee to the Office of State Registrar in Sacramento."

It takes about nine months to process the application.

"They're really slow," she said.

Reach Steve Fetbrandt at or sfetbrandt@PE.com

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