Identity card producer Digimarc has hired Janice Kephart to lobby for the REAL ID Act. That doesn’t surprise me. Indeed, I assumed she was working for them.
Kephart has worked to cash in on her service to the 9/11 Commission by opening a boutique ‘security’ lobbying firm. In my testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, I characterized her as part of the “do-overs” school of REAL ID advocacy. ‘If we could just do 9/11 again, maybe someone would have gotten suspicious and stopped the attack.’
The article in the Portland Business Journal about it was interesting because it points out that Digimarc is a Beaverton, Oregon company. And look at who is one of the few governors in the country supporting REAL ID: Ted Kulongoski of Oregon!
Worried about national security? Immigration control? Identity fraud? No, the governor is working to help an in-state company feed from the federal trough.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.