E-Verify Is A Privacy-Eating Monster
Via economist @veroderugy, a smart piece by "The Grumpy Economist," John H. Cochrane:
Massive border security and E-Verify are central provisions of the Senate immigration bill, and they are supported by many in the House. Both provisions signal how wrong-headed much of the immigration-reform effort has become.E-Verify is the real monster. If this part of the bill passes, all employers will be forced to use the government-run, Web-based system that checks potential employees' immigration status. That means, every American will have to obtain the federal government's prior approval in order to earn a living.
E-Verify might seem harmless now, but missions always creep and bureaucracies expand. Suppose that someone convicted of viewing child pornography is found teaching. There's a media hoopla. The government has this pre-employment check system. Surely we should link E-Verify to the criminal records of pedophiles? And why not all criminal records? We don't want alcoholic airline pilots, disbarred doctors, fraudster bankers and so on sneaking through.
Next, E-Verify will be attractive as a way to enforce hundreds of other employment laws and regulations. In the age of big data, the government can easily E-Verify age, union membership, education, employment history, and whether you've paid income taxes and signed up for health insurance.
The members of licensed occupations will love such low-cost enforcement of their cartels: We can't let unlicensed manicurists prey on unsuspecting customers, can we? E-Verify them!
He adds:
Richard Sobel has a nice piece making an important point that I totally missed. E-verify will have to mean a national, biometric identity card. Now, you submit a social security number. What stops people from submitting false names and social security numbers? Hmm need to make sure they are who they say they are...I also didn't think to point out another danger. Now the Federal government and its Big Data base know every time you apply for a job. Hmm, why is that guy Cochrane applying for a job again? Checking how often you apply for a job will naturally be an important way to check against false social security numbers.
Excerpt from Sobel's piece:
Buried in the comprehensive immigration reform legislation before the Senate are obscure provisions that impose on Americans expansive national identification systems, tied to electronic verification schemes. Under the guise of "reform," these trample fundamental rights and freedoms.Requirements in Senate Bill 744 for mandatory worker IDs and electronic verification remove the right of citizens to take employment and "give" it back as a privilege only when proper proof is presented and the government agrees. Such systems are inimical to a free society and are costly to the economy and treasury.
Any citizen wanting to take a job would face the regulation that his or her digitized high-resolution passport or driver's license photo be collected and stored centrally in a Department of Homeland Security Citizenship and Immigration Services database.
The pictures in the national database would then need to be matched against the job applicant's government-issued "enhanced" ID card, using a Homeland Security-mandated facial-recognition "photo tool." Only when those systems worked perfectly could the new hire take the job....The digital ID requirements in S. 744 eliminate that fundamental right to take employment and transform it into a privilege. This constitutional guarantee could in effect be taken away by bureaucratic rules or deleted by a database mistake.
...The determination of whether someone has a right to take a job would be made by two computer files: one in a Department of Homeland Security database and the other on a government-issued ID card. Identity and IDs become "property of the U.S. government."
...E-Verify essentially equates all Americans with "illegal immigrants." Instead of naturalization freeing legal immigrants from carrying mandatory "green cards," universal E-Verify would impose IDs on American citizens. E-Verify effectively creates a "no-work" list for the unverifiable.
This is enormously dangerous and continues what was our march -- and I now consider our jog -- to becoming a police state.
As of a few years ago, eVerify had a lot of false positives, some of which took a long time to remove, meaning that legal workers could not legally work.
I would think reducing those false positives would require the systems you describe in your post.
jerry at August 8, 2013 12:13 AM
While this goes on, let us realize two things:
1) Such programs did not exist during the Cold War, when the ability to kill Americans was large but the convenience of instant media did not exist to ease the task of frightening Americans.
2) The Department of Homeland Security - which title should make you think "police state", as it did in every movie about the Soviets in years past - must already approve employment. I have a poster to that effect at work.
jerry - the only way to avoid identity theft is to not be identified. More measures do not mean more liberty for you.
Radwaste at August 8, 2013 2:14 AM
Just as a side note, my introduction to e-verify came from my involvement with the birthers. Orly Taitz shrieked hysterically (not that that narrows it down) about Obama's social security number (which she has unapologetically posted to the internet) has failed e-verify.
The only problem is, at the time she did this test, neither Hawaii nor Illinois were participants in the program. There is no reason on earth she should have been able to find out whether the President's SSN checked out.
Moreover, e-verify plainly states that it is to be used by employers and no one else.
Regardless of what anyone thinks of the President, I find posting someone's SSN to the internet to be unconscionable. Unfortunately, it is not illegal.
Now she's insisting still that Obama's SSN does not check out. Of course, due to the fact that she posted his to the internet, it's entirely possible that the SSA gave the President a new one.
Patrick at August 8, 2013 6:24 AM
So - Congress fights over a picture ID for voting, but needing one to work is OK?
And who PAYS for this ID, especially if it also requires "biometric" data? In my State, if you did not drive you used to be able to get a picture ID for $2 (or free in some circumstances) but recently the program was moved to the DMV and the ID costs the same as a driver's license, over $30. To the jobless, homeless etc this is impossible. To many currently employed who will have to get one, it is a week's take-home pay.
John A at August 8, 2013 7:02 AM
"jerry - the only way to avoid identity theft is to not be identified. More measures do not mean more liberty for you."
I think we agree completely on this.
jerry at August 8, 2013 12:52 PM
We dont need e verify with all its flaws, if we secure the border, and make it tough for anyone without good identification to etiher vote, or collect benefits.
The problem will resolve itself.
Isab at August 8, 2013 1:50 PM
Not that I disagree with you in premise, but most government agencies are too bureaucratic to be that efficient or cooperate well, so I predict it would take at LEAST 20 years for such creep to actually happen in any meaningful sense, if it ever could.
For example, when I was a federal employee I had to edit and update the technical notes to an (obscure to anyone outside the industry) publication. If I added a comma for clarity, some people would argue with it. Nobody knows who is able to make certain decisions, so they ALL go to the top. The people at the top are so overburdened that they can't make good decisions and many get made by the default of "no decision." This, of course, would not apply to very opaque agencies (NSA, FBI, etc) where there's more ability to hide things. But the turf battles in government are epic.
Obviously, I'm not saying it's a good idea because the government is too stupid to do what was suggested, just that they might not be capable of what was suggested. Frankly, I'm not sure which is more frightening - the mission creep or the stupidity.
Shannon M. Howell at August 8, 2013 7:43 PM
I dealt with NSA data in the 80's and early 90's from the side. (Not in it but saw what could be collected.) Essentially they have gone from collection from overseas only to gathering all the data on every American using the Patriot act implemented in 2001. It is so much the NSA is building a 1 million square foot (22.96 acre) data center in Utah.
This is going to be a little pedantic to compare it, so please bear with me.
There was careful negotiation when they started the gun background checks. They did it so that the firearms dealer keeps the serial numbers of which person they sold the firearm too. Basically you fill out an ATF Form 4473 (NICS background check). The firearms dealer (FFL) then calls in and gives your info to get approval for the sale of the firearm. Then they write down the on the 4473 what you bought, it's serial number and then put it on file at the FFL. The ATF can not, legally, even make a copy of your 4473 from unless it is part of a criminal investigation.
If a standalone FFL decides to retire they are supposed to send in the 4473 to the ATF. The ATF is not supposed to do anything with them unless a trace is requested.
The firearms manufacturer sends in the list of firearms and serial numbers sent to each FFL.
Or in other words -- the system has deliberately built-in inefficiency.
I see none of that in the current surveillance systems.
Jim P. at August 8, 2013 8:40 PM
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