DHS Sues to Overturn State Privacy Law

by on September 24, 2007 · 4 comments

In a breezy post on the Department of Homeland Security’s new blog, DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff writes about the federal government’s lawsuit to overturn an Illinois workplace privacy law. The “Right to Privacy in the Workplace Act” will restrict the ability of Illinois employers to enroll in the federal government’s “E-Verify” system, which runs all new employees through a federal background check to determine if they’re entitled to work under federal law. Illinois has got it right. There shouldn’t be a federal background check before you can work.

Chertoff takes on some objections to “E-Verify” one by one. Let’s take his responses one by one.

First, in 90 percent of cases, E-Verify returns an initial response within seconds. That seems pretty fast to me.

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