PROFNET WIRE: GOVERNMENT & LAW: Electronic Passports

   Aug. 24, 2005    ROUND-UPS    Electronic Passports (4 experts)   Iran’s Nuclear Capabilities (continued, 1 expert)   Social Security (continued, 2 experts)   World Hunger on the Rise (continued, 1 expert)    LEADS    1.  Law: Women’s Battle to Serve on Juries Continues   2.  Law: The Softer Side of the Law   3.  Politics: Televangelist Pat Robertson Calls for Chavez’ Death   4.  Politics: Iraq War Protests are Growing More Quickly Than Vietnam    ROUND-UP: ELECTRONIC PASSPORTS   

Following are experts who can discuss electronic passports, the new, supposedly tamper-proof passports embedded with a “smart-card” chip that will become standard issue for U.S. travelers:

1. FRANCES ZELAZNY, director of legislative affairs at IDENTIX, INC., a multi-biometric security technology company: “When it comes to issuing electronic passports in the absence of an international mandate to ensure the integrity of the ePassport enrollment process, passport offices should take measures at each phase of enrollment, i.e., data collection, background checking, and storage, to ensure the security and integrity of the overall process. Without these measures in place, the process of issuance can easily be compromised, leading to the issuance of fraudulent documents. However secure the unalterable nature of the embedded chip may be, if the passport is being issued to someone claiming a false identity, the objective will have been defeated.” Zelazny can explain to reporters the various steps of vetting an applicant’s claimed identity, known as “identity proofing”; how to authenticate “breeder documents”; what measures can be taken to avoid errors in capturing fingerprints and facial images; and what determines the quality of an image in the enrollment process. News Contact: Meir Kahtan, mkahtan@rcn.com Phone: +1-212-699-6065 or +1-917-864-0800 (8/24/05)

2. WAYNE CREWS, vice president for regulatory policy and director of technology studies at the COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: “Right now, all a criminal needs is your government-provided Social Security number, and he can become you. Preventing that can best be done through the private sector, not government, through new innovations, such as biometrics, better password protection, and better encryption methods.” Crews concentrates on regulatory and antitrust reform, risk and environmental issues, electricity deregulation, welfare reform and other budget issues. News Contact: Audrey Mullen, audrey@advocacyink.com Phone: +1-703-548-1160 (8/24/05)

3. ROBERT L. SICILIANO, identity theft expert at IDTHEFTSECURITY.COM: “Privacy is an illusion. Privacy doesn’t and never has existed. PPAs, or Paranoid Privacy Advocates, are fighting a lost battle. The time has come to quiet them, move forward and properly identify everyone everywhere. Domestically and internationally, the system of authentication and identification is a joke. We use paper laminated in plastic with words and pictures. Currently, anyone can create an identity of anyone using simple software and digital printers and scanners. Incorporating smart biometric readers is an essential step in identifying and authenticating who’s who. Properly identifying travelers increases national security.” Siciliano: robert@safetyminute.com Phone: +1-888-SICILIANO (8/24/05)

4. EDWARD HASBROUCK, author of “The Practical Nomad: How to Travel Around the World,” is a leading expert on travel technology and its privacy implications: “The State Department’s changes to the electronic passport design do nothing to address the fundamental risk. Both government agencies and unregulated private data aggregators will be able to use the RFID chips in passports as government-mandated, globally unique, secretly readable personal identifiers to compile lifetime personal ‘travel histories’ of our movements around the world. The real problem with electronic passports is the serious potential for future government and commercial abuse of those intimately revealing records.” Hasbrouck: edward@hasbrouck.org Phone: +1-415-824-0214 (8/24/05)

ROUND-UP: IRAN’S NUCLEAR CAPABILITIES (continued)

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1. CRAIG COVAULT, senior editor at AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY, has reported on Iran’s rocket and space program, which many feel has been a cover to develop the means to launch a nuclear weapon: “Under the guise of a rocket/space program, Iran is quietly developing the capability to deliver a nuclear weapon. The real threat to the Middle East from Iran’s nuclear program comes not just from the weapon itself but from the means to deliver it. A weapon needs a launch vehicle in order to achieve its disastrous intent.” News Contact: Rob Kulat, kucomm@hotmail.com Phone: +1-732-219-5816 (8/24/05)

2. GAHZAL OMID, author of “Living in Hell,” is a human-rights and women’s advocate and fights against Iran’s “oppression and worldwide terrorism.” A Shiah Muslim, she is an expert in Islamic law: “A nuclear Iran is a world threat that cannot be ignored. Animosity toward the U.S. is so intense that I believe Iran would use nuclear weapons. Alliances with France, the U.K. or Germany will not change its policies. But invading Iran would be disastrous, launching a patriotic militia war, complicated by climate, language and city warrens.” Omid: gazalo07@aol.com (8/24/05)

ROUND-UP: SOCIAL SECURITY (continued)

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1. RUSSELL ROBERTS, Distinguished Scholar at the Mercatus Center and professor of economics at GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY: “Social Security was meant to be a safety net to keep the elderly out of poverty. That some people will live irresponsibly and take advantage of that safety net is an unavoidable cost. But look at the benefits. People are encouraged to stand on their own feet and plan for their own future. Young people who want to use their money now rather than later have more freedom to spend their money as they see fit. Our political discussion can be spent on something else besides a fight between the generations. And we can finally have a sensible discussion about tax reform. But if we do have to change the system, now’s the time, because of the size of the baby boomer generation.” News Contact: Rey Banks, rbanks@gmu.edu Phone: +1-703-993-8699 (8/24/05)

2. TYLER COWEN, general director of the Mercatus Center and chair of economics at GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY: “Overall, the private accounts are a bad idea. I believe the cracks in public support for the president’s approach are only the surface manifestations of wider misgivings on the right. Private accounts represent an unwise expansion of Social Security’s promises. There was a kind of notional support among right-wing or free-market intellectuals, but now they’re getting nervous. Even if they’re not speaking out, they just figure it will die on the vine.” News Contact: Rey Banks, rbanks@gmu.edu Phone: +1-703-993-8699 (8/24/05)

ROUND-UP: WORLD HUNGER ON THE RISE (continued)

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1. JOHN MASON, professor of international health and development at TULANE UNIVERSITY’s School of Tropical Medicine: “Severe poverty and severe drought don’t individually lead to famine, but the combination can create famine like that in Niger. In order to prevent famine, countries must consider ways to reduce poverty and prepare for times of drought.” Mason has extensive experience with chronic malnutrition and development problems, in addition to refugee situations and acute food crises. He recently co-authored a global nutrition report in partnership with UNICEF and the Micronutrient Initiative titled “Recent Trends in Developing Regions: Vitamin A Deficiency, Anemia, Iodine Deficiency and Child Underweight,” and is the lead author of “Community-based Health and Nutrition Programs,” a chapter soon to be published by the World Bank, WHO and NIH in “Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries,” which is an influential 10-yearly update on global health problems, this time supported by the Gates Foundation. News Contact: Madeline Vann, mvann@tulane.edu Phone: +1-504-988-6017 (8/24/05)

LEADS

1. LAW: WOMEN’S BATTLE TO SERVE ON JURIES CONTINUES. NANCY S. MARDER, professor at CHICAGO-KENT COLLEGE OF LAW and author of “Jury Process”: “Although it has been 85 years since women secured the right to vote, it has been an uphill struggle for women to secure the other badge of citizenship — jury duty, a struggle that continues even today. There are a number of practical considerations that still stand in the way of some women serving as jurors, including lack of child care facilities, the economic hardship caused by the small amount of juror pay that may hit women harder than men, and stereotypes about women as jurors that continue to influence jury selection.” News Contact: Gwendolyn E. Osborne, gosborne@kentlaw.edu Phone: +1-312-906- 5251 (8/24/05)

2. LAW: THE SOFTER SIDE OF THE LAW. JEFF ISAAC, Esq. of THE LAWYER IN BLUE JEANS GROUP, can offer insights tempered with tongue-in-cheek perspective on a litany of laughable laws: “With the current legal landscape dominated by a glut of hard news, including all things Supreme Court, the London terror suspect arrests and fugitive captures (just to name a few), Americans are sorely in need of a quick chuckle on the ‘softer side of the law.’ For example, there’s a Nebraska law that will arrest parents if their child burps in church, as well as a Portland, Ore., law that prohibits whistling while underwater.” News Contact: Merilee Kern, merilee@kerncommunications.com Phone: +1-858-577-0206 (8/24/05)

3. POLITICS: TELEVANGELIST PAT ROBERTSON CALLS FOR CHAVEZ’ DEATH. STEVEN LIVINGSTON, interim director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: “This is an ugly example of the intrusion of the religious right into politics. For a religious leader such as Pat Robertson, a man who presumes to represent the views of Christ, to advocate the assassination of a democratically elected leader of a sovereign nation is both frightening and telling. Where do those who are a part of the powerful religious right draw the line in confronting what they regard as enemies? Robertson’s words should be a wake-up call. Whether it is the Atlanta Olympic bomber or Pat Robertson, assassinating one’s perceived enemies seems to be an acceptable political option in the view of the religious right.” News Contact: Paul Fucito, pfucito@gwu.edu Phone: +1-202-994-4750 (8/24/05)

4. POLITICS: IRAQ WAR PROTESTS ARE GROWING MORE QUICKLY THAN VIETNAM. ALEXANDER BLOOM, history scholar at WHEATON COLLEGE in Norton, Mass.: “The anti-war protests sparked by Cindy Sheehan have brought American society back to the 1960s. Specifically, the United States is at a turning point similar to that which occurred in 1968. As in 1968, the majority of Americans no longer support the Iraq war. The most obvious difference is that popular sentiment against U.S. policy in Iraq has grown far more quickly than did opposition to the Vietnam War.” News Contact: Michael Graca, mgraca@wheatoncollege.edu Phone: +1-508-285-8235, ext. 2261 Web site: http://www.wheatonma.edu/faculty/alexanderbloom.html (8/24/05)

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